Erskine-Brown was holding the paper in trembling hands and had gone extremely pale. He looked at me with accusing eyes and managed to say in strangled tones, ‘You told me to go there!’
‘For God’s sake, Claude! Told you to go where?’
‘The locus in quo!’
I took the Beacon from him and saw the cause of his immediate concern. The locus in quo was the Kitten-A-Go-Go, and the blown-up snap on the centre page showed Claude closely inspecting a young lady who was waving her underclothes triumphantly over her head. At that moment, Henry’s telephone rang and he announced that Soapy Sam Ballard, our puritanical head of chambers, founder member of the Lawyers As Christians Society (LACS) and the Savonarola of Equity Court, wished to see Mr Erskine-Brown in his room without delay. Claude left us with the air of a man climbing up into the dock to receive a stiff but inevitable sentence.
I wasn’t, of course, present in the head of chambers’ room where Claude was hauled up. It was not until months later, when he had recovered a certain calm, that he was able to tell me how the embarrassing meeting went and I reconstruct the occasion for the purpose of this narrative.
‘You wanted to see me, Ballard?’ Claude started to babble. ‘You’re looking well. In wonderful form. I don’t remember when I’ve seen you looking so fit.’ At that early stage he tried to make his escape from the room. ‘Well, nice to chat. I’ve got a summons, across the road.’
‘Just a minute!’ Ballard called him back. ‘I don’t read the Daily Beacon.’
‘Oh, don’t you? Very wise,’ Claude congratulated him. ‘Neither do I. Terrible rag. Half-clad beauties on page four and no law reports. So they tell me. Absolutely no reason to bother with the thing!’
‘But, coming out of the Temple tube station, Mr Justice Fishwick pushed this in my face.’ Soapy Sam lifted the fatal newspaper from his desk. ‘It seems he’s just remarried and his new wife takes in the Daily Beacon.’
‘How odd!’
‘What’s odd?’
‘A judge’s wife. Reading the Beacon.’
‘Hugh Fishwick married his cook,’ Ballard told him in solemn tones.
‘Really? I didn’t know. Well, that explains it. But I don’t see why he should push it in your face, Ballard.’
‘Because he thought I ought to see it.’
‘Nothing in that rag that could be of the slightest interest to you, surely?’
‘Something is.’
‘What?’
‘You.’
Ballard held out the paper to Erskine-Brown, who approached it gingerly and took a quick look.
‘Oh, really? Good heavens! Is that me?’
‘Unless you have a twin brother masquerading as yourself. You feature in an article on London’s Square Mile of Sin.’
‘It’s all a complete misunderstanding!’ Claude assured our leader.
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘I can explain everything.’
‘I hope so.’
‘You see, I got into this affray.’
‘You got into what?’ Ballard saw even more cause for concern.
‘This fight’ – Claude wasn’t improving his case – ‘in the Kitten-A-Go-Go.’
‘Perhaps I ought to warn you, Erskine-Brown.’ Ballard was being judicial. ‘You needn’t answer incriminating questions.’
‘No, I didn’t get into a fight.’ Claude was clearly rattled. ‘Good heavens, no. I’m doing a case, about a fight. An affray. With Coca-Cola bottles. And Rumpole advised me to go to this club.’
‘Horace Rumpole is an habitué of this house of ill-repute? At his age?’ Ballard didn’t seem to be in the least surprised to hear it.
‘No, not at all. But he said I ought to take a view. Of the scene of the crime. This wretched scandal-sheet puts the whole matter in the wrong light. Entirely.’
There was a long and not entirely friendly pause before Ballard proceeded to judgment. ‘If that is so, Erskine-Brown,’ he said, ‘and I make no further comment while the matter is sub judice, you will no doubt be suing the Daily Beacon for libel?’
‘You think I should?’ Claude began to count the cost of such an action.
‘It is quite clearly your duty. To protect your own reputation and the reputation of this chambers.’
‘Wouldn’t it be rather expensive?’ I can imagine Claude gulping, but Ballard was merciless.
‘What is money,’ he said, ‘compared to the hitherto unsullied name of number 3 Equity Court?’
