The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  The mention of this hideously round figure made me choke on my tea.

  ‘Three hundred pounds! Hilda. Do you think I’m made of money? Besides, that represents, at a rough estimate, almost one hundred bottles of Pommeroy’s claret-style plonk…’

  But now the knives were definitely out. In a voice of cold steel Hilda came to the menace: ‘Rumpole, I’m giving you fair warning! If you don’t give me the money for new chair covers to brighten up our living-room, I’ll…’ But then there was a fatal moment of hesitation. I jumped in fearlessly with, ‘What’ll you do, Hilda?’

  Her bluff was called. She Who Must Be Obeyed visibly faltered. ‘I… I haven’t thought yet. But I’ll… I’ll take a most serious view. I promise you that.’

  You see what I mean? She and old King Lear had a lot to learn about the gentle art of blackmail. No doubt they could have profited by lessons from the client I was about to see, languishing in Oxford prison.

  However, I wasn’t taking any risks and I swallowed the last gulp of tea and bolted for Paddington station and on to a rather grimy diesel, bound in a westerly direction. How long was it since I had taken a train to go up to St Joseph’s College, Oxford, for the study of law? Law is a subject which, I may say, never interested me greatly. People in trouble, yes. Bloodstains and handwriting, certainly. The art of cross-examination, of course. Winning over a jury, fascinating. But law! The only honourable way to pass a law exam is to make a few notes on the cuff and take a quick shufti at them during the occasional visit to the bog.

  Oxford! They were romantic years I had spent at St Joseph’s no doubt. Those were the first nights when I got tipsy on College claret in the company of my boon companion, P. J. Fosdyke. Fozzy Fosdyke was a thinnish and nervous-looking historian who had a devilish method of playing draughts, a cunning way with a limerick, and a tendency to become overexcited at the sniff of a small dry sherry. Fosdyke and Rumpole were as inseparable, in those distant days, as the three musketeers, with poor old Monty Simpson, whom I had an irresistible desire to call ‘Shrimpson’ because of his pop eyes and eyebrows like waving antennae, making up the trio. We three used to drink bitter in pubs by the station together, and, on endless Sunday afternoons, go for walks through the countryside.

  As the train got into its stride, and we were granted a view of trees, the river and cows champing at sunlit grass, sizeable chunks of The Oxford Book of English Verse (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch edition) came floating into my mind.

  Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep

  And air-swept lindens yield

  Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers

  Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,

  And bower me from the August sun with shade;

  And the eye travels down to Oxford’s towers…

  What a joy it was, I thought, to be getting away from London, far from the terrors of Judge Bullingham and my clerk Henry, and the V.A.T. man and She Who Must Be Obeyed! And then, at last, I got a splendid view of the coal heaps round the canal as the train rattled and gasped its way into Oxford station.

  ‘Rumpole!’

  Walking down the platform I was accosted by a stout person whom I didn’t recognize. He was accompanied by an elderly grey-haired man whose sprouting eyebrows gave him the appearance of an anxious crustacean.

  ‘It’s never Horace Rumpole?’ The stout man sounded positive.

  ‘Well, it is sometimes.’

  ‘You remember me, don’t you, Rumpole? P. J. Fosdyke. We were up at St Joseph’s together.’

  ‘My God, Fozzy Fosdyke!’

  ‘And you recollect old Simpson. Senior Classics Fellow now at St Joseph’s.’

  ‘Monty Simpson! Senior Fellow?’

  It seemed incredible, until I remembered that standing in front of my two old friends I too must have seemed like some sort of antique or relic from the past. Simpson twitched his eyebrows and said in that high, slightly hysterical voice of his, which always sounded like a scream from the depths of the sea, ‘We were all at St Joseph’s together!’

  ‘In the year dot,’ I said, putting the record straight.

  ‘We climbed in one evening. Over the wall and straight into the Principal’s bedroom.’ Simpson was becoming nostalgic.

  ‘Which you mistook for the upstairs bog,’ Fosdyke reminded me.

  ‘And we were greeted by the sight of the Principal’s wife sitting bolt upright in bed in a pink nightie.’ Simpson was bubbling with long-remembered mirth.

