‘Members of the Jury,’ Hearthrug intoned with great solemnity. ‘Even in these days, when we are constantly sickened by crimes of violence, this is a particularly horrible and distressing event. An attack with this dangerous weapon’ – here he picked up the cosh, Exhibit One, and waved it at the jury – ‘upon a weak and defenceless woman.’
‘Did you say a woman, Mr Hearthstoke?’ Up spoke the anxious figure of the Red Judge upon the Bench. I cannot believe that pure chance had selected Guthrie Featherstone to preside over Tony Timson’s second trial.
Our judge clearly meant to redeem himself and appear, from the outset, as the dedicated protector of that sex which is sometimes called the weaker by those who have not the good fortune to be married to She Who Must Be Obeyed.
‘I’m afraid so, my Lord,’ Hearthstoke said, more in anger than in sorrow.
‘This man Timson attacked a woman!’ Guthrie gave the jury the benefit of his full outrage. I had to put some sort of a stop to this so I rose to say, ‘That, my Lord, is something the jury has to decide.’
‘Mr Rumpole,’ Guthrie told me, ‘I am fully aware of that. All I can say about this case is that should the jury convict, I take an extremely serious view of any sort of attack on a woman.’
‘If they were bathing it wouldn’t matter,’ I muttered to Liz as I subsided.
‘I didn’t hear that, Mr Rumpole.’
‘Not a laughing matter, my Lord,’ I corrected myself rapidly.
‘Certainly not. Please proceed, Mr Hearthstoke.’ And here his Lordship whispered to his clerk, Wilfred, ‘I’m not having old Rumpole twist me round his little finger in this case.’
‘Very wise, if I may say so, my Lord,’ Wilfred whispered back as he sat beside the judge, sharpening his pencils.
‘Members of the Jury,’ an encouraged Hearthstoke proceeded. ‘Mrs Ruby Churchill, the innocent victim, works in an off-licence near the man Timson’s home. Later we shall look at a plan of the premises. The prosecution does not allege that Timson carried out this robbery alone. He no doubt had an accomplice who entered by an open window at the back of the shop and turned out the lights. Then, we say, under cover of darkness, Timson coshed the unfortunate Mrs Churchill, whose evidence you will hear. The accomplice escaped with most of the money from the till. Timson, happily for justice, slipped and struck his head on the corner of the shelves. He was found in a half-stunned condition, with the cosh and some of the money. When arrested by Detective Inspector Brush he said, “You got me this time, then.” You may think that a clear admission of guilt.’ And now Hearthstoke was into his peroration. ‘Too long, Members of the Jury,’ he said, ‘have women suffered in our courts. Too long have men seemed licensed to attack them. Your verdict in this case will be awaited eagerly and hopefully by the women of England.’
I looked at Mizz Liz Probert and I was grieved to note that she was receiving this hypocritical balderdash with starry-eyed attention. During the mercifully short period when the egregious Hearthrug had been a member of our chambers in Equity Court, I remembered, Mizz Liz had developed an inexplicably soft spot for the fellow. I was pained to see that the spot remained as soft as ever.
Even as we sat in Number One Court, the Islington women were on duty in the street outside bearing placards with the legend JUSTICE FOR WOMEN. Claude Erskine-Brown and Soapy Sam Ballard passed these demonstrators and smiled with some satisfaction. ‘Guthrie’s in the soup again, Ballard,’ Claude told his new friend. ‘They’re taking to the streets!’
Ruby Churchill, large, motherly, and clearly anxious to tell the truth, was the sort of witness it’s almost impossible to cross-examine effectively. When she had told her story to Hearthstoke, I rose and felt the silent hostility of both judge and jury.
‘Before you saw him in your shop on the night of this attack,’ I asked her, ‘did you know my client, Mr Timson?’
‘I knew him. He lives round the corner.’
‘And you knew his wife, April Timson?’
‘I know her. Yes.’
‘She’s been in your shop?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
‘With her husband?’
‘Sometimes with him. Sometimes without.’
‘Sometimes without? How interesting.’
‘Mr Rumpole. Have you many more questions for this unfortunate lady?’ Guthrie seemed to have been converted to the view that female witnesses shouldn’t be subjected to cross-examination.
