The First Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  I had come to a wall on which there were big photographs of various characters, a comic charlady, a beautiful woman in a white evening-dress, a Duchess in a tiara, a neat secretary in glasses, and a tattered siren who might have been Sadie Thompson in Rain if my theatrical memory served me right. All the faces were different, and they were all the faces of Maggie Hart-ley.

  ‘Your client. My leading lady. I suppose both our shows depend on her.’ Derwent was looking at the photographs with a rapt smile of appreciation. ‘No doubt about it. She’s good. Maggie’s good.’

  I turned to look at him, found him much too close and retreated a step. ‘What do you mean,’ I asked him, ‘by good exactly?’

  ‘There is a quality. Of perfect truthfulness. Absolute reality.’

  ‘Truthfulness?’ This was about the first encouraging thing we’d heard about Maggie Hartley.

  ‘It’s very rare.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Would you be prepared to say that in Court?’ Albert seemed to be about to take a statement. I moved tactfully away.

  ‘Is that what you came here for?’ Derwent asked me nervously.

  I thought it over, and decided there was no point in turning a friendly source of information into a hostile witness.

  ‘No. We wanted to see… the scene of the crime.’

  At which Mr Derwent, apparently reassured, smiled again. ‘The Last Act,’ he said and led us to the dressing-room, typical of a provincial rep. ‘I’ll unlock it for you.’

  The dressing-room had been tidied up, the cupboards and drawers were empty. Otherwise it looked like the sort of room that would have been condemned as unfit for human habitation by any decent local authority. I stood in the doorway, and made sure that the mirror which went all along one side of the room was shattered in the corner furthest away from me.

  ‘Any help to you, is it?’

  ‘It might be. It’s what we lawyers call the locus in quo.’

  Mr Derwent was positively giggling then.

  ‘Do you? How frightfully camp of you. It’s what we actors call a dressing-room.’

  So I went back to the Majestic Hotel, a building which seemed rather less welcoming than Her Majesty’s Prison, Grimble. And when I was breaking my fast on their mixed grill consisting of cold greasy bacon, a stunted tomato and a sausage that would have looked ungenerous on a cocktail stick, Albert rang me with the unexpected news that at one bound put the Theatre Royal Killing up beside the Penge Bungalow Murders in the Pantheon of Rumpole’s forensic triumphs. I was laughing when I came back from the telephone, and I was still laughing when I returned to spread, on a slice of blackened toast, that pat of margarine which the management of the Majestic were apparently unable to tell from butter.

  Two hours later we were in the judges’ room at the Law Courts discussing, in the hushed tones of relatives after a funeral, the unfortunate event which had occurred. Those present were Tommy Pierce, Q.c, Counsel for the prosecution, and his junior Roach, the learned judge, my learned leader and my learned self.

  ‘Of course these people don’t really live in the real world at all,’ Jarvis Allen, Q.c, was saying. ‘It’s all make-believe for them. Dressing up in fancy costumes…’

  He himself was wearing a wig, a tailed coat with braided cuffs and a silk gown. His opponent, also bewigged, had a huge stomach from which a gold watch-chain and seal dangled. He also took snuff and blew his nose in a red spotted handkerchief. That kind and, on the whole, gentle figure Skelton J. was fishing in the folds of his scarlet gown for a bitten pipe and an old leather pouch. I didn’t think we were exactly the ones to talk about dressing up.

  ‘You don’t think she appreciates the seriousness,’ the judge was clearly worried.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Judge. Still, if she wants to sack me… Of course it puts Rumpole in an embarrassing position.’

  ‘Are you embarrassed, Rumpole?’ His Lordship asked me.

  As a matter of fact I was filled with a deeper inner joy, for Albert’s call at breakfast had been to the effect that our client had chosen to dismiss her leading Counsel and put her future entirely in the hands of Horace Rumpole, b.a., that timeless member of the Junior Bar.

  ‘Oh yes. Dreadfully embarrassed, Judge.’ I did my best to look suitably modest. ‘But it seems that the lady’s mind is quite made up.’

