The First Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

‘Shake his hand? I may have done.’

  ‘Have you ever shaken a prisoner’s hand before?’

  ‘Not that I can remember.’

  ‘So why should you have shaken hands with Charlie Wheeler?’

  Suddenly the Court was quiet, the jury were paying attention. Dickerson took a long ten seconds to think of his answer.

  ‘Your client told me he was about to make a confession statement. I was congratulating him on showing a bit of sense.’

  The silence was broken by a general giggle, led by the judge.

  ‘Is that the answer you wanted, Mr Rumpole?’ The Bull was positively beaming.

  ‘Yes, my Lord, it is. I wished to establish that this officer took my client by the hand.’

  ‘As he was prepared to make a confession,’ the jury were reminded from the bench.

  Once again I ignored the interruption and asked the witness, ‘Did you discuss bail with him on that occasion?’

  ‘Bail? No, sir. There was no discussion of bail whatsoever.’ Dickerson looked pained at the suggestion.

  ‘Did you say you wouldn’t oppose bail if he made a confession?’

  ‘I said nothing of the sort, my Lord.’

  Bullingham sighed heavily, threw down his pencil and turned on me. ‘Mr Rumpole, are there any further allegations of a serious nature to be made against this officer?’

  ‘Only one, my Lord. May I have Exhibit i, please?’

  The usher brought me the little lump of gelignite in its plastic bag.

  ‘That is the small piece of gelignite,’ the judge took great pleasure in reminding the jury. ‘With your client’s fingerprints on it.’

  ‘Exactly, my Lord. Who found this piece of gelignite, Detective Inspector?’

  ‘I did. At the scene of the crime.’

  ‘Did you show it to any other officer?’ ‘When I got back to the station.’

  ‘When you got back to the station! So the jury must rely on your evidence and your evidence alone to satisfy them that this small piece of gelignite was ever at the scene of the crime.’

  ‘If my evidence isn’t good enough…’

  ‘If your evidence isn’t good enough, Detective Inspector, Charlie Wheeler is entitled to be acquitted.’ I felt the quietness in Court again, the jury were listening. I leant forward and spoke to the witness as though we were alone in the room. ‘Have you ever in your long experience known a safe blower to leave his gelignite with his fingerprints on it at the scene of a crime?’

  At which, of course, the judge had to comment to the jury. ‘If criminals never made mistakes, we would have no trials at the Old Bailey.’

  However, I felt they were becoming more interested in the witness than the judge and I went on quickly, ‘You see, there is another possibility the jury may have to consider…’

  ‘Is there?’ Dickerson smiled, politely interested.

  ‘We have no idea when the fingerprints got on the gelignite.’

  ‘Haven’t we?’

  ‘Or where. Is it just possible, Detective Inspector, that Charlie Wheeler only touched the gelignite in the Dartford Police Station?’

  There was another, minute pause before he answered. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  It was time to tell the jury exactly what I meant, and bring Charlie’s defence out into the open. ‘In that dark cell, at two o’clock in the morning, do you think you had the gelignite, this little piece of gelignite, concealed in your palm when you held 1your hand out to him. And shook hands. As you had never shaken hands with any prisoner in your life before? Is that the only explanation of how Charlie Wheeler’s fingerprints got on to Exhibit I?’

  I hadn’t expected Dickerson to crumble and apologize, but I had hoped for a bluster, an outraged denial which might have said more than he intended. But he was too experienced a witness for that; he only smiled tolerantly and said, ‘If that’s what Wheeler told you. I mean if… Then it’s a load of nonsense. You know that, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Is it all lies, Detective Inspector?’ Bullingham asked.

  ‘All lies, my Lord.’

  The judge wrote that last answer down, in case he forgot it. Then he gave the jury one of his least lovable grins. ‘It’s always painful to watch an officer of this sort of length of service under attack, members of the jury. I expect we’d all be glad of a break. Back at ten past two, Mr Erskine-Brown.’

  So, ignoring Rumpole, he bundled himself out of Court.

  ‘Mr Featherstone heard from the doctor, sir,’ Henry was waiting for me as I came out of Court. ‘He’s to stay in bed for the rest of the week. He was asking, is it all over?’