‘Just a few, my Lord.’
‘Please. Mrs Churchill,’ his Lordship gushed at Ruby. ‘Do take a seat. Make yourself comfortable. I’m sure we all admire the plucky way in which you are giving your evidence. As a woman.’
‘And as a woman,’ I made bold to ask, after Ruby had been offered all the comforts of the witness-box, ‘did you know that Tony Timson had been accused of trying to drown his wife in the bath? And that he was tried and bound over?’
‘My Lord. How can that possibly be relevant?’ Hearthrug arose, considerably narked.
‘I was about to ask the same question.’ Guthrie sided with the prosecution. ‘I have no idea what Mr Rumpole is driving at!’
‘Oh, I thought your Lordship might remember the case,’ I said casually. ‘There was some newspaper comment about it at the time.’
‘Was there really?’ Guthrie affected ignorance. ‘Of course, in a busy life one can’t hope to read every little paragraph about one’s cases that finds its way into the newspapers.’
‘This found its way slap across the front page, my Lord.’
‘Did it really? Do you remember that, Mr Hearthstoke?’
‘I think I remember some rather ill-informed comment, my Lord.’ Hearthstoke was not above buttering up the Bench.
‘Ill-informed. Yes. No doubt it was. One has so many cases before one …’ As Guthrie tried to forget the past, I hastily drew the witness back into the proceedings.
‘Perhaps your memory is better than his Lordship’s?’ I suggested to Ruby. ‘You remember the case, don’t you, Mrs Churchill?’
‘Oh, yes. I remember it.’ Ruby had no doubt.
‘Mr Hearthstoke. Are you objecting to this?’ Guthrie was looking puzzled.
‘If Mr Rumpole wishes to place his client’s previous convictions before the jury, my Lord, why should I object?’ Hearthstoke looked at me complacently, as though I were playing into his hands, and Guthrie whispered to Wilfred, ‘Bright chap, this prosecutor.’
‘And can you remember what you thought about it at the time?’ I went on plugging away at Ruby.
‘I thought Mr Timson had got away with murder!’
The jury looked severely at Tony, and Guthrie appeared to think I had kicked a sensational own goal. ‘I suppose that was hardly the answer you wanted, Mr Rumpole,’ he said.
‘On the contrary, my Lord. It was exactly the answer I wanted! And having got away with it then, did it occur to you that someone … some avenging angel, perhaps, might wish to frame Tony Timson on this occasion?’
‘My Lord. That is pure speculation!’ Hearthstoke arose, furious, and I agreed with him.
‘Of course it is. But it’s a speculation I wish to put in the mind of the jury at the earliest possible opportunity.’ So I sat down, conscious that I had at least chipped away at the jury’s certainty. They knew that I should return to the possibility of Tony having been framed and were prepared to look at the evidence with more caution.
That morning two events of great pith and moment occurred in the case of the Queen against Tony Timson. April went shopping in Dalton Avenue and saw something which considerably changed her attitude. Peanuts Molloy and her friend Chrissie were coming out of the off-licence with a plastic bag full of assorted bottles. As Peanuts held his car door open for Chrissie they engaged in a passionate and public embrace, unaware that they were doing so in the full view of Mrs April Timson, who uttered the single word ‘Bastard!’ in the hearing of the young hopeful Vincent who, being on his school holidays, was accompanying his mother. The o
ther important matter was that Guthrie, apparently in a generous mood as he saw a chance of re-establishing his judicial reputation, sent a note to me and Hearthstoke asking if we would be so kind as to join him, and the other judges sitting at the Old Bailey, for luncheon.
Guthrie’s invitation came as Hearthstoke was examining Miss Sweating, the schoolmistress-like scientific officer, who was giving evidence as to the bloodstains found about the off-licence on the night of the crime. As this evidence was of some importance, I should record that blood of Tony Timson’s group was traced, on the floor and on the corner of the shelf by which he had fallen. Blood of the same group as that which flowed in Mrs Ruby Churchill’s veins was to be found on the floor where she lay and on the cosh by Tony’s hand. Talk of blood groups, as you will know, acts on me like the smell of greasepaint to an old actor, or the cry of hounds to John Peel. I was pawing the ground and snuffling a little at the nostrils as I rose to cross-examine.