  ‘Very embarrassing for you. For you both.’ The judge was understanding. ‘Does she give any reason for dispensing with her leading Counsel, Jarvis?’

  ‘She said…” I turned a grin into a cough. I too remembered what Albert had told us. ‘She said she thought Rumpole was “better casting”.’

  ‘ “Better casting”? Whatever can she mean by that?’

  ‘Better in the part, Judge,’ I translated.

  ‘Oh dear.’ The judge looked distressed. ‘Is she very actressy?’

  ‘She’s an actress,’ I admitted, but would go no further.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose she is.’ The judge lit his pipe. ‘Do you have any views about this, Tommy?’

  ‘No, Judge. When Jarvis was instructed we were going to ask your views on a plea to manslaughter.’

  The portly Pierce twinkled a lot and talked in a rich North Country accent. I could see we were in for a prosecution of homely fun, like one of the comic plays of J. B. Priestley.

  ‘Manslaughter, eh? Do you want to discuss manslaughter, Rumpole?’ I appeared to give the matter some courteous consideration.

  ‘No, Judge, I don’t believe I do.’

  ‘If you’d like an adjournment you shall certainly have it. Your client may want to think about manslaughter… Or consider another leader. She should have leading Counsel. In a case of this…’ the judge puffed out smoke… ‘seriousness.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think there’s much point in considering another leader.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘You see,’ I was doing my best not to look at Allen, ‘I don’t honestly think anyone else would get the part.’

  When we got out of the judges’ room, and were crossing the imposing Victorian Gothic hallway that led to the Court, my learned ex-leader, who had preserved an expression of amused detachment up to that point, turned on me with considerable hurt.

  ‘I must say I take an extremely dim view of that.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘An extremely dim view. On this Circuit we have a tradition of loyalty to our leaders.’

  ‘It’s a local custom?’

  ‘Certainly it is.’ Allen stood still and pronounced solemnly. ‘I can’t imagine anyone on this Circuit carrying on with a case after his leader has been sacked. It’s not in the best traditions of the Bar.’

  ‘Loyalty to one’s leader. Yes, of course, that is extremely important…” I thought about it. ‘But we must consider the other great legal maxim, mustn’t we?’

  ‘Legal maxim? What legal maxim?’

  ‘ “The show must go on.” Excuse me. I see Albert. Nice chatting to you but… Things to do, old darling. Quite a number of things to do…’ So I hurried away from the fired legal eagle to where my old clerk was standing, looking distinctly anxious, at the entrance of the Court. He asked me hopefully if the judge had seen fit to grant an adjournment, so that he could persuade our client to try another silk, a course on which Albert’s senior partner was particularly keen.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I had to disappoint him. ‘I begged the judge, Albert. I almost went down on my knees to him. But would he grant me an adjournment? I’m afraid not. No, Rumpole, he told me, the show must go on.’ I put a comforting hand on Albert’s shoulder. ‘Cheer up, old darling. There’s only one thing you need say to your senior partner.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘The Penge Bungalow Murders.’

  I sounded supremely confident of course; but as I went into Court I suddenly remembered that without a leader I would have absolutely no one to blame but myself when things went wrong.

  ‘I don’t know if any of you ladies and gentlemen have actually a
ttended performances at the Theatre Royal…’ Tommy Pierce, Q.C., opening the case for the prosecution, chuckled as though to say ‘Most of us got better things to do, haven’t we, members of the jury?’ ‘But we all have passed it going up the Makins Road in a trolley-bus on the way to Grimble Football Ground. You’ll know where it is, members of the jury. Past the Snellsham Roundabout, on the corner opposite the Old Britannia Hotel, where we’ve all celebrated many a win by Grimble United…’

  I didn’t know why he didn’t just tell them: ‘The prisoner’s represented by Rumpole of the Bailey, a smart-alecky lawyer from London, who’s never ever heard of Grimble United, let alone the Old Britannia Hotel.’ I shut my eyes and looked uninterested as Tommy rumbled on, switching, now, to portentous seriousness.

