The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘Erskine-Brown,’ I said accusingly. ‘Hatstand-pincher!’

  ‘Rumpole. That’s a most serious allegation.’

  ‘Hatstand-pinching is a most serious crime,’ I assured him.

  ‘You don’t need a hatstand in your room, Rumpole. Criminals hardly ever wear hats. I happened to have a conference yesterday with three solicitors all with bowlers.’

  ‘That hatstand is a family heirloom, Erskine-Brown. It belonged to my old father-in-law. I value it highly,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh, very well, Rumpole. If that’s the attitude.’ He was leaving me.

  ‘Goodnight, Erskine-Brown. And keep your hands off my furniture.’

  As I penetrated the interior, I saw our clerk Henry, who is, far more effectively than the egregious Bollard, the true Head of our Chambers and ruler of our lives, in the company of the ever-faithful Dianne. I asked him to name his poison, which he did, in an unattractive manner, as Cinzano Bianco and lemonade.

  ‘Dianne?’ I included her in the invitation.

  ‘I’ll have the same.’ She looked somewhat meltingly at Henry. ‘It’s what we used to have in Lanzarotte.’

  ‘Did you really? Well, I won’t inquire too deeply into that. And a large cooking claret, Jack, and no doubt you’d be happy to cash a small cheque?’ I asked the host as he came past pushing a cloth along the counter.

  ‘Well, not exactly happy, Mr Rumpole.’ Pommeroy was not in one of his sunnier moods.

  ‘Come on, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You haven’t lent a penny to Poland, have you? This is a much safer bank than the United Metropolitan. Oh, give yourself one while you’re about it,’ I said, as Jack moved reluctantly to get the drinks and the money. Then I turned to my clerk in a businesslike manner. ‘Now then, Henry, about this abominable Blythe. Not surfaced, by any stretch of the imagination?’

  ‘No, Mr Rumpole. Not as yet, sir.’

  ‘Not as yet. Lying in his hammock in some South Sea Island, is he, fondling an almond-eyed beauty and drinking up our brief fees and refreshers?’

  ‘I’ve made inquiries around the Temple. Mr Brushwood in Queen Elizabeth’s Buildings had the same problem, his clerk was telling me. Blythe owed well into four figures, and they couldn’t find hide nor hair of him, sir.’

  ‘But poor old Tommy Brushwood is…’ The claret had come and I resorted to it.

  ‘No longer with us. I know that, sir. And as soon as he’d gone, Blythe called on Mr Brushwood’s widow and got her to give him some sort of release for a small percentage. She signed as executor, not quite knowing the form, I would imagine. Cheers, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Cheers everso.’ Dianne smiled at me over the fizzy concoction.

  ‘But Henry, why has this Blythe not been reported to the Law Society? Why hasn’t he been clapped in irons,’ I asked him, ‘and transported to the colonies?’

  ‘All the clerks have thought of reporting him, of course. But if we did that we’d never get paid, now would we?’

  ‘Despite that drink you indulge in, which has every appearance of chilled Lucozade, I believe you still have your head screwed on, Henry. I have another solution.’

  ‘Honestly, Mr Rumpole? I’d be glad to hear it.’

  ‘We need Blythe as a witness in the Sun-Sand Mobile Homes case.’

  ‘R. v. Armstrong?’

  ‘Your memory serves you admirably. We’ll get Newton the Private Dick to find Blythe so he can slap a subpoena on him. If “Fig” Newton can’t find the little horror, no one can. Isn’t that all we need?’

  ‘I hope so, Mr Rumpole,’ Henry said doubtfully. ‘I really hope so.’

  Ferdinand Ian Gilmour Newton, widely known in the legal profession as ‘Fig’ Newton, was a tall, gloomy man who always seemed to be suffering from a heavy cold. No doubt his work, forever watching back doors, peering into windows, following errant husbands in all weathers, was responsible for his pink nostrils and the frequent application of a crumpled handkerchief. I have known ‘Fig’ Newton throughout my legal career. He appeared daily in the old-style divorce cases, when his evidence was invariably accepted. Since the bonds of matrimony can now be severed without old ‘Fig’ having to inspect the sheets or observe male and female clothing scattered in a hotel bedroom, his work has diminished; but he can still be relied upon to serve a writ or unearth an alibi witness. He seems to have no interests outside his calling. His home life, if it exists at all, is a mystery. I believe he snatches what sleep he can while sitting in his battered Cortina watching the lights go on and off in the bedroom of a semi-detached, and he dines off a paper of fish and chips as he guards the door of a debtor who has gone to earth.