‘Miss Sweating,’ I began. ‘You say there was blood of Timson’s group on the corner of the shelf?’
‘There was. Yes.’
‘And from that you assumed that he had hit his head against the shelf?’
‘That seemed the natural assumption. He had been stunned by hitting his head.’
‘Or by someone else hitting his head?’
‘But the detective inspector told me …’ the witness began, but I interrupted her with ‘Listen to me and don’t bother about what the detective inspector told you!’
‘Mr Rumpole!’ That grave protector of the female sex on the Bench looked pained. ‘Is that the tone to adopt? The witness is a woman!’
‘The witness is a scientific officer, my Lord,’ I pointed out, ‘who pretends to know something about bloodstains. Looking at the photograph of the stains on the corner of the shelf, Miss Sweating, might not they be splashes of blood which fell when the accused was struck in that part of the room?’
Miss Sweating examined the photograph in question through her formidable horn-rims and we were granted two minutes’ silence which I broke into at last with ‘Would you favour us with an answer, Miss Sweating? Or do you want to exercise a woman’s privilege and not make up your mind?’
‘Mr Rumpole!’ The newly converted feminist judge was outraged.
But the witness admitted, ‘I suppose they might have got there like that. Yes.’
‘They are consistent with his having been struck by an assailant. Perhaps with another weapon similar to this cosh?’
‘Yes,’ Miss Sweating agreed, reluctantly.
‘Thank you. “Trip no further, pretty sweeting …” ’ I whispered as I sat down, thereby shocking the shockable Mizz Probert.
‘Miss Sweating’ – Guthrie tried to undo my good work – ‘you have also said that the bloodstains on the shelf are consistent with Timson having slipped when he was running out of the shop and striking his head against it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Miss Sweating agreed eagerly. ‘They are consistent with that, my Lord.’
‘Very well.’ His Lordship smiled ingratiatingly at the women of the jury. ‘Perhaps the ladies of the jury would like to take a little light luncheon now?’ And he added, more brusquely, ‘The gentlemen too, of course. Back at five past two, Members of the Jury.’
When we got out of court, I saw my learned friend Charles Hearthstoke standing in the corridor in close conversation with the beautiful shorthand writer. He was, I noticed, holding her lightly and unobtrusively by the hand. Mizz Probert, who also noticed this, walked away in considerable disgust.
A large variety of judges sit at the Old Bailey. These include the Old Bailey regulars, permanent fixtures such as the Mad Bull Bullingham and the sepulchral Graves, judges of the lower echelon, who wear black gowns. They also include a judge called the Common Sergeant, who is neither common nor a sergeant, and the Recorder, who wears red and is the senior Old Bailey judge – a man who has to face, apart from the usual diet of murder, robbery and rape, a daunting number of City dinners. These are joined by the two visiting High Court judges, the Red Judges of the Queen’s Bench, of whom Guthrie was one, unless and until the Lord Chancellor decided to put him permanently out to grass. All these judicial figures trough together at a single long table in a back room of the Bailey. They do it, and the sight comes as something of a shock to the occasional visitor, wearing their wigs. The sight of Judge Bullingham’s angry and purple face ingesting stew and surmounted with horse-hair is only for the strongest stomachs. They are joined by various City aldermen and officials wearing lace jabots and tailed coats and other guests from the Bar or from the world of business.
Before the serious business of luncheon begins, the company is served sherry, also taken while wearing wigs, and I was ensconced in a corner where I could overhear a somewhat strange preliminary conversation between our judge and counsel for the prosecution.
‘Ah, Hearthstoke,’ Guthrie greeted him. ‘I thought I’d invite both counsel to break bread with me. Just want to make sure neither of you had anything to object to about the trial.’
‘Of course not, Judge!’ Hearthstoke was smiling. ‘It’s been a very pleasant morning. Made even more pleasant by the appearance of the shorthand writer.’
‘The … ? Oh, yes! Pretty girl, is she? I hadn’t noticed,’ Guthrie fibbed.
‘Hadn’t you? Lorraine said you’d been extraordinarily kind to her. She so much appreciated the beautiful pot plant you sent her.’