  ‘In this case, members of the jury, we enter an alien world. The world of the showfolk! They live a strange life, you may think. A life of make-believe. On the surface everyone loves each other. “You were wonderful, darling!” said to men and women alike…’

  I seriously considered heaving myself to my hind legs to protest against this rubbish, but decided to sit still and continue the look of bored indifference.

  ‘But underneath all the good companionship,’ Pierce was now trying to make the flesh creep, ‘run deep tides of jealousy and passion which welled up, in this particular case, members of the jury, into brutal and, say the Crown, quite cold-blooded murder…”

  As he went on I thought that Derwent, the little gnome from the theatre, whom I could now see in the back of the Pit, somewhere near the dock, was perfectly right. Murder is a draw. All the local nobs were in Court including the judge’s wife Lady Skelton, in the front row of the Stalls, wearing her special matinee hat. I also saw the Sheriff of the County, in his fancy dress, wearing lace ruffles and a sword which stuck rather inconveniently between his legs, and Mrs Sheriff of the County, searching in her handbag for something which might well have been her opera glasses. And then, behind me, the star of the show, my client, looking as I told her to look. Ordinary.

  ‘This is not a case which depends on complicated evidence, members of the jury, or points of law. Let me tell you the facts.’

  The facts were not such that I wanted the jury to hear them too clearly, at least not in my learned friend’s version. I slowly, and quite noisily, took a page out of my notebook. I was grateful to see that some of the members of the jury glanced in my direction.

  ‘It simply amounts to this. The murder weapon, a Smith and Wesson revolver, was found in the defendant’s hand as she stood over her husband’s dead body. A bullet from the very weapon had entered between the third and fourth metacarpal!’

  I didn’t like Pierce’s note of triumph as he said this. Accordingly I began to tear my piece of paper into very small strips. More members of the jury looked in my direction.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen. The defendant, as you will see on your abstract of indictment, was charged as “Maggie Hartley”. It seems she prefers to be known by her maiden name, and that may give you some idea of the woman’s attitude to her husband of some twenty years, the deceased in this case, the late Gerald Patrick Frere…’

  At which point, gazing round the Court, I saw Daniel Der-went. He actually winked, and I realized that he thought he recognized my paper-tearing as an old ham actor’s trick. I stopped doing it immediately.

  ‘It were a mess. A right mess. Glass broken, blood. He was sprawled in the chair. I thought he were drunk for a moment, but he weren’t. And she had this pistol, like, in her hand.’ Mr Croft, the stage-doorman was standing in the witness-box in his best blue suit. The jury clearly liked him, just as they disliked the picture he was painting.

  ‘Can you remember what she said?’ The learned prosecutor prompted him gently.

  ‘Not too fast…’ Mr Justice Skelton was, worse luck, preparing himself to write it all down.

  ‘Just follow His Lordship’s pencil…’ said Pierce, and the judicial pencil prepared to follow Mr Croft.

  ‘She said, “I killed him, what could I do with him?”’

  ‘What did you understand that to mean?’

  I did hoist myself to my hind legs then, and registered a determined objection, it isn’t what this witness understood it to mean. It’s what the jury understands it to mean…’

  ‘My learned friend’s quite wrong. The witness was there. He could form his own conclusion…’

  ‘Please, gentlemen. Let’s try and have no disagreements, at least not before luncheon,’ said the judge sweetly, and added, less charmingly, i think Mr Croft may answer the question.’

  i understood her to say she was so fed up with him, she didn’t know what else to do…’

  ‘But to kill him…?’ Only the judge could have supplied that and he did it with another charming smile.

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘Did she say anything else? That you remember?’

  i think she said, “Help me.’ ”

  ‘Yes. Just wait there, will you? In case Mr Rumpole has some questions.’

  ‘Just a few…’ I rose to my feet. Here was an extremely dangerous witness whom the jury liked. It was no good making a head-on attack. The only way was to lure Mr Croft politely into my parlour. I gave the matter some thought and then tried a line on which I thought we might reach agreement.

  ‘When you saw the deceased, Frere, slumped in the chair, your first thought was that he was drunk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Had you seen him slumped in a chair drunk in his dressing-room on many occasions?’