  ‘Tell him it’s all going according to plan. Nothing to send his temperature up.’

  In the lift, on my way up to the robing room, I met Miss Phillida Trant. She seemed in a mood of strange elation and told me that everything was going wonderfully.

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘I took your advice and I didn’t plead.’ She was positively glowing, the light of battle burning behind her specs. ‘Now it seems that there’s no note of some of the verbals and most of it was after he was charged anyway and…’

  ‘Good news from somewhere!’

  ‘You were right, of course. When you said, always fight everything.’

  Fight everything; what else had we left to do? I called the Sunday paper again from the robing room. Philbeam had gone out again and left no message.

  ‘Wheeler. You’re a coward as well as a thief. You tied up this helpless sub Post Mistress and you robbed. What makes it all a great deal more grave. You deliberately chose, through your counsel, to attack the honesty and good name of someone of twenty-five years standing in the police force. I mean Detective Inspector Dickerson. I’ve had the misfortune to sit here and hear that fine officer subjected to a number of questions…’

  We were at the last gasp of the Wheeler trial, a proceeding marked by the continued absence of any man called Harris… Even so the jury had taken three hours to find Charlie guilty by a majority, a fact which had clearly displeased the judge. I waited for the Bull to finish the ill-phrased lecture and come to announce a figure, when, to the surprise of everyone in Court, there was a voice of protest from the dock.

  ‘I never!’

  ‘Silence!’ The usher shouted, but Charlie battled on.

  ‘I never wanted my barrister to ask them questions! I told him to keep quiet!’

  I sat quite still. I couldn’t blame Charlie; but I began to feel that we were at the start of something that could prove deeply embarrassing for Rumpole. Ignoring the interruption the judge went on.

  ‘You have the most appalling record and it is clearly time that society was protected from you for a considerably long period. The least sentence I can pass is one of twelve years’ imprisonment. Take him down.’

  Charlie was removed from the dock. I levered myself to my feet and started to move out of counsel’s row when Bullingham stopped me.

  ‘Just one moment. I have something to add, Mr Rumpole.’

  I stopped, rooted to the spot. The judge proceeded to sentence once more.

  ‘Your attack on the integrity of Detective Inspector Dickerson was not only not backed up by the evidence. It’s now clear it was an adventure of your own. Without instructions. I take a very serious view of it. Very serious indeed.’

  Fourteen years, I wondered? But the judge contented himself with saying ominously:

  ‘I intend to report the matter in the proper quarter.’

  ‘If your Lordship pleases.’

  I gave him my politest bow, a much-needed lesson in Courtroom manners and, perhaps, Rumpole’s last genuflection in front of the bench. What had I to look forward to now, except the end of life as I knew it? As I took off the wig and looked in the robing room mirror I seemed to see a new Rumpole , a man who might just possibly not be a barrister any more.

  Featherstone, back in the land of the living, was pacing his room, I thought somewhat nervously, while I sat in his big leathe
r armchair and smoked a small cigar.

  ‘Reported to the Benchers of your Inn. A disciplinary hearing. Before the Senate! My dear Horace. I don’t want to worry you…’

  ‘On the contrary, you’re having a most calming effect,’ I reassured him. ‘I’ve thought about retiring from the Bar for a long time. Perhaps I shall start a small market garden, behind Gloucester Road tube station?’

  ‘I’ve had to write to the Senate myself about the case,’ Guthrie looked embarrassed.

  ‘To tell them that the attack on “Dirty” Dickerson was an escapade dreamt up by your learned junior. Yes, I’m sure you” had to write and tell them that.’

  ‘You’ll confirm that, of course?’

  ‘Don’t worry, old sweetheart. You’ve got a perfect alibi.’ I stood as if in Court. ‘My Lord, I call Mrs Marigold Featherstone. She will prove conclusively that my client was flat on his back having his chest rubbed with Vick and chewing aspirin at the time of the dark deeds down the Bailey.’

  ‘Rumpole, don’t you wish…’

  ‘He is entirely innocent of the attempted rape of D.I. “Clean Fingers” Dickerson.’

