The First Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘Since we met, you have given me thirty-nine bottles of lavender water,’ Hilda said without rancour.

  ‘Well, I never knew what else you’d like to smell of.’ And then I confessed, ‘The case at Grimble was an unmitigated disaster. Very unsatisfied client.’ I sat on the sofa and gratefully changed the subject, i say, have you got a cold or something? Been in bed, have you, Hilda?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re wearing your dressing-gown.’ I thought it was about time someone pointed it out.

  It’s really more of a negligee…’ And to my amazement Hilda came and sat down quite uncomfortably close to me. In fact she was squashing up against my knee as I scratched the old sore of my disastrous day in Court.

  ‘I made the mistake of appealing to the old English sense of freedom. Freedom’s gone out of fashion in Grimble. That singer appears to be in some pain.’ Herr Tauber’s voice had risen to a painful squeal. I put him out of his misery and switched him off.

  ‘That was “These We Have Loved”.’ To my alarm Hilda was squashing up against me even more. ‘We’re not too old, are we, Rumpole,’ she almost whispered, ‘to enjoy anything senti- mental?’

  ‘No.’ I made a cautious admission. ‘But…’

  And then Hilda said a surprising thing. ‘You don’t have to read those magazines, Rumpole,’ she said. ‘After all, you are married.’

  ‘What magazines?’ I wasn’t entirely with her.

  ‘A dreadful thing about schoolgirls. I found it behind the sofa cushions.’

  I began to get a strange glimmering, a sort of clue to Hilda’s incalculable behaviour over the last weeks. ‘Good heavens!’ I told her. ‘I had to read that, yes. It was part of the evidence in my case.’

  ‘Your what?’ Hilda seemed taken aback.

  ‘The obscenity case. The one I did at Grimble. Good God, Hilda. You don’t think I enjoyed reading that rubbish, do you? I’ve never been so bored in my whole life.’

  ‘Bored?’ She sounded curiously disappointed. ‘Is that what you were?’

  ‘Well, naturally. You didn’t read it, did you?’ My mind began to boggle at the thought of Hilda reading solemnly through ‘Changing Room Orgies’.

  However, she shook her head vigorously, got up quickly and moved away from me. ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘It was your work, was it? That’s all it was…’

  ‘Absolutely all!’ I assured her.

  She moved to the door and snapped on the centre light. Then she became brisk and businesslike as she emptied an ashtray and turned down the fire. I was back with the old familiar She Who Must Be Obeyed and it was almost a relief. At least I knew where I was, and she was no longer squashing my knee.

  ‘Well, I’ve got to get on,’ said Hilda. ‘No use hanging about in the living-room all night, chattering to you. I’ve got chops to get under the grill! And you can start laying the table, Rumpole. You really might lend a hand occasionally.’

  When she had left the room, I saw that the tide had gone down in the bottle of Pommeroy’s claret. I reached up to find a reserve bottle propping up the Criminal Appeal Reports on the top of the shelf. ‘That sounds more like your old self, Hilda.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Hilda called from the kitchen.

  ‘Just getting another bottle off the shelf, Hilda,’ I said, and on that occasion I got away with it.

  Chapter Twelve

  After the resounding defeat I had suffered in the case of the Grimble Adult Reading Mart, I didn’t see young Cracknell for some time; indeed I didn’t seek out his company as I thought he was bound to crow a little over my discomfiture, and perhaps suggest that I might vacate ‘the room’ if all I could do there was to plan the loss of cases. However, I continued to haunt the clerk’s room and the library, I called in to Pommeroy’s for an evening refresher and I generally planned my days so that I had a credible reason for leaving home at Froxbury Mansions early in the mornings and not returning until nightfall.

  One day as I wandered into the clerk’s room in a somewhat disconsolate manner and noticed that the mantelpiece was, as usual, bare of briefs marked ‘Rumpole’, Henry gave me a bit of extremely welcome news.

  ‘Mr Bernard rang of Cripplestone, Bernard & Co. You’re wanted for a case at Brixton. Case of Timson.’