Claude’s next move was to seek out the friend of his boyhood, ‘Slimey’ Spratling, whom he finally found jogging across Hyde Park. When he told the Beacon deputy editor that he had been advised to issue a writ, the man didn’t even stop and Erskine-Brown had to trot along beside him. ‘Good news!’ Spratling said. ‘My editor seems to enjoy libel actions. Glad you liked your pic.’
‘Of course I didn’t like it. It’ll ruin my career.’
‘Nonsense, Collywobbles.’ Spratling was cheerful. ‘You’ll get briefed by all the clubs. You’ll be the strippers’ QC.’
‘However did they get my name?’ Claude wondered.
‘Oh, I recognized you at once,’ Slimey assured him. ‘Bit of luck, wasn’t it?’ Then he ran on, leaving Claude outraged. They had, after all, been at Winchester together.
When I told the helpless Cuxham that the purpose of solicitors was to gather evidence, I did so without much hope of my words stinging him into any form of activity. If evidence against Miss Nettleship were needed, I would have to look elsewhere, so I rang up that great source of knowledge, ‘Fig’ Newton, and invited him for a drink at Pommeroy’s.
Ferdinand Isaac Gerald, known to his many admirers as ‘Fig’ Newton, is undoubtedly the best in the somewhat unreliable band of professional private eyes. I know that Fig is now knocking seventy; that, with his filthy old mackintosh and collapsing hat, he looks like a scarecrow after a bad night; that his lantern jaw, watery eye and the frequently appearing drip on the end of the nose don’t make him an immediately attractive figure. Fig may look like a scarecrow but he’s a very bloodhound after a clue.
‘I’m doing civil work now, Fig,’ I told him when we met in Pommeroy’s. ‘Just a big brief in a libel action which should provide a bit of comfort for my old age. But my instructing solicitor is someone we would describe, in legal terms, as a bit of a wally. I’d be obliged if you’d do his job for him and send him the bill when we win.’
‘What is it that I am required to do, Mr Rumpole?’ the great detective asked patiently.
‘Keep your eye on a lady.’
‘I usually am, Mr Rumpole. Keeping my eye on one lady or another.’
‘This one’s a novelist. A certain Miss Amelia Nettleship. Do you know her works?’
‘Can’t say I do, sir.’ Fig had once confessed to a secret passion for Jane Austen. ‘Are you on to a winner?’
‘With a bit of help from you, Fig. Only one drawback here, as in most cases.’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘The client.’ Looking across the bar I had seen the little group from the Beacon round the Bollinger. Having business with the editor, I left Fig Newton to his work and crossed the room. Sitting myself beside my client I refused champagne and told him that I wanted him to do something about my learned friend Claude Erskine-Brown.
‘You mean the barrister who goes to funny places in the afternoon? What’re you asking me to do, Mr Rumpole?’
‘Apologize, of course. Print the facts. Claude Erskine-Brown was in the Kitten-A-Go-Go purely in pursuit of his legal business.’
‘I love it!’ Morry’s smile was wider than ever. ‘There speaks the great defender. You’d put up any story, wouldn’t you, however improbable, to get your client off.’
‘It happens to be true.’
‘So far as we are concerned’ – Morry smiled at me patiently – ‘we printed a pic of a gentleman in a pinstriped suit examining the goods on display. No reason to apologize for that, is there, Connie?
What’s your view, Ted?’
‘No reason at all, Morry.’ Connie supported him and Spratling agreed.
‘So you’re going to do nothing about it?’ I asked with some anger.
‘Nothing we can do.’
‘Mr Machin.’ I examined the man with distaste. ‘I told you it was a legal rule that a British barrister is duty-bound to take on any client however repellent.’
‘I remember you saying something of the sort.’
‘You are stretching my duty to the furthest limits of human endurance.’
‘Never mind, Mr Rumpole. I’m sure you’ll uphold the best traditions of the Bar!’
When Morry said that I left him. However, as I was wandering away from Pommeroy’s towards the Temple station, Gloucester Road, home and beauty, a somewhat breathless Ted Spratling caught up with me and asked me to do my best for Morry. ‘He’s going through a tough time.’ I didn’t think the man was entirely displeased by the news he had to impart. ‘The proprietor’s going to sack him.’
‘Because of this case?’
‘Because the circulation’s dropping. Tits and bums are going out of fashion. The wives don’t like it.’