  ‘Fig’ Newton called at the offices of Blythe, Winterbottom and Paisley early one morning and asked to see Mr Perivale Blythe. He was greeted by a severe-looking secretary, a lady named Miss Claymore, with spectacles, a tweed skirt and cardigan, and a Scots accent. Despite her assuring him that Perivale Blythe was out of the office and not expected back that day, the leech-like ‘Fig’ sat down and waited. He learned nothing of importance, except that round about noon Miss Claymore went into an inner office to make a telephone call. The detective was able to hear little of the conversation, but she did say something about the times of trains to Penzance.

  When Miss Claymore left her office, ‘Fig’ Newton followed her home. He sat in his Cortina in Kilburn outside the Victorian building, divided into flats, to which Miss Claymore had driven her small Renault. He waited for almost two hours, and when Miss Claymore finally emerged she had undergone a considerable change. She was wearing tight trousers of some satin-like material and a pink fluffy sweater. Her feet were crammed into high-heeled gold sandals and she was without her spectacles. She got into the Renault and drove to Soho, where she parked with considerable daring halfway up a pavement, and went into an Italian restaurant where she met a young man. ‘Fig’ Newton kept observation from the street and was thus unable to share in the lasagne and the bottle of Valpolicella, which he carefully noted down. Later the couple crossed Frith Street and entered a Club known as the ‘Pussy Cat A-Go-Go’, where particularly loud music was being played. ‘Fig’ Newton was later able to peer down into the basement of this Club, where, lit by sporadic, coloured lights, Miss Claymore was dancing with the same young man, whom he described as having the appearance of a young business executive with features very similar to those of our client.

  On the evening that Mr Perivale Blythe’s secretary went dancing, I was reading on the sofa at 25B Froxbury Court, smoking a small cigar and recovering from a hard day of writing this account in my Chambers. Suddenly, and without warning, my wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, dropped a heavy load of correspondence on to my stomach.

  ‘Hilda,’ I protested. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Bills, Rumpole. Can’t you recognize them?’

  ‘Electricity. Gas. Rates. Water rates.’ I gave them a glance. ‘We really must cut down on these frivolities.’

  ‘All gone red,’ Hilda told me.

  ‘It’s only last month’s telephone bill.’ I looked at a specimen. ‘We should lay that down for maturing. You don’t have to rush into paying these things, you know. Mr Blythe hasn’t paid me much of anything since 1972.’

  ‘Well, you’d better tell Mr Perivale Blythe that the London Electricity Board aren’t as patient as you are, Rumpole,’ She said severely.

  ‘Hilda. You know we can’t sue anyone for our fees.’

  ‘I can’t think why ever not.’ My wife has only a limited understanding of the niceties of legal etiquette.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a gentlemanly thing to do,’ I explained. ‘Against the finest traditions of the Bar.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s a gentlemanly thing to sit here in the dark with the gas cut off and no telephone and nasty looks every time you go into the butcher’s. All I can say is, you can sit there and be gentlemanly on your own. I’m going away, Rumpole.’

  I looked at Hilda with a wild surmise. Was I, at an advanced age,
about to become the product of a broken home? ‘Is that a threat or a promise.’ I asked her.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, “Of course, you’ll be missed,” ’ I assured her.

  ‘Dodo’s been asked to stay with a friend in the Lake District, Pansy Rawlins, whom we were both at school with, if you remember.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I was there at the time.’

  ‘And Pansy’s lost her husband recently.’

  ‘Careless of her,’ I muttered, moving the weight of the bills off me.

  ‘So it’ll be a bachelor party. Of course, when Dodo first asked me I said I couldn’t possibly leave you, Rumpole.’

  ‘I am prepared to make the supreme sacrifice and let you go. Don’t worry about me,’ I managed to say bravely.

  ‘I don’t suppose I shall, unduly. But you’d better worry about yourself. My advice to you is, find this Colindale Blythe.’

  ‘Perivale, Hilda.’

