The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘I’m not absolutely crazy about him,’ I admitted.

  ‘It’s the jury that matters, Oswald.’ Mr Winter tried to reassure him. ‘Mr Rumpole’s getting through to the jury.’

  ‘From what I seen, that Judge, he’s pretty angry with you, dad.’ Oswald frowned at me.

  ‘It’s part of the wear and tear of legal life.’ I was prepared to be philosophical.

  ‘So when I seen that, I decide to plead guilty.’

  ‘But Mr Rumpole explained. If you tell us you didn’t do it.…’ Mr Winter protested.

  ‘I tell you now. I don’t want this going on.’

  ‘But if you didn’t do it…’

  ‘I made that statement, didn’t I?’ Oswald shook his head. ‘That Judge. He’s getting really angry.’

  ‘But Oswald. I told you. It’s the jury that matters, not the Judge.’

  ‘It’s gone all against us.’ Mr Gladstone had lost his early ebullience. In vain, Winter continued, cheeringly, ‘I’ve seen them all at work, and Mr Rumpole’s cross-examination was top hole! I mean, he had D.I. Arthur right on the ropes.’

  Oswald gave me a look of pity. ‘I’m sorry, dad. I know you tried real hard.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Well, it hadn’t been a day of kind words for Rumpole.

  ‘Just wasn’t working for you, was it? So I’m pleading guilty.’

  ‘If you’re quite sure.’ I could have wished he’d made his decision in the morning.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘We’d better take written instructions then.’ It’s always a wise precaution to get a client’s signature to a change of plea, so I started to write, just as Inspector Arthur had started to write on a previous occasion.

  ‘Cheer up the old Judge, anyway.’ Oswald smiled.

  ‘Well, I think you’re doing the wrong thing, Oswald,’ my instructing solicitor rambled on. ‘I think it’s a tragedy. I mean, give Mr Rumpole another half hour with that Inspector and he’ll come out as what he is, a nigger hater.’

  ‘He didn’t call me no nigger.’ Oswald shook his head. ‘He never called me that.’

  ‘Well, if you think you know what you’re doing.’ Winter was still grumbling, but Oswald was looking at me with, I thought, some apprehension.

  ‘What you got there, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘Written instructions. For you to sign.’ I finished writing and handed Mr Gladstone the sheet I had torn out of my notebook. ‘You can sign that, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I can write my name.’ Oswald sounded hurt.

  ‘Read it through first. Just read it through. Before you sign it.’ I went on playing the Inspector Arthur part. Oswald took the paper, glanced at it, and said confidently, ‘O.K. I read it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I was watching him carefully.

  ‘O.K.’ Oswald began to sound irritable.

  ‘Why don’t you read it out loud? Come on, old dear. Just so we’re sure you’ve got it perfectly clear. Out loud. Like you did down at the nick.’

  There was a long, a very long pause, during which I knew the answer to the case of Mr Oswald Gladstone and his confession of guilt.

  ‘You can’t read, can you, Oswald?’ I said quietly. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  Ossie was too ashamed of not reading to try to get off a little charge of attempted murder. He looked away from me, and said, ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I think,’ I told him, ‘I want you to fight.’

  On my way back to Court I ran into the Rev. Eldred Pickersgill still hanging about and waiting to give evidence. I was able to check a few facts with him before I pushed open the glass swing door and prepared myself to go a few more rounds with Detective Inspector Arthur and Mr Justice Bates.

  ‘Detective Inspector. You remember saying before we adjourned for luncheon that you didn’t read out his alleged statement to my client?’ I got straight down, you see, to the pith of the argument.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The officer in the witness-box now sounded bored.

  ‘But, you said, the reverse was the case, and he read his statement out to you?’

  ‘That’s perfectly true.’

  ‘Would it interest you to know, Inspector, that Oswald Gladstone can neither read nor write?’

  ‘But…’ The Judge, of course, had picked up the document and was looking at the scribbled signature. I interrupted to explain, and give him further details thanks to the Reverend Eldred Pickersgill.