  ‘And hair curlers.’ It was something that stuck in my mind.

  ‘A sight to drive a man to life-long homosexuality,’ Simpson thought. And then he asked me, ‘What are you doing in Oxford?’

  ‘Oh, a bit of legal business.’ Compared to the work of a Senior Classical Fellow it sounded on the sordid side.

  ‘Do you have to hurry back? Come for a drink at the old Coll. this evening. Or something to eat, we dine early.’ Fosdyke issued the invitation, and Simpson backed it up by nodding, his eyebrows waving gently in the air.

  Fosdyke explained that he was also on the academic staff of my old college, being a Tutor in Modern History. We had no more time for catching up on the news of our various careers as duty called in the shape of a good-looking young girl with nice eyes, clean jeans and a knapsack full of papers.

  ‘Mr Rumpole?’ she said. Someone must have described a crumpled sort of legal person in an old hat to her. ‘I’ve come to take you to the prison.’

  ‘Oh Rumpole! What have you done now?’ P. J. Fosdyke was laughing like an undergraduate. ‘Can it be that landlady’s daughter in Longwall Street?’

  ‘Do you want us to come with you and bail you out?’ Simpson was signalling joke with his eyebrows. Very wry fellows, these academics.

  ‘This is P. J. Fosdyke and Mr Shrimp… I beg his pardon, Simpson. Both dons of a sort from St Joseph’s, my old college.’

  ‘St Joseph’s!’ The girl seemed to be looking at all of us with a new wariness, and my old friends with a kind of hostility.

  ‘Yes, and you are…’

  ‘Sue Galton. I’m an articled clerk with Newby and Paramore, your instructing solicitor in the Vernon case.’

  ‘Vernon!’ This time Fozzy Fosdyke looked slightly uneasy, and the Shrimp gave out one of his piercing underwater laughs.

  ‘Well, Rumpole. Do come and have a drink up at the Coll. For old times’ sake.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Of course I will. For the sake of old times.’

  ‘Come on, Mr Rumpole. I’ve got a taxi outside. We can’t keep Peter waiting.’

  Peter? Who was Peter? And then I remembered, our client was Peter Vernon.

  ‘Why?’ He is not going anywhere, is he?’ I said, and because of the hurt look in Sue Galton’s eyes I immediately regretted having said it. She must be one of the new sort of instructing solicitor, the sensitive variety.

  Peter Vernon, as I’d gathered from a glance through my brief on the way up in the train (always ask your client, at the start of any conference, to tell you his story in his own words, that saves a lot of preliminary reading), was a young man in his early twenties. His father was a shop steward in the Cowley works and Peter had a number of A-levels, but just couldn’t find work that suited him, rebelling, in a way I found quite understandable, from the tedium of the assembly line. He finally landed a job as a gardener at St Joseph’s, a pleasant enough existence, I should have imagined, mowing the croquet lawn and planting out snapdragons. He was all set, it seemed, for a gentle and rustic existence in the heart of Oxford. In fact, his statement had read, ‘I was extremely happy at St Joseph’s until this business with Sir Michael started.’

  Sir Michael Tuffnell, Oxford Professor of Moral Philosophy, Principal of St Joseph’s College for the past five years, was a popular guru known to millions. He was a grey-haired and distinguished-looking old party, with a twinkling eye and a considerable sense of humour, always ready to be wheeled on to the telly or ‘Any Questions’ when anyone wanted a sna
p answer on such troublesome points as ‘What is the meaning of meaning?’ Or ‘Is God dead?’

  Sir Michael was a person, certainly, of the utmost brilliance and respectability, whose grasp of the Nature of the Universe was such that God no doubt relied on him to tell him whether or not He existed, a question that Sir Michael answered with a respectful and tentative negative, meanwhile keeping his options open. Apart from his brilliance as a philosopher, he was known as a patron of the arts, an expert on Italian opera and the holder of progressive and even radical opinions. Perhaps he was rather self-consciously determined not to be thought of as a remote academic or an intellectual snob. He seemed to have gone out of his way to be kind to the new young gardener, to talk to him and to lend him books and records. There was no evidence from the prosecution that the relationship between the Philosopher and the Gardener had ever gone so far as what would be called, in any self-respecting social inquiry report, a deeply caring one-to-one single-sex situation. Indeed, my client, in his statement, denied that anything of the sort had ever occurred.