‘Who’ll be the next editor?’
‘Well, I’m the deputy now …’ He did his best to sound modest.
‘I see. Look’ – I decided to enlist an ally – ‘would you help me with the case? In strict confidence, I want some sort of a lead to this Stella January. Can you find out how her article came in? Get hold of the original. It might have an address. Some sort of clue …’
‘I’ll have a try, Mr Rumpole. Anything I can do to help old Morry.’ Never had I heard a man speak with such deep insincerity.
The weather turned nasty, but, in spite of heavy rain, Fig Newton kept close observation for several nights on Hollyhock Cottage, home of Amelia Nettleship, without any particular result. One morning I entered our chambers early and on my way to my room I heard a curious buzzing sound, as though an angry bee were trapped in the lavatory. Pulling open the door, I detected Erskine-Brown plying a cordless electric razor.
‘Claude,’ I said, ‘you’re shaving!’
‘Wonderful to see the workings of a keen legal mind.’ The man sounded somewhat bitter.
‘I’m sorry about all this. But I’m doing my best to help you.’
‘Oh, please!’ He held up a defensive hand. ‘Don’t try and do anything else to help me. “Visit the scene of the crime,” you said. “Inspect the locus in quo!” So where has your kind assistance landed me? My name’s mud. Ballard’s as good as threatened to kick me out of chambers. I’ve got to spend my life’s savings on a speculative libel action. And my marriage is on the rocks. Wonderful what you can do, Rumpole, with a few words of advice. Your clients must be everlastingly grateful.’
‘Your marriage, on the rocks, did you say?’
‘Oh, yes. Philly was frightfully reasonable about it. As far as she was concerned, she said, she didn’t care what I did in the afternoons. But we’d better live apart for a while, for the sake of the children. She didn’t want Tristan and Isolde to associate with a father dedicated to the exploitation of women.’
‘Oh, Portia!’ I felt for the fellow. ‘What’s happened to the quality of mercy?’
‘So, thank you very much, Rumpole. I’m enormously grateful. The next time you’ve got a few helpful tips to hand out, for God’s sake keep them to yourself!’
He switched on the razor again. I looked at it and made an instant deduction. ‘You’ve been sleeping in chambers. You want to watch that, Claude. Bollard nearly got rid of me for a similar offence.’
‘Where do you expect me to go? Phillida’s having the locks changed in Islington.’
‘Have you no friends?’
‘Philly and I have reached the end of the line. I don’t exactly want to advertise the fact among my immediate circle. I seem to remember, Rumpole, when you fell out with Hilda you planted yourself on us!’ As he said this I scented danger and tried to avoid what I knew was coming.
‘Oh. Now. Erskine-Brown. Claude. I was enormously grateful for your hospitality on that occasion.’
‘Quite an easy run in on the Underground, is it, from Gloucester Road?’ He spoke in a meaningful way.
‘Of course. My door is always open. I’d be delighted to put you up, just until this mess is straightened out. But …’
‘The least you could do, I should have thought, Rumpole.’
‘It’s not a sacrifice I could ask, old darling, even of my dearest friend. I couldn’t ask you to shoulder the burden of daily life with She Who Must Be Obeyed. Now I’m sure you can find a very comfortable little hotel, somewhere cheap and cosy, around the British Museum. I promise you, life is by no means a picnic in the Gloucester Road.’
Well, that was enough, I thought, to dissuade the most determined visitor from seeking hospitality under the Rumpole roof. I went about my daily business and, when my work was done, I thought I should share some of the good fortune brought with my brief in the libel action with She Who Must Be Obeyed. I lashed out on two bottles of Pommeroy’s bubbly, some of the least exhausted flowers to be found outside the tube station and even, such was my reckless mood, lavender water for Hilda.
‘All the fruits of the earth,’ I told her. ‘Or, let’s say, the fruits of the first cheque in Nettleship v. The Beacon, paid in advance. The first of many, if we can spin out the proceedings.’
‘You’re doing that awful case!’ She didn’t sound approving.
‘That awful case will bring us in five hundred smackers a day in refreshers.’
‘Helping that squalid newspaper insult Amelia Nettleship.’ She looked at me with contempt.
‘A barrister’s duty, Hilda, is to take on all comers. However squalid.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘What?’
