There was a long pause during which Hearthrug considered his position. Finally, he said, ‘Perhaps, all things considered, these Chambers might not be just what I’m looking for…’
‘Why don’t you slip next door, old darling,’ I suggested, ‘and tell Bollard exactly that?’
I must now tell you something which is entirely to the credit of Mrs Phillida Erskine-Brown. She was determined, once the case was over, to save the neck of her old friend and one-time mentor, Horace Rumpole, despite the fact that she had only recently been merrily engaged in cutting his throat. She had no idea of my stunning success with the horses, so she took it upon herself to call on the Bull in his room, just as he was changing his jacket and about to set off for Wimbledon to terrorize his immediate family. When she was announced by Shrimpton, the Court Clerk, the learned Judge brushed his eyebrows, shot his cuffs and generally tried vainly to make himself look a little more appetizing.
When Phillida entered, and was left alone in the presence, an extraordinary scene transpired, the details of which our Portia only told me long after this narrative comes to an end. The, no doubt, ogling judge told her that her conduct of the defence had filled him with admiration, and said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t say the same for Rumpole. In fact, I shall have to report him for gross professional misconduct.’ And the old hypocrite added, ‘After such a long career too. It’s a tragedy, of course.’
‘A tragedy he was interrupted,’ Phillida told him. She clearly had the Judge puzzled, so she pressed on. ‘I read the second half of that speech, Judge. Rumpole was extremely flattering, but I think the things he said about you were no less than the truth.’
‘Flattering?’ The Bull couldn’t believe his ears.
‘ “One of the fairest and most compassionate judges ever to have sat in the Old Bailey”; “Combines the wisdom of Solomon with the humanity of Florence Nightingale” – that’s only a couple of quotations from the rest of his speech.’
‘But… but that’s not how he started off!’
‘Oh, he was describing the sort of mistaken view the Jury might have of an Old Bailey judge. Then he was about to put them right, but of course the case collapsed and he never gave the rest of that marvellous speech!’
‘Florence Nightingale, eh? Can you tell me anything else’ – the Bull was anxious to know – ‘that Rumpole was about to say?’
‘ “With Judge Bullingham the quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.” Rather well put, I thought. Will you still be reporting Rumpole for professional misconduct?’
The Bull was silent then and appeared to reserve judgement. ‘I shall have to reconsider the matter,’ he said, ‘in the light of what you’ve told me, Mrs Erskine-Brown.’ And then he approached her more intimately: ‘Phillida, may I ask you one question?’
‘Certainly, Judge,’ our Portia answered with considerable courage, and the smitten Bull asked, ‘Do you prefer the hard or the creamy centres? When it comes to a box of chocolates?’
After this strange and in many ways heroic encounter, Phillida turned up, in due course, at Pommeroy’s Wine Bar, and sat at the table in the corner where she had formerly been drinking with Hearthrug. She was there by appointment, but she didn’t expect to meet me. I spotted her as soon as I came in, fresh from my encounter with the young man concerned, and determined to celebrate my amazing good fortune in an appropriate manner. I sat down beside her and, if she was disappointed that it was not someone else, she greeted me with moderate hospitality.
‘Rumpole, have a choc?’ I saw at once that she had a somewhat ornate box on the table in front of her. I was rash enough to take one with a mauve centre.
‘Bullingham gave them to me,’ she explained.
‘The Mad Bull’s in love! You’re a femme fatale, Portia.’
‘Don’t ask me to explain yet, I’m not sure how it’ll turn out,’ she warned me. ‘But I went to see him entirely in your interests.’
‘And I’ve just been seeing someone entirely in yours. What are you doing here, anyway, alone and palely loitering?’
‘I was just waiting for someone.’ Phillida was non-committal.
‘He’s not coming.’ I was certain.
‘What?’
‘Hearthrug’s not coming. He’s not coming into Chambers, either.’ She looked at me, puzzled and not a little hurt. ‘Why not?’
‘Henry doesn’t want him.’
‘Rumpole! What’ve you done?’ She suspected I had been up to something.