  According to Sir Michael, this represented a change of story by Peter Vernon. The young gardener, he said, had threatened to tell the world, or at least the Senior Common Room, of passionate goings on in the Principal’s lodge. For a while Sir Michael gave my client cheques, considerable sums in cash and a handsome gold engraved cigarette case to prevent this baseless accusation being made. Finally, and with considerable courage, the Principal went to the Oxford constabulary and denounced his gardening blackmailer.

  It seemed a straightforward, sordid and averagely unpleasant case. But as we sat in the taxi on our way to the prison, Miss Sue Galton, leaned forward, fixed me with her sincere look (blue eyes and brown hair, I noticed, made an attractive combination) and added to my instructions.

  ‘Mr Rumpole. Before we get to the prison, there’s something I ought to tell you. You see, Peter’s not in the least gay.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure he isn’t.’ I sympathized entirely. ‘Not stuck in Oxford gaol for the past six months awaiting the attentions of one of Her Majesty’s Judges on a nasty charge of blackmail.’

  ‘No. You don’t understand.’ Miss Galton sounded impatient.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Peter’s just not queer. He’s not homosexual.’ There was the smallest hesitation before she added, ‘You see, I can guarantee that. Personally.’

  ‘Can you, Miss Galton?’

  ‘Oh yes. You see, Peter’s my boyfriend. We’re going to get married when you get him off.’

  This, I must say, was an added complication. If I lost the case, as, after a brief glance at the papers, seemed highly probable, I should not only have an aggrieved client, but a broken-hearted solicitor on my hands. Moreover, I didn’t see how I could question the fiancé without some embarrassment to his legal adviser. I don’t think I had ever had a solicitor who’d been to bed with the client before, at least not in such complicated circumstances. I hadn’t fully worked out all the implications of Miss Sue Galton’s evidence before our taxi reached the prison and she rang for admittance.

  After the gate had opened, after the formalities were complete and the shades of the prison-house began to close upon the growing Rumpole, we were shown into the cupboard they grandly called an interview room, and Peter Vernon was brought to us. As he came in, Miss Sue Galton began to glow in a way which provided little evidence of Vernon’s homosexuality. He gave her a smile, and then welcomed me with a mixture of modesty and gratitude.

  ‘Hullo, Mr Rumpole. It’s kind of you to come all this way. I know you’re busy.’

  ‘I got you some fags, Peter.’ Miss Galton dived in her kit bag and came up with a packet of Gauloises.

  ‘Oh, thanks, Sue.’ He took one and lit it, the smoke mixed with the usual prison smell of urine and disinfectant to give us a genuine continental atmosphere.

  ‘How are things in the Oxford nick?’ I said politely, and he smiled at me.

  ‘Well, it’s not the Senior Common Room at St Joseph’s. But it’s not so bad, I suppose. There’s one or two decent screws. Blokes you can talk to.’ He was being perfectly fair. Then he looked at my solicitor, concerned. ‘You haven’t been worrying, have you, Sue?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Her smile was rueful.

  ‘Well, you’re not to worry,’ he reassured her. ‘We’ll be all right. Now we’ve got Mr Rumpole. Sue told me, sir, you’re marvellous at getting criminals off.’

  ‘Really? She’s too kind.’ Something about all this politeness was worrying me. But they really were quite the nicest young couple I’d ever been banged up in a nick with.

  ‘Well, you may have a bit more trouble with me.’ Peter Vernon blew out smoke thoughtfully, he was still smiling.

  ‘Oh yes? Why?’ I asked him.

  ‘Well, I suppose my problem is – I’m not á criminal.’

  I looked at Peter Vernon. To say that he was a good-looking boy is an understatement. You can see faces like his on Greek statues and Florentine paintings. And, as I have said, the most disturbing thing, from the point of view of an old hack advocate about to undertake his defence, was that he looked innocent. I started a difficult interview cautiously, still embarrassed by the presence of the clearly devoted young girl, who gazed at our client as he talked, and took copious notes.