  ‘Don’t you wish you’d been laid up with flu? During R. v. Wheeler?’

  I looked at him, astonished at his lack of understanding. ‘You want to know the truth, Guvnor? All right. I’ll come clean. You’ve got me bang to rights.’

  ‘Rumpole!’

  ‘I loved that cross-examination. I enjoyed every minute of it, and, what’s more, I swear by Almighty God, I was onto something. If I’d only had a tiny bit of straw to make a brick with…’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to say that, in front of the Senate!’ Featherstone looked so worried that I comforted him by asking his advice.

  ‘What would you suggest I said… As my brief?’

  He took me quite seriously and gave my hopeless case his most learned opinion. ‘I think,’ he said at last, ‘I’d put it in this way. In your enthusiasm, understandable enthusiasm, for your client’s interests, you were carried away, Rumpole. In the heat of the moment you made an attack on the honesty of a senior police officer which you now deeply regret…’

  ‘What do you think I might get? Probation?’

  ‘The worst aspect of your case, in my opinion…’ Feather-stone was giving the matter judicial consideration now.

  ‘In your learned opinion?’

  ‘Is that you proceeded entirely without instructions.’

  I looked at him with astonishment. ‘Do you think I’m totally insane?’

  ‘I must say I was beginning to wonder.’

  ‘Of course I had instructions.’

  ‘But at the conference in Brixton we clearly decided…’

  ‘I had another conference. Whilst you were tucked up with your hot-water-bottle.’

  ‘Charlie Wheeler gave you instructions to put to this officer…?’

  ‘That he handed him the gelignite! Yes, of course I got instructions.’

  Of course Featherstone asked the question which they’d be bound to ask in the Senate. ‘You made a note of them at the time?’

  ‘A note! I’ve got too old for making notes, in or out of Court. I carry things in my head.’ There’s no fool like an old fool, of course I should have made a note.

  ‘Our solicitor! Bernard will have a note of the conference. Or at any rate a recollection.’ Featherstone was doing his best.

  ‘Bernard was off enjoying himself at some funeral or other. He left me to the tender mercies of Joyce.’

  ‘Then Joyce will remember. We’ll get hold of Joyce.’ He saw another ray of light and reached for the phone.

  ‘Joyce wasn’t there. Oh, she had some sort of fraud on with Hoskins in the West Court.’

  ‘You mean you actually saw the client alone?’ Featherstone was reduced to the unalterable fact.

  ‘Oh, we live dangerously,’ I told him, ‘down the Old Bailey.’

  ‘The trouble is…’

  ‘More trouble?’

  ‘Wheeler denied he’d given you instructions. He told the judge as much.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you have done that in his place, old darling?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Rumpole, I’ve never been on trial for safe blowing.’

  I did my best to help Featherstone’s imagination. ‘You’ve just waited three hours for the jury to find you guilty. You’ve been told by learned leading counsel, no less, in Brixton Prison, that it’s a few extra years for asking the “Dirty” D.I. certain rude questions. Wouldn’t you deny you’d given any instructions? I’m too old to expect honour among safe blowers.’

  ‘It’s a problem!’ Featherstone sat at his desk, temporarily bankrupt of ideas. I felt sorry for him.

  ‘To me it seems perfectly simple.’

  ‘I’ll have to give it a good deal of thought.’

  ‘Give what a good deal of thought?’ I was on my way to the door. It was only then I realized that the old darling had actually briefed himself for my defence.

  ‘Exactly what I’m going to say. On your behalf to the Senate.’

  ‘Say? I don’t want you to say anything. You’d only mitigate.’

  Featherstone wasn’t the only one who had been giving thought to the nature of Rumpole’s defence. A few days later Hilda rang up Chambers and invited my old friend George Frobisher to dinner. She put on a very passable meal for us, and, as we sat over our apple pie and cream, gave me some words of wisdom, apparently learned at her father’s knee.

  ‘Daddy always said, a man should stand up and admit he’s in the wrong. He said that was by far the best way.’

  ‘Hilda. What are you talking about?’ I was puzzled by the relevance of the thoughts of Daddy.

  ‘He always told his clients, “An apology costs nothing, but it can earn you untold gold in sympathy from the judge.” ‘ Hilda finished triumphantly.