  ‘Well, he sounds a bit of a twister, wherever he lives. Find him and get him to pay you. Make that your task.’ She looked down at me severely. ‘Oh, and while I’m away, Rumpole, try not to put your feet on the sofa.’

  Today I arrived in good time at the Old Bailey. I like to give myself time to drink in the well-known atmosphere of floor polish and uniforms, to put on the fancy dress at leisure and then go down to the public canteen for a cup of coffee and a go at the crossword. I needed to build up my strength particularly this morning, as Henry had let me know the name of our Judge the evening before. I therefore ordered a particularly limp sausage roll with the coffee, and I had just finished this and was lighting a small cigar, when Myers appeared carrying Newton’s latest report, accompanied by Miss Fiona Allways, wigged and gowned and ready for the fray. Since the curious sighting of Blythe’s secretary tripping the light fantastic at the Pussy Cat A-Go-Go, ‘Fig’ had kept up a patient and thorough search for the elusive Perivale Blythe, with no result whatsoever.

  ‘I still think Blythe’s an essential witness.’ Fiona was sticking to her guns.

  ‘Of course he is,’ I agreed.

  ‘We just need more time for Newton to make inquiries. Can’t we ask for an adjournment?’ Myers suggested hopefully.

  ‘We can ask.’ I’m afraid my tone was not particularly encouraging.

  ‘Surely, Mr Rumpole, any reasonable judge would grant it.’

  Perhaps Myers was right; but it was then that I had to remind him that we’d been landed with his Honour Judge Roger Bullingham. I stood up in front of him, with the jury out of Court and Ward-Webster, our young and eager prosecutor, relaxing in his seat, and asked for an adjournment in no less than five distinct and well-considered ways. It was like trying to shift a mountain with a teaspoon. Finally his Honour said, in a distinctly testy tone of voice,

  ‘Mr Rumpole! For the fifth time, I’m not adjourning this case. So far as I can see the defence has had all the time in the world.’

  ‘Your Lordship may know how long it takes to find a solicitor.’ I tried the approach jovial. ‘If your Lordship remembers his time at the Bar.’ The joke, if it can be dignified with such a title, went down like a lead balloon.

  ‘Mr Rumpole, neither your so-called eloquence nor your alleged pleasantry are going to make me change my mind.’ Bullingham was beginning to irritate me. I raised the Rumpole voice a couple of decibels. ‘Then let me tell you an indisputable fact. For years my client’s business life was in the hands of Mr Perivale Blythe.’

  ‘Your client’s business life, such as it was, was in his own hands, Mr Rumpole.’ The Judge was unimpressed. ‘And it’s about time he faced up to his responsibilities. This case will proceed without any further delay. That is my final decision.’

  There is a way of saying ‘If your Lordship pleases’ so that it sounds like dumb insolence. I said it like that and sat down.

  ‘You did your best, sir,’ Myers turned and whispered to me. Good old Myersy. That’s what he always says when I fail dismally.

  For the rest of the day I sat listening to prosecution evidence. From time to time my eyes wandered around the courtroom and, on one such occasion, I saw a severe-looking female in spectacles sitting in the front of the Public Gallery, taking notes.

  It was a long day in Court. When I got back to the so-called mansion flat, I noticed something unusual. She Who Must Be Obeyed was conspicuous by her absence. I called, ‘Hilda!’ in various empty rooms and then I remembered that she had gone off, in none too friendly a mood, to stay with her old school chums, Dodo and Pansy, in the Lake District. So I poached a couple of eggs, buttered myself a slice of toast and sat down to a bottle of Pommeroy’s plonk and this account. Now I am up to date with my life and with events in the Sun-Sand Mobile Holiday Home affair. Tomorrow, I suppose, will bring new developments on all fronts. The only thing that can be said with any certainty about tomorrow is that I shan’t become any younger, nor will Judge Bullingham prove any easier to handle. Now the bottle’s empty and I’ve smoked the last of my small cigars. The washing up can take care of itself. I’m going to bed.