  ‘Oh, he can scrawl his signature – just, my Lord. But the whole realm of poetry is a closed book to him. Wordsworth is silent. Dickens and Thackeray might not have existed. He can’t even look up and tell what street he’s in or follow the simplest directions for assembling a model aeroplane!’

  ‘Well, he either can read or he can’t. Which is it?’ the Judge asked, testily.

  ‘He can’t, can he, Inspector?’

  For once, Inspector Arthur seemed lost for words. The Judge, bless his little ermine cuffs, repeated the question.

  ‘Do you accept, Inspector, that this young man could not read?’

  Another long pause, and then the Inspector made an admission. ‘If counsel says so, I must accept that, my Lord.’

  ‘So it follows from that that you never put his reading to the test?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘It must do.’

  ‘And your evidence this morning was quite misleading?’

  ‘Yes. But…’

  ‘No “buts”, Inspector. It was either true of false. Which?’ Dear old Arthur spent a long while searching for a word and came up with, ‘It was incorrect.’

  ‘And if he couldn’t read, my client wouldn’t’ve known if you had written down his words, or your words, Inspector?’

  ‘He… might not know.’ The possibility was enough for me, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘He told you, didn’t he, about a boy called Ginger Robertson?’ I hoped I had prevented the proof of Oswald’s guilt. Now I had to do something to suggest he might even be innocent.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ the Inspector agreed.

  ‘Who was present at the scene of the crime?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who is not there in that dock?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because the combined power and brilliance of the detective force has not succeeded in catching that young gentleman, Ginger Robertson? Are the police still out looking for him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we got Gladstone’s confession?’

  ‘And because of that worthless document, you didn’t trouble to find the true criminal?’

  I thought of how I would describe my triumph to Nick, and settle all his doubts about my profession. I would say, ‘You see, Nick, sometimes it goes well. Sometimes it goes beautifully. Sweet and easy as cutting off a hunk of Stilton cheese or knocking back a glass of claret. You’ve got to lay the ground, though. You notice I tied old Arthur down before lunch. Got him committed to his story? Then I didn’t really know why I was doing it. But it was the instinct, you see. That’s why they use Rumpole, Nick. It’s the dear old instinct. See how it’s working for us? They’re never going to believe his confession now. See how it’s working for us, Nick?’

  I looked behind me, but the seat beside Mr Winter was empty. My son had gone to start a new sort of life in another country.

  At the end of the prosecution evidence, I made a speech to the jury, and didn’t call Oswald. They took about an hour to acquit. When I said goodbye to my client he looked discontented, and asked me why I had to show him up for not being able to read.

  All the same I was in a moderately satisfied mood as I stood in front of the porcelain of the Gents attached to the Old Bailey robing room and recited a particularly triumphant bit of Wordsworth to myself.

  ‘ “She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

  I dipped my oars into the silent lake.

  And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat

  Went heaving through the water
like a swan…” ’

  ‘So you had to fight your case, Rumpole.’ George came pottering up beside me.

  ‘Yes, George. It was a pretty good day. Had a bit of fun with the Detective Inspector. He’ll probably go home and kick the chrysanthemums.’

  ‘So you never got away to see your son?’ George asked.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You had a fight on your hands. You never got away to meet your boy?’

  ‘Well, Nick came up here. He came up to the Bailey. To watch the old man in action.’

  ‘He’ll have enjoyed that.’

  ‘Oh yes! Nick’s always liked the Bailey. Since he was a schoolboy. He used to come up to my murders and then I’d give him a rattling good tea!’

  Back in mufti, I was on my way out of the Bailey when I ran into a gratified Mr Winter and his side-kick Jo.

  ‘You crucified old D.I. Arthur, Mr Rumpole.’ Winter beamed. ‘You really did.’

  At which moment, the Detective Inspector and his Sergeant passed us on their way out to a villainous world. The D.I. looked displeased and didn’t answer when I gave him a cheery good night. I felt some sympathy for the officer, and said to Winter, ‘Poor old sweetheart. You know, Ossie may have said all that to him. Every word. The only mistake the Inspector made was to ginger it up with a little lie.’

  ‘His only mistake? Do you believe that?’ Mr Winter gave me a tolerant smile.