  Timson! The word was music to my ears. The Timson family were a notable clan of south London villains who had each and every one of them provided work for me over the years. They were a close-knit family who went into crime as other families go into the law. The Timsons thought of spells in the nick as a professional risk, they believed that a woman’s place was in the home and they were against the permissive society. There is no greater loyalty than that of one Timson to another, and they had all, when in varied degrees of trouble, relied heavily on the services of Rumpole. It was a tribute to the excellent system of jungle telegraph which existed in the world of crime that Rum-pole’s return should already have become known to the regular clientele.

  ‘Bonjour, Mr Rumpole. Heureux de vous voir… Keeping well in yourself, are you?’

  Bertie was one of the older members of the Timson family. He was facing a charge of conspiracy to rob the Balham branch of the Steadfast Savings Bank, or, in the alternative, carrying house-breaking implements by night. During a recent spell in the Scrubs he had taken French lessons, and would insist on practising his linguistic skill on his legal advisers.

  ‘It seems you were caught with the following articles in your car, Bertie,’ I reminded him. ‘One brace and bit, one monkey wrench, two hacksaws, three sticks of dynamite with fuses and four imitation firearms, to wit revolvers.’

  ‘All that in my bleeding voiture, Mr Rumpole!’ Bertie Timson looked incredulous. ‘Never!’

  ‘The jury aren’t going to believe you didn’t have this stuff in your car. Not if three officers say they saw it there.’

  ‘I do assure you, Mr Rumpole…”

  ‘Now it may be that you have an innocent explanation for some of these objects. The carpenter’s tools, for instance?’

  ‘An innocent explanation? Entendu, Mr Rumpole. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘You do that. Oh, and Bertie. Depechez-vous!’

  ‘Come again, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘Think as soon as you can. Before your case comes up at London Sessions.’

  Meanwhile, back at Chambers, life was filled, as usual, with intrigue and indeed romance. Guthrie Featherstone, who, as I have already indicated, had found the charms of our Portia, Miss Phillida Trant, increasingly irresistible, called on her in her room quite early one morning to find her boning up on the law of evidence preparatory to another day with her frauds-man.

  ‘You’re not still in that dreary case down at the Old Bailey, are you?’ Featherstone asked gallantly.

  ‘Yes, thank God. With some quite decent refreshers.’

  ‘Pity.’ Featherstone moved stealthily nearer to Miss Trant’s desk. ‘We might have had lunch tomorrow. Taken a trip along to the Trattoria Gallactica in the Fulham Road. You know. That’s where all the B.P.s go.’

  ‘The what?’ Miss Trant was deep in Phipson’s Law of Evidence.

  ‘Beautiful People. Like you, Miss Trant. Won’t you let me take you to lunch there?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Miss Trant turned a page. ‘What would your wife Marigold have to say?’

  ‘I’m not exactly under her eagle eye at lunchtime.’ Feather-stone sniffed appreciatively. ‘What a super perfume you’re wearing. Do you know “Ma Tendresse”?’

  ‘No. Who’s she?’

  ‘Oh, I say. Enormously witty. “Ma Tendresse”. It’s an absolutely super new perfume. Definitely exotic. You should try it.’

  ‘I might ask Claude. But he’s not much of a one for buying perfume.’

  ‘No. That’s the problem with barristers who get keen on commercial law. They lose the talent for giving perfume.’ Feather-stone smiled and then allowed his hand to fall casually on Miss Trant’s shoulder as he app
roached the other object of his visit, secondary to the wooing but still of importance. ‘Oh, I say, Miss Trant. I think you should know. I thought we might take on a new young member of Chambers. Apparently a brilliant cross-examiner.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Miss Trant was still into Phipson and appeared not to notice Guthrie’s hand.

  ‘Yes. I thought you might know her. Her name’s Elizabeth Chandler.’

  At which Miss Trant shut her book and stood, dislodging Guthrie’s grasp and said, with marked disapproval, ‘A woman?’

  ‘Probably,’ Featherstone conceded. ‘If the name’s Elizabeth Chandler.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we want another woman in Chambers.’ Miss Trant was firm on the subject.

  ‘You don’t? How very interesting.’

  ‘Henry has to explain to solicitors about it being a woman he’s sending down to the indecent assault. He often gets objections.’ Even Featherstone was surprised at the speed at which an ambitious woman can, in the legal profession, show signs of Male Chauvinist Piggery.

  ‘But you, Miss Trant. You’re doing so marvellously well!’ He smiled at her ingratiatingly.