‘Nonsense. You’re only using that as an excuse.’
‘Am I?’
‘Of course you are. You’re doing it because you’re jealous of Amelia Nettleship!’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ I protested mildly. ‘My life has been full of longings, but I’ve never had the slightest desire to become a lady novelist.’
‘You’re jealous of her because she’s got high principles.’ Hilda was sure of it. ‘You haven’t got high principles, have you, Rumpole?’
‘I told you. I will accept any client, however repulsive.’
‘That’s not a principle, that’s just a way of making money from the most terrible people. Like the editor of the Daily Beacon. My mind is quite made up, Rumpole. I shall not use a single drop of that corrupt lavender water.’
It was then that I heard a sound from the hallway which made my heart sink. An all-too-familiar voice was singing ‘La donna è mobile’ in a light tenor. Then the door opened to admit Erskine-Brown wearing my dressing-gown and very little else.
‘Claude telephoned and told me all his troubles.’ Hilda looked at the man with sickening sympathy. ‘Of course I invited him to stay.’
‘You’re wearing my dressing-gown!’ I put the charge to him at once.
‘I had to pack in a hurry.’ He looked calmly at the sideboard. ‘Thoughtful of you to get in champagne to welcome me, Rumpole.’
‘Was the bath all right, Claude?’ Hilda sounded deeply concerned.
‘Absolutely delightful, thank you, Hilda.’
‘What a relief! That geyser can be quite temperamental.’
‘Which is your chair, Horace?’ Claude had the courtesy to ask.
‘I usually sit by the gas fire. Why?’
‘Oh, do sit there, Claude,’ Hilda urged him and he gracefully agreed to pinch my seat. ‘We mustn’t let you get cold, must we, after your bath?’
So they sat together by the gas fire and I was allowed to open champagne for both of them. As I listened to the rain outside the window my spirits, I had to admit, had sunk to the lowest of ebbs. And around five o’clock the following morning, Fig Newton, the rain falling from the bri
m of his hat and the drop falling off his nose, stood watching Hollyhock Cottage. He saw someone – he was too far away to make an identification – come out of the front door and get into a parked car. Then he saw the figure of a woman in a nightdress, no doubt Amelia Nettleship, standing in the lit doorway waving goodbye. The headlights of the car were switched on and it drove away.
When the visitor had gone, and the front door was shut, Fig moved nearer to the cottage. He looked down at the muddy track on which the car had been parked and saw something white. He stooped to pick it up, folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.
On the day that Nettleship v. The Beacon began its sensational course, I breakfasted with Claude in the kitchen of our so-called mansion flat in the Gloucester Road. I say breakfasted, but Hilda told me that bacon and eggs were off as our self-invited guest preferred a substance, apparently made up of sawdust and bird droppings, which he called muesli. I was a little exhausted, having been kept awake by the amplified sound of grand opera from the spare bedroom, but Claude explained that he always found that a little Wagner settled him down for the night. He then asked for some of the goat’s milk that Hilda had got in for him specially. As I coated a bit of toast with Oxford marmalade, the man only had to ask for organic honey to have it instantly supplied by She Who Seemed Anxious to Oblige.
‘And what the hell,’ I took the liberty of asking, ‘is organic honey?’
‘The bees only sip from flowers grown without chemical fertilizers,’ Claude explained patiently.
‘How does the bee know?’
‘What?’
‘I suppose the other bees tell it. “Don’t sip from that, old chap. It’s been grown with chemical fertilizers.” ’
So, ill-fed and feeling like a cuckoo in my own nest, I set off to the Royal Courts of Justice, in the Strand, that imposing turreted château which is the Ritz Hotel of the legal profession, the place where a gentleman is remunerated to the tune of five hundred smackers a day. It is also the place where gentlemen prefer an amicable settlement to the brutal business of fighting their cases.
I finally pitched up, wigged and robed, in front of the court which would provide the battleground for our libel action. I saw the combatants, Morry Machin and the fair Nettleship, standing a considerable distance apart. Peregrine Landseer, QC, counsel for the plaintiff, and Robin Peppiatt, QC, for the proprietors of the Beacon, were meeting on the central ground for a peace conference, attended by assorted juniors and instructing solicitors.
Forever Rumpole Page 16