  ‘Who knows?’ And I told him, ‘It’s not my job to believe anything.’

  After dinner, I sat in the chilly living-room of the ‘mansion’ flat finishing a bottle of Château Fleet Street, and thumbing through the papers in a rather attractive little murder my clerk had landed for me. My wife, Hilda, was knitting some woollen garment intended as a substitute for a more efficient form of central heating.

  ‘You saw Nick, then,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I saw him. Well, we had a scrap lunch, but very pleasant. Very pleasant indeed.’

  ‘He said you had a sandwich in the pub!’ She Who Must Be Obeyed said accusingly. I looked up from the interesting description of another stab wound and apologized. ‘Well, you know how it is in the Bailey. It’s difficult to make plans.’

  ‘Nick said he talked about you, about your work. He seemed to think it was a little, well, off-colour somehow.’

  ‘Did he? Did he give you that impression?’ I was genuinely surprised when She sounded indignant.

  ‘I must say, I wasn’t having that from Nick!’ I looked at her questioningly, and Hilda went on. ‘ “Your father,” I told him, “is a member of an Honourable Profession. Besides which, think of all he’s done for you. Public school, Oxford, and a lot of help in going to America.” ’

  ‘All paid for by the proceeds of crime.’

  ‘I certainly did not say that! I said, “Nick. You should respect your father.” That’s what I said.’

  ‘Thank you, Hilda.’

  ‘Well he should.’

  I got up and found a small cigar. I was more troubled, perhaps, than I had liked to admit about what Nick had said to me. ‘Nick thinks we ask all the wrong questions. Just so we can get the wrong answers. That’s what he thinks.’

  ‘He really upset me, talking like that.’ Hilda clicked her needles disapprovingly.

  ‘He’s perfectly right, of course.’

  ‘Rumpole!’

  I applied a torn-off page of the Criminal Law Review to the electric fire and lit the small cigar.

  ‘I mean, “Why?” That’s what we ought to be asking about Mr Oswald Gladstone. Not “Who did it?” “Who’s guilty?” “Can you prove it?” “Yes I can.” “No, you can’t.” “Bags I have the last word and the burden of the proof.” But why? Why ever did that happen? Outside Lords, for no reason whatsoever. I mean, God knows I believe in freedom. But jolly Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I’d like to ask him a few pertinent questions.’ Nothing was heard in the room but the click of Hilda’s needles. Then she said, ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. So far as I am concerned, you belong to an Honourable Profession. And you do it very well. I heard that at the garden party. “Rumpole,” Guthrie Featherstone told me, “is stubborn as a mule in cross-examination.” ’

  ‘You know what else Nick said?’ I asked her.

  ‘So far as I can understand, Nick talked a lot of nonsense.’ She went into a spurt of high-speed knitting.

  ‘He said you didn’t know exactly who I am.’

  ‘Of course I do. You’re Rumpole!’ She stopped knitting then and looked at me, only a little puzzled. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Well, yes. I’m Horace Rumpole. What was Nick talking about? Everyone down the Bailey knows me. I’m an amiable eccentric who drops ash down his waistcoat and tells the time with a gold hunter and calls Judges old sweethearts. Also I recite Wordsworth in the loo.

  That’s who I am, isn’t it?

  Rumpole and the Gentle Art of Blackmail

  A certain amount of detachment, the learned Head of my Chambers, Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P., says, is essential to the life of a barrister. This means that you should be able to see your client sent down for a long stretch, wave him a cheery goodbye and potter off to the Sheridan Club for a touch of cold pheasant with nothing more than a mild ‘Oops!’ at having backed another loser.

  Detachment, I suppose, comes easily to Guthrie. He plays golf with a number of Her Majesty’s Judges and when he stands up to defend, he often gets a small smile from His Lordship which seems to indicate, ‘Well, we know you’ve got to go through the motions, old chap. Better luck next time when you’ll be appearing for the prosecution.’ When I get up on my hind legs, the judicial attitude is to identify me more closely with the criminal classes. Indeed I sometimes think that as I stand in the robes and old horsehair wig I might as well be wearing a cloth cap, mask, striped jersey and carrying a bag marked ‘swag’, from the glassy-eyed stare of disapproval I get from the old sweetheart on the bench.