  ‘Well now, Peter. How long did you work at St Joseph’s?’ I decided to begin at the beginning, as far as possible from the unfortunate heart of the matter.

  ‘About ten months.’

  ‘You met Sir Michael soon after you started there?’

  ‘Oh yes. He came up to me in the garden one afternoon. He was very charming.’

  ‘Do you remember what he said?’

  ‘When he first spoke to me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I do, as a matter of fact. He said…’ Peter Vernon closed his eyes and repeated the words as though he understood them.

  ‘ “Such was that happy Garden State

  When man first walked without a mate.”

  And I said:

  “After a place so pure and sweet,

  What other help could yet be meet?” ’

  There was no reason why anyone should be surprised to hear Andrew Marvell repeated in the nick, but I was. I lit a small cigar and blew out smoke as Peter went on with his story.

  ‘He used to come out and see me – if I was alone in the garden. Sometimes he’d bring me a glass of sherry or a packet of fags. We’d talk…’

  ‘What did you talk about?’ Uneasily I realized I had asked the stock prosecution question in all homosexual cases. Young men and old men, prosecutors always seemed to assume, with their resolutely filthy minds, have absolutely nothing to talk about except sex. Peter Vernon answered quite calmly, and his answer seemed convincing.

  ‘Oh, we talked about all sorts of things. Music…’

  ‘Peter’s great on music.’ Miss Sue Galton added her pennyworth eagerly.

  ‘And opera,’ Peter Vernon went on. ‘He told me that opera was another world. I’d never seen one, but he told me I was like Siegfried, Wagner’s Siegfried. Then one day he asked me if I’d like to come up to London, to go to Covent Garden with him. We had dinner at his Club.’

  ‘Where?’ Would Sir Michael have taken a young gardener he was having an affair with to his London Club? I supposed that might depend on the extent of the philosopher’s sublime self-confidence.

  ‘Somewhere in St James’s. The food was terrible. You’d do better in a bistro in Oxford. Then we went off to Covent Garden.’

  ‘And Wagner? Pretty hard going I imagine?’

  What I know about Wagner’s operas could be written on a postcard and still leave room for the stamp. Claude Erskine-Brown is the Wagnerian expert in our Chambers, and he tells me that Tristan and Isolde were in love with death, which seems to me, at my advanced age, a rum sort of thing to fancy. I mean, who wants to hop into bed with a terminal disease?

  ‘I’d have liked to stop listening
but I felt I had to. Out of politeness to Sir Michael at first. But then out of… I don’t know why. It upset me. The music upset me terribly.’

  Miss Galton looked at her lover with enormous sympathy.

  ‘Did you come back to Oxford that night?’

  ‘Sir Michael drove me back, yes.’

  ‘And then?’ I asked, and our instructing solicitor looked at our client; I was reminded of an eager fiancée watching a Wimbledon champion, her breath held, her fingernails stuck into the palms of her hands. What would he do with the question, lob it out of court or smash it into the net? In fact, Peter Vernon made a neat return, and his fan club breathed again.

  ‘I’ve got a room near the station,’ he said. ‘He dropped me off there and then… I suppose he drove back to the College.’

  ‘After that?’ Miss Galton looked at me as though, Peter Vernon having won game and set, further play was surely no longer necessary.

  ‘After that we went to dinner in London once or twice. Oh, and I had tea with him in his rooms a few times.’

  My client was carefully squashing out his cigarette end in the top of an old tin provided.

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Yes, that’s all.’

  All, at any rate, that I was going to get for the moment. I pulled out my watch, looked at it with incredulous despair and said something about having to telephone my clerk immediately.

  ‘You can do that from the office when we get back.’ Miss Galton suggested.

  ‘Henry’ll be gone then, I’m afraid. You couldn’t ask them if you can make a call at the gate, could you? Just ring my Chambers and say I will be back tonight. But not till much later. I’m having dinner with old friends in Oxford. But I’ll be free for the breathalyser case at Chelmsford tomorrow. There’s a good girl. Do you want 10p?’

  She went reluctantly, almost as though she were leaving her lover alone with a rival.

  When she had gone I spent a good deal of time looking at Peter Vernon in silence. Then I said, ‘I can’t get you off you know, unless you tell the truth.’