  THE NARRATIVE OF MISS FIONA ALLWAYS

  I should never have taken this on. From the first day I met him in Chambers, after I had received a severe ticking-off from Mrs Erskine-Brown, Q.C., Rumpole was extremely decent to me. I’m still not absolutely sure how he managed to persuade the men at 3 Equity Court to take me on, but I have a feeling that he did something pretty devious for my sake. I took a note from him in quite a few of his cases and he was able to winkle a junior brief in R. v. Armstrong for me out of his instructing solicitor. So you see, although a lot of people found him absolutely impossible, and he could say the most appalling things quite unexpectedly, Rumpole was always extremely kind to me and, above all, he saved my sister Jennifer from doing a life sentence for murder.

  So you can imagine my feelings about what happened to Rumpole in the middle of the Armstrong trial. Well, you’ll have to imagine them, I’m afraid to say, because although I never got less than B + for an essay at school, and although I can get a set of facts in order and open a case fairly clearly at Thames Mags Court now, I’m never going to have Rumpole’s talent for emotional speeches. All I can say is that the day R. v. Armstrong was interrupted, as it was, was a day I hope I never have to live through again. What I’m trying to say is, my feelings of gratitude to old Rumpole made that a pretty shattering experience.

  All the same, I do realize that the records of one of Rumpole’s more notable cases should be complete, and that’s why I’ve agreed to give my own account of the closing stages of the Armstrong trial. I suppose my taking this on is the least I can do for him now. So, anyway, here goes.

  I have to say that I never particularly liked our client, Frank Armstrong. He had doggy eyes and a good deal of aftershave and I got the feeling that he was trying to make some sort of a pass at me at our first conference; and that sort of thing, so far as I am concerned, is definitely not on. When he came to give evidence I think Rumpole soon realized that Armstrong wasn’t going to be a particularly impressive witness, and he looked fairly gloomy as we sat listening to our client being cross-examined by Ward-Webster, who was doing a pretty competent job for the prosecution. I took a full note and, looking at it now, I see that the moment came when the witness was shown the photograph of the Sun-Sand Mobile Home site in Cornwall, and Judge Bullingham, who didn’t seem to like Rumpole, turned to the jury and said, ‘Hardly looks like the Côte d’Azur, does it, members of the jury? It looks like an industrial tip.’

  ‘Looking in the other direction, there’s a view of the sea, my Lord.’ I remember our client sounding distinctly pained.

  ‘What, between the crane and the second lorry?’ Bullingham was still smiling at the jury.

  ‘A great deal of our patrons’ time is spent on the beach,’ Armstrong protested.

  ‘Perhaps they want a quiet night!’ the Judge suggested, and the jury laughed.

  ‘Mr Armstrong. Do you agree that on no
less than fifty occasions holidays on the site in Cornwall turned out to have been booked in non-existent mobile homes?’ Ward-Webster went on with his cross-examination.

  ‘Yes indeed, but…’ the witness was sounding particularly hopeless.

  ‘And that your firm was paid large deposits for such holidays?’ Ward-Webster went on.

  ‘Well, this is it, but…’

  ‘And on one occasion at least a mobile home was actually removed from an unhappy mother just as she was about to enter it?’

  ‘It was one of those things…’

  ‘Instead of mother running away from home, the home ran away from mother?’

  I remember that the Judge made his joke at that point, and Rumpole muttered to me, ‘Oh well done, Bull. Quite the stand-up comic.’

  ‘And that letters of protest from the losers and their legal advisers remained unanswered?’ Ward-Webster went on when the laughter died down.

  ‘If there were complaints, the information should have been fed into the office computer.’

  ‘Perhaps the people in question would rather have had their money back than have their complaints consumed by your computer.’

  ‘Quite frankly, Mr Ward-Webster, our office at Sun-Sand Holidays is equipped with the latest technology.’ Our client sounded deeply offended. At this the Judge told him that it was a pity it wasn’t also equipped with a little old-fashioned plain dealing.

  Of course, Rumpole objected furiously and said that was the point the jury had to decide. My note reminds me that the Judge then smiled at the jury and said, ‘Very well, members of the jury, you will have heard Mr Rumpole’s objection. Now, shall we get on with the trial?’

  ‘Mr Armstrong, are you telling us that these events are due to the inefficiency of your office?’ Ward-Webster was only too glad to get on with it.

  ‘My office is not in the least inefficient. My brother’s business is computer hardware and…’

  It was at about this point in the evidence that I saw Rumpole closely studying the report of Mr Newton, the inquiry agent.

  ‘What’s the relevance of that, Mr Armstrong?’ Ward-Webster was asking.