  Quite frequently, of course, I can rise above it. Sometimes I can even manage a touch of the famous Featherstone detachment. When defending Bertie Timson on yet another charge of carrying housebreaking implements by night, for instance, I know what verdict the old darling expects, and any better result will be accepted with the utmost gratitude.

  But when it comes to defending a young man with no previous convictions, about whom you have the horrible suspicion that he may be innocent, then proceedings may become extremely sticky, not to say, hair-raising, and detachment is extremely difficult. Adverse verdicts, in such circumstances, tend to be taken to heart and inflict wounds which can only be soothed by a prolonged dosage of Pommeroy’s ordinary claret (Château Fleet Street 1979) and an influx of other briefs. The scars, however, remain.

  It is not, happily, very often that you get a client cursed with the possibility of innocence, but it does happen, and such a client was young Vernon, gardener and handyman at St Joseph’s College, Oxford, whose case caused me a number of sleepless nights under the dreaming spires. The situation wasn’t made any easier by the fact that R. v. Vernon was a case concerned with an offence of the kind which draws a swift intake of breath from Her Majesty (who, of course, concerns herself in the prosecution of all potential villains), and usually involves a prolonged stay at one of the Royal Residences in Wandsworth, Pentonville or the Isle of Wight. The crime in question was blackmail, in this case of a ‘distinguished public figure’, and carried out in a particularly nasty manner.

  Blackmail, technically speaking, the demanding of money with menaces, is, as I say, looked on with grave disapproval by the powers that be; but it’s an essential part of family life. When it is used, however, it does require a certain amount of basic skill.

  I will do such things…

  What they are yet I know not – but they shall be

  The terrors of the earth.

  That vague menace of King Lear, of course, was absolutely hopeless as a bit of blackmail. The good blackmailer utters a threat which is short, clear an
d perfectly possible. My wife had that lesson to learn, over the matter of the new loose covers for our drawing-room chairs.

  Picture me, that morning, with She Who Must Be Obeyed (or Mrs Hilda Rumpole to give her the name under which she sometimes passes) at breakfast in our matrimonial home at 25B Froxbury Court, Gloucester Road. I was on my way to Oxford, not primarily for the purpose of visiting my old college, but to Her Majesty’s Prison, in order to confer with my client, Vernon, and She, having been on a tour of inspection of our ‘mansion’ flat, looked vaguely discontented and narrowed her eyes in the manner of someone about to put the screws on.

  ‘Rumpole!’ she said. ‘We need new chair covers.’

  There is only one way to deal with such an unnecessary and generally unhelpful remark – pretend you haven’t heard it.

  ‘Got to hurry breakfast, I’m afraid,’ I muttered. ‘I’m catching a train to Oxford.’

  Whatever else you may say about my wife Hilda, she gets top marks for persistence. She ignored my convenient deafness and carried on.

  ‘When we went to the Featherstones’ sherry party, I was admiring their chintz chair covers. So jolly and spring-like, I told Marigold Featherstone.’

  ‘I’m going there to study a rather jolly and spring-like little case of blackmail.’ I was consuming the tea and toast at breakneck speed.

  ‘We can’t invite the Featherstones to dinner here until we’ve got new chair covers, Rumpole.’ Hilda reached a verdict: ‘Our old chair covers would simply let us down.’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ve held me up for a good many years.’ It is a mistake to attempt any sort of pleasantry with She, particularly at breakfast. My wife looked distinctly unamused and trumpeted a warning, ‘Really, Rumpole!’

  ‘The charge is blackmail,’ I told her, hoping she might take the hint. ‘Demanding money with menaces. Within the sacred precincts of St Joseph’s, Oxford. My old college, Hilda.’

  She was neither deterred by my hint of crime nor interested in my reminiscence. With a carefully sharpened voice she continued:

  ‘Rumpole! Are you going to let me buy new chair covers or not? Marigold Featherstone only paid three hundred pounds to get hers done, and the sofa.’