‘Pot plant?’ Guthrie looked distinctly guilty, but Hearthstoke pressed on with ‘Something rather gorgeous she told me. With pink blooms. Didn’t she help you straighten out the shorthand note in the last Timson case?’
‘She corrected her mistake,’ Guthrie said carefully.
‘Her mistake, was it?’ Hearthstoke was looking at the judge. ‘She said it’d been yours.’
‘Perhaps we should all sit down now.’ Guthrie was keen to end this embarrassing scene. ‘Oh and, Hearthstoke, no need to mention that business of the pot plant around the Bailey. Otherwise they’ll all be wanting one.’ He gave a singularly unconvincing laugh. ‘I can’t give pink blooms to everyone, including Rumpole!’
‘Of course, Judge.’ Hearthstoke was understanding. ‘No need to mention it at all now.’
‘Now?’
‘Now,’ the prosecutor said firmly, ‘justice is going to be done to Timson. At last.’
Guthrie seemed thankful to move away and find his place at the table, until he discovered that I had been put next to him. He made the best of it, pushed one of the decanters in my direction and hoped I was quite satisfied with the fairness of the proceedings.
‘Are you content with the fairness of the proceedings?’ I asked him.
‘Yes, of course. I’m the judge, aren’t I?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘What on earth’s that meant to mean?’
‘Haven’t you asked yourself why you, a High Court judge, a Red Judge, have been given a paltry little robbery with violence?’ I refreshed myself with a generous gulp of the City of London’s claret.
‘I suppose it’s the luck of the draw.’
‘Luck of the draw, my eye! I detect the subtle hand of old Keith from the Lord Chancellor’s office.’
‘Keith?’ His Lordship looked around him nervously.
‘Oh, yes. “Give Guthrie Timson,” he said. “Give him a chance to redeem himself by potting the fellow and sending him down for ten years. The women of England will give three hearty cheers and Featherstone will be the Lord Chancellor’s blue-eyed boy again.” Don’t fall for it! You can be better than that, if you put your mind to it. Sum up according to the evidence and the hell with the Lord Chancellor’s office!’
‘Horace! I don’t think I’ve heard anything you’ve been saying.’
‘It’s up to you, old darling. Are you a man or a rubber stamp for the Civil Service?’
Guthrie looked round desperately for a new subject of conversation and his eye fell on our prosecutor who was bein
g conspicuously bored by an elderly alderman. ‘That young Hearthstoke seems a pretty able sort of fellow,’ he said.
‘Totally ruthless,’ I told him. ‘He’d stop at nothing to win a case.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
Guthrie took the decanter and started to pour wine into his own glass. His hand was trembling slightly and he was staring at Hearthstoke in a haunted way.
‘Horace,’ he started confidentially, ‘you’ve been practising at the Old Bailey for a considerable number of years.’
‘Almost since the dawn of time.’
‘And you can see nothing wrong with a judge, impressed by the hard work of a court official, say a shorthand writer, for instance, sending that official some little token of gratitude?’
‘What sort of token are you speaking of, Judge?’
‘Something like’ – he gulped down wine – ‘a pot plant.’
‘A plant?’
‘In a pot. With pink blossoms.’
‘Pink blossoms, eh?’ I thought it over. ‘That sounds quite appropriate.’
‘You can see nothing in any way improper in such a gift, Horace?’ The judge was deeply grateful.
‘Nothing improper at all. A “busy Lizzie”?’
‘I think her name’s Lorraine.’
‘Nothing wrong with that.’
‘You reassure me, Horace. You comfort me very much.’ He took another swig of the claret and looked fearfully at Hearthstoke. Poor old Guthrie Featherstone, he spent most of his judicial life painfully perched between the horns of various dilemmas.
‘In the car after we arrested him, driving away from the off-licence, Tony Timson said, “You got me this time, then.” ’ This was the evidence of that hammer of the Timsons, Detective Inspector Brush. When he had given it, Hearthstoke looked hard at the jury to emphasize the point, thanked the officer profusely and I rose to cross-examine.
‘Detective Inspector. Do you know a near neighbour of the Timsons named Peter, better known as “Peanuts”, Molloy?’
‘Mr Peter Molloy is known to the police, yes,’ the inspector answered cautiously.
‘He and his brother Greg are leading lights of the Molloy firm? Fairly violent criminals?’
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