  ‘Well, I do flatter myself I’ve been accepted. But I don’t think we need another woman.’

  Featherstone was not displeased with this objection, seeing in it the chance of another meeting. ‘Why don’t we have a long, long chat, Miss Trant, as to exactly what we do need. And I’d like to discuss your life in the law. Old Keith was telling me the Lord Chancellor’s office has definitely got its eye on you.’

  ‘On me? You must be joking.’ Miss Trant looked at her Head of Chambers somewhat more kindly.

  ‘Oh no, Miss Trant,’ Featherstone assured her. ‘I’m not joking at all. Shall we say next Tuesday? At the Trattoria Gallactica, among the Beautiful People?’

  The truth of the matter was that not only did Miss Trant feel that her distinguished position as the only woman in the all-male enclave at Equity Court was threatened; but she was particularly reluctant to admit Miss Elizabeth Chandler, a very warm-hearted blonde who hunted, got sent boxes of chocolates by judges, and conducted her cases with a beguiling mixture of pure law and smouldering sexuality which was quite a match for Miss Trant’s courtroom performance. Miss Trant had also, during the time it took him to graduate from squatter to tenant, conceived something of an uncontrollable passion for Ken Cracknell, and she wasn’t going to have Miss Chandler luring her impressionable young radical off to Point-to-Points and Hunt Balls and other such sinks of iniquity at the weekends. She raised the matter with Cracknell as they walked together down Fleet Street towards the Old Bailey.

  ‘I don’t know what Guthrie Featherstone thinks he’s up to. I mean, we’re packed like sardines in Chambers as it is.’

  ‘We certainly are.’ Ken was sunk in moody and sullen thought. Then he said, ‘You did tell me Rumpole left the Bar because he was losing all his cases?’

  ‘In front of Bullingham, yes. It depressed him dreadfully, but I think it was just a run of bad luck. It was bound to end sometime.’

  ‘But he lost his nerve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And might lose it again. I mean, if he comes any more croppers.’

  ‘I know.’ Miss Trant looked at him with sympathy. ‘He lost your dirty books case in the north. I think that’s shaken him too.’

  ‘How much more do you think it’d shake him, if he lost a really big one?’ Cracknell asked thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, badly.’ They crossed the traffic and walked up to the dome and the lady with the sword, past the Black Marias and taxis loaded with dubious company directors converging on the Old Bailey. ‘But about this ridiculous idea of Featherstone’s. I really think I’ll have lunch and talk him out of it…’

  So Miss Trant rattled on about her fears and indignation, but Ken Cracknell was hardly listening to her, his mind being on something else entirely.

  Not long afterwards I was summoned, together with Bernard, my instructing solicitor, back to Brixton Prison for a second audience with Bertie Timson, whose fertile mind had in the interval provided him with some sort of a defence.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that load of stuff in the voiture, Mr Rumpole,’ Bertie started thoughtfully.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, Bertie.’

  ‘I’ve been remembering…’

  ‘I had hoped you would.’

  ‘Them things were all to do with members of the family. Know what I mean?’ It didn’t seem a particularly difficult conception and I grasped it. ‘Them hacksaws and the brace and bit…’

  ‘Not tools for the bank robbery?’ I asked.

  ‘D.I.Y.’

  I was at sea, in a world of initials. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Do It Yourself, Mr Rumpole. Den’s Monica was getting married and moving into a mobile home near Harlow. I was going to do up their bathroom.’ I wondered what sort of lorry it might have been, off the back of which a mobile home might have dropped as a wedding gift, but I was too polite to interrupt Bertie’s flow. ‘I was going to give her shelves with concealed lighting and a wooden surround for the bath. Tres elegant.’ Bertie seemed pleased with his explanation and rounded it off in French. ‘The toy guns was presents for my sister Vi’s kids.’

  ‘I don’t want to ask awkward questions…’

  ‘Mr Rumpole, I know you don’t.’

  ‘But the sticks of dynamite?’

  ‘You want to know the truth?’ That was a question I thought it wiser to leave unanswered, so I let Bertie continue. ‘My cousin Cyril’s got a cottage down in rural Essex. Charming little place. But the fact is… I don’t want to shock the ladies in the jury.’