  ‘Old C. H. Wystan, your Daddy, was hardly one of the nation’s fighters, was he, George?’

  ‘A man with a good deal of wisdom, for all that.’ George and Hilda seemed to be in agreement.

  ‘I’ll go and make some coffee.’

  ‘AH right. Quite all right.’

  ‘I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your wine.’

  Hilda left us and I poured port for George. I meant to pluck out the heart of his mystery.

  ‘George,’ I said, ‘How long is it since Hilda last asked you to dinner with us?’

  ‘It must be a good few years now.’

  ‘A good few years. Yes, it must be. So why do you think my wife felt this sudden longing to have you share our cutlets?’

  ‘You know perfectly well Hilda’s worried, Rumpole. And so am I. Very worried by the stand you’re taking.’

  ‘Stand, George? What sort of stand is that?’

  ‘This wretched man, this Wheeler. How can he be worth risking your career over, Rumpole? Your wife can’t understand that and I must say I have considerable difficulty…’

  ‘He was worth defending. Everyone’s worth defending. That’s what we’re for, isn’t it? Do we have any other function?’

  ‘But Hilda says that you admitted to her that the man was a professional safe blower.’ George looked at me, distinctly puzzled, but he had put his finger on the exact point.

  ‘Professional? Of course! So he wouldn’t have left finger- prints…’

  ‘Do you honestly believe, can you put your hand on your heart, Rumpole, and tell me you really believe that this man Wheeler was innocent?’

  ‘Oh, come now, George. How many of your clients can you swear were innocent?’

  ‘So you don’t believe he was innocent?’

  ‘If you ask my view of the matter – and you know my view is strictly irrelevant…’

  ‘All the same, Rumpole. I’d like you to answer my questions.’

  I admired him then, a new George, quiet but firm and not to be put off. I told him he’d make a cross-examiner yet, and poured him another glass of port. Then I gave him his answer. ‘No. No, I
don’t believe he was innocent. In fact I think Charlie Wheeler probably blew the safe in the Dartford post office.’

  ‘So no injustice was done.’

  ‘Probably not…’

  George stood up then. He was beaming at me, apparently hugely relieved. ‘So that is good news, Rumpole. You’ve seen sense at last.’

  Hilda came in with the coffee tray and George gave her the glad tidings. ‘I believe your husband’s seen sense at last.’

  ‘I knew you’d be able to talk to him.’ Hilda smiled as she poured the coffee. ‘You’ve always told me, Rumpole, “George is so sensible.” Rumpole’s always had a tremendous amount of respect for you, George.’

  ‘Guthrie Featherstone agrees it can all be dealt with by way of an apology – and now you admit it was unnecessary to attack the officer!’ George took his coffee and smiled at me. I hated to disappoint him.

  ‘Unnecessary? Did you say unnecessary?’

  ‘You said yourself, Wheeler was probably guilty.’ George seemed to think that was an end of the matter.

  ‘Guilty or innocent. What’s it matter? What matters is - he may have been convicted on faked evidence.’

  ‘But, Rumpole, if he’d done it anyway…’ Hilda was as puzzled as George. I did my best to explain it to them both.

  ‘We can’t decide guilt or innocence. That’s not for us, you know that, George. That’s for twelve puzzled old darlings pulled off the street for three boring days with a safe blower. But we can make sure they’re not lied to, not deceived, not tricked by some smiling copper who wants to take away their decision from them by a few conjuring tricks in a dark cell. Oh, for God’s sake, have another glass of port.’

  I felt he needed it, for he sat looking quite despondent and asked what on earth I thought I was going to do.

  ‘Grow vegetables. We’ll probably have to go to the country to do it.’

  ‘Rumpole. They won’t disbar you…’ George did his best to sound comforting. I went over to the old desk in the corner and found a packet of small cigars.

  ‘Suspend me, disbar me, I don’t care. I shan’t apologize for what I did for Wheeler.’

  ‘Talk to him, George. Please talk to him.’ Hilda sounded desperate. George did his best.

  ‘Rumpole. Forget Wheeler for a moment. You’ve got yourself to think about.’