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the matter up again. ‘Please, Mr Rumpole,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you manage to speed it up?’
    â€˜You mean the trial?’
    â€˜No, sir. I mean your QC.’
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    My wife, Hilda, was back from the bridge club early that afternoon and, instead of her usual reliving of some of the more dramatic hands and sad tales of how she had just missed three No Trumps because of her partner’s ineptitude, that evening she seemed to be taking an unusual interest in the law.
    â€˜Of course provocation would reduce the crime of murder to manslaughter,’ She Who Must stated. ‘Was there no provocation in the Wetherby case?’
    â€˜Not really. He says the girl was dead.’
    â€˜Of course he would say that, wouldn’t he? They all do.’
    â€˜Who are “they all”?’
    â€˜Everyone in that type of situation.’ Hilda seemed to be speaking of her vast experience. ‘How’s his mentality?’
    â€˜Pretty worried at the moment, I should say.’
    â€˜You know what I mean, Rumpole.’ Hilda was getting impatient ‘Has he a classified mental disease? Is he unhinged? Mentally deficient?’
    â€˜I suppose so, seeing as he works for the Home Office.’
    â€˜Oh, do be serious, Rumpole! What I mean is, as I’m sure you realize, could he go for diminished responsibility?’
    â€˜I hardly think so. He seemed to be perfectly bright, for a civil servant.’
    â€˜It’s saying things like that, Rumpole,’ Hilda’s tone was serious, ‘that so irritates judges. You want to avoid those little jokes you’re so full of. They don’t do you any good at all. No provocation. No diminished responsibility. I’ll have to give R . v. Wetherby some more serious thought.’
    â€˜That’s very kind of you, Hilda,’ I felt I had to say.
    â€˜Not at all. Of course I’m anxious to prevent your practice going totally to pieces. You can tell Wetherby that I’m giving his case some serious thought.’
    â€˜That’s very big of you.’
    â€˜It’s good to have a practical case to work on.’
    â€˜I’m sure. But there’s only one thing my client is really worried about.’
    â€˜What’s that?’
    â€˜He wants me to become a QC. He really wants to be defended by a silk.’
    â€˜Really? And have you agreed to that, Rumpole?’
    â€˜The thought had crossed my mind.’
    â€˜If you got it you’ll be put at the level of Daddy.’
    â€˜That would be an honour.’ My fingers were crossed. My late father-in-law’s performances in court didn’t improve when he became a QC.
    â€˜Let me put my mind to it,’ Hilda said again as she was serving out the lamb chops, frozen peas and boiled potatoes. ‘We’ll see what we shall see.’
    Though I asked her for further particulars of her last remark she clammed up, and we had no more discussion about the law for the rest of the evening.

9
    Extract from the Memoirs of Hilda Rumpole
    Rumpole, who in my opinion has been mouldering for far too long as about the oldest junior at the Criminal Bar, seems to have come to his senses at last and decided to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He has at last decided to apply for silk. Of course Rumpole will never be as distinguished a QC as Daddy–to whom Rumpole’s murder cases seemed very downmarket when compared with his speciality in property rights, contracts and bills of exchange. At least no one had to die to provide my father with work. I think, however, Daddy would have been pleased that I at least had a husband who was entitled to put the letters QC after his name.
    I first knew of Rumpole’s decision when Leonard Bullingham, after we had bid and won a satisfying four Hearts, pulled a crumpled letter from out of his pocket. ‘A letter from your old man,’ Leonard told me. ‘Hardly the most tactful way of asking for a