  ‘Carry on, Bertie,’ I said. ‘Have no fear.’

  ‘No main drains, Mr Rumpole. Nothing but a septic affair down the end of the garden. And malheureusement this tank gets blocked up… it won’t seep away, not as it’s meant to. And Cyril’s old woman Betty, she gets on to him about this. But how do you unblock a septic tank, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘I can’t really say I’ve given the matter any thought.’

  ‘Dynamite. That’s the idea I hit on.’

  ‘Sounds a desperate solution…’

  ‘Cyril’s Betty was getting desperate, Mr Rumpole. So I happened to meet this Welsh geezer, who works in the quarries…’

  ‘A bloke whose name you can’t remember, but you happened to meet in a pub?’ I suggested, a little wearily.

  ‘How did you know that, Mr Rumpole?’ Bertie looked pained.

  I might have said, ‘From a long experience of Timson family defences.’ But I thought it more tactful to keep quiet.

  ‘So this geezer said he had a bit of dynamite to spare, like, and I bought a few sticks off of him. I put them in the car for next time I was going down to Cyril and Betty’s for a country weekend. I’d actually forgotten all about them, if you want to know the truth.’

  There was a pause as I thought our defence over, then I said, ‘Could we call Betty Timson as a witness?’

  ‘Oh no, Mr Rumpole. She wouldn’t want to come to Court.’ It was all rather as I had suspected. I sighed and lit a small cigar. ‘So that’s the story?’

  ‘Exactement, Mr Rumpole.’

  I blew out smoke and heaved myself to my feet. ‘Well, we’ll do what we can with it. I can’t make any promises. It’s a bit more convincing than a complete denial, I suppose.’

  I got back from my second conference with Bertie Timson in Brixton Nick, pushed open the door of the common room and found it to be fully inhabited and stinking of some foul tobacco that Ken Cracknell rolled himself to show his solidarity with the working man (who was probably smoking low-tar filter-tip Health Hazards, anyway). Ken was sitting at the desk and Glendour-Owen filled the armchair with himself and a large brief.

  I had, as I have said, rather avoided a confrontation with Ken Cracknell since the Grimble debacle, but now that it could no longer be avoided I decided that the only way was to come clean, confess that I’d been got ban
g to rights and hope for a conditional discharge.

  ‘Oh, Ken,’ I greeted him. ‘Do you mind if I call you Cracknell? I’m afraid I didn’t do too well up in Grimble.’

  ‘Henry told me.’ Cracknell leant back in my swivel-chair and put his feet firmly on my desk.

  ‘A dissatisfied client, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Yes.’ Cracknell glowered at me and then, quite unexpectedly, he smiled. ‘Well. I don’t expect it was your fault.’

  ‘It seems Rumpole spouted Wordsworth at the jury. It went down like a lead balloon.’ The small Celtic person giggled from my armchair.

  ‘I found the result… a little disappointing,’ I confessed.

  ‘There’ll be other cases.’ To my amazement I got the distinct feeling that Ken Cracknell was trying to cheer me up.

  ‘Meacher’s got twenty dirty book shops, all coming up for trial.’ I didn’t want to conceal the extent of the damage. ‘I doubt if I’ll get a brief in any of them.’

  There was a long silence. Cracknell was still smiling, but more to himself, I thought, than to anyone in the outside world. He took out his cigarette machine and a packet of that tobacco which makes old men cough so terminally on dawn tube trains round the Angel Islington. When he had lit his next offensive cigarette, he said something which made me forgive his roll-ups, his boots on my table, his awful posters on my walls and even made me ready and willing to call him Ken. What he said not only justified my journey across the Atlantic but restored my faith in the law, in human nature, and even made me suspect that some benign Power might be keeping watch over old barristers. As he spoke, it seemed I heard bells ringing and even Owen Glendour-Owen was lapped in a roseate glow.

  ‘I was thinking of asking you to lead me in my murder,’ Cracknell said casually, blowing out a cloud of instant bronchitis.

  ‘You…? Me…?’ For once in my life I was incoherent.

  Cracknell, from now on I shall call him Ken, went to my mantelpiece, took down the coveted brief in R. v. Simpson. ‘I feel,’ said the dear boy, ‘that you’re absolutely right for this.’