  ‘A few.’ Mr Croft answered with a knowing smile, and I felt encouraged.

  ‘On most nights?’

  ‘Some nights.’

  ‘Were there some nights when he wasn’t the worse for drink? Did he ever celebrate, with an evening of sobriety?’

  I got my first smile from the jury, and the Joker for the prosecution arose in full solemnity.

  ‘My Lord…’

  Before Tommy Pierce could interrupt the proceedings with a speech I bowled the next question.

  ‘Mr Croft. When you came into the dressing-room, the deceased Frere was nearest the door…’

  ‘Yes. Only a couple of feet from me… I saw…’

  ‘You saw my client was standing half-way down the room?’ I asked, putting a stop to further painful details. ‘Holding the gun.’

  Pierce gave the jury a meaningful stare, emphasizing the evidence.

  ‘The dressing-room mirror stretches all the way along the wall. And it was broken at the far end, away from the door?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So to have fired the bullet that broke that end of the glass, my client would have had to turn away from the deceased and shoot behind her back…’ I swung round, by way of demonstration, and made a gesture, firing behind me. Of course I couldn’t do that without bringing the full might of the prosecution to its feet.

  ‘Surely that’s a question for the jury to decide.’

  ‘The witness was there. He can form his own conclusions.’ I quoted the wisdom of my learned friend. ‘What’s the answer?’

  ‘I suppose she would,’ Croft said thoughtfully and the jury looked interested.

  The judge cleared his throat and leaned forward, smiling politely, and being as it turned out, surprisingly unhelpful.

  ‘Wouldn’t that depend, Mr Rumpole, on where the deceased was at the time that particular shot was fired…?’

  Pierce glowed in triumph and muttered ‘Exactly!’ I did a polite bow and went quickly on to the next question.

  ‘Perhaps we could turn now to the little matter of what she said when you went into the room.’

  ‘I can remember that perfectly.’

  ‘The words, yes. It’s the reading that matters.’

  ‘The what, Mr Rumpole?’ said the judge, betraying theatrical ignorance.

  ‘The stress, my Lord. The intonation… It’s an expression used in show business.’

  ‘Perhaps we should confine oursel
ves to expressions used in Law Courts, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Certainly, my Lord.’ I re-addressed the witness. ‘She said she’d killed him. And then, after a pause, “What could I do with him. Help me.’ ”

  Mr Croft frowned. ‘I… That is, yes.’

  ‘Meaning. What could I do with his dead body, and asking for your help…?’

  ‘My Lord. That’s surely…’ Tommy Pierce was on his hind legs, and I gave him another quotation from himself.

  ‘He was there!’ I leant forward and smiled at Croft trying to make him feel that I was a friend he could trust.

  ‘She never meant that she had killed him because she didn’t know what to do with him?’

  There was a long silence. Counsel for the prosecution let out a deep breath and subsided like a balloon slowly settling. The judge nudged the witness gently. ‘Well. What’s the answer, Mr Croft? Did she…?’

  ‘I… I can’t be sure how she said it, my Lord.’

  And there, on a happy note of reasonable doubt, I left it. As I came out of Court and crossed the entrance hall on my way to the cells I was accosted by the beaming Mr Daniel Derwent, who was, it seemed, anxious to congratulate me.

  ‘What a performance, Mr Rumpole. Knock-out! You were wonderful? What I admired so was the timing. The pause, before you started the cross-examination.’

  ‘Pause?’

  ‘You took a beat of nine seconds. I counted.’

  ‘Did I really?’

  ‘Built-up tension, of course. I could see what you were after.’ He put a hand on my sleeve, a red hand with big rings and polished fingernails. ‘You really must let me know. If ever you want a job in Rep.’

  I dislodged my fan club and went down the narrow staircase to the cells. The time had clearly come for my client to start remembering.

  Maggie Hartley smiled at me over her untouched tray of vegetable pie. She even asked me how I was; but I had no time for small talk. It was zero hour, the last moment I had to get some reasonable instructions.

  ‘Listen to me. Whatever you do or don’t remember… it’s just impossible for you to have stood there and fired the first shot.’