‘Sorry, Portia. I told him you wanted to move into his bachelor pad in Battersea and bring Tristan and Isolde with you. I’m afraid he went deathly pale and decided to cancel his subscription.’
There was a longish silence and I didn’t know whether to expect tears, abuse or a quick dash out into the street. I was surprised when at long last, she gave me a curious little half-smile and said, ‘The rat!’
‘I could have told you that before you started spooning with him all round the Old Bailey,’ I assured her and added, ‘Of course, I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t. You’d got no right to say any such thing.’
‘It was Henry and Dianne I was thinking about.’
‘Thank you very much!’
‘They don’t deserve Hearthrug. None of you deserve him.’
‘I was only considering a small adventure…’ she began to explain herself, a little sadly. But it was no time for regrets. ‘Cheer up, Portia,’ I told her. ‘In all the circumstances, I think this is the moment for me to buy the Dom Perignon. Méthode Champenoise is a thing of the past.’
She agreed and I went over to the bar where Jack Pommeroy was dealing with the arrival of the usual evening crowd. ‘A bottle of your best bubbles, Jack.’ I placed a lavish order. ‘Nothing less than the dear old Dom to meet this occasion.’ And whilst he went about fulfilling it, I saw Erskine-Brown come in and look around the room. ‘Ah, Claude,’ I called to him. ‘I’m in the chair. Care for a glass of vintage bubbly?’
‘There you are!’ he said, stating the obvious I thought. ‘I took a telephone message for you in the clerk’s room.’
‘If it’s about a murder tomorrow, I’m not interested.’ My murdering days were over.
‘No, this was rather a strange-sounding chap. I wouldn’t have thought he was completely sober. Said his name was Gerald.’
‘Gerald?’ I was pleased to hear it. ‘Yes, of course. Gerald…’
‘Said he was calling from London airport.’
‘From where?’
‘He said would I give his thanks to Mr Rumpole for the excellent tips, and he was just boarding a plane for a warmer climate.’
‘Gerald said that?’ I have had some experience of human perfidy, but I must say I was shocked and, not to put too fine a point on it, stricken.
‘Words to that effect. Oh, then he said he had to go. They were calling his flight.’
What do you do if your hopes, built up so bravely through the testing-time of a four-horse accumulator, are dashed to the ground? What do you do if the doors to a golden future are suddenly slammed in your face and you’re told to go home quietly? I called for Jack Pommeroy and told him to forget the Dom Perignon and pour out three small glasses of the Château Thames Embankment. Then I looked at Phillida sitting alone, and from her to Erskine-Brown. ‘Claude,’ I told him, ‘I have an idea. I think there’s something you should do urgently.’
‘What’s that, Rumpole?’
‘For God’s sake, take your wife to the Opera!’
During the course of these memoirs I have stressed my article of faith: never plead guilty. Like all good rules this is, of course, subject to exceptions. For instance, readers will have noticed that having got Dennis Timson off the firearm charges, I had no alternative but to plead to the theft. So it was with my situation before She Who Must Be Obeyed. I knew that she would soon learn of my announced retirement from the Bar. If I wished to avoid prolonged questioning o
n this subject, no doubt stretching over several months, I had no alternative but to come clean and throw myself on the mercy of the Court. And so, that night, before the domestic gas-fire I gave Hilda a full account of the wager I had placed with Gerald, and of the fat screw’s appalling treachery. ‘But Rumpole,’ she asked, and it was by no means a bad question, ‘do you mean to say you’ve got no record of the transaction?’
‘Nothing,’ I had to admit. ‘Not even a betting-slip. I trusted him. So bloody innocent! We look after our clients and we’re complete fools about ourselves.’
‘You mean’ – and I could see that things weren’t going to be easy – ‘you lost my hundred pounds?’
‘I’m afraid it’s on its way to a warmer climate With about three hundred thousand friends.’
‘The hundred pounds I spent on the new hearthrug!’ She was appalled.
‘That hundred pounds is still in the account of the Caring Bank, Hilda. Coloured red,’ I tried to explain.
‘You’ll have to go and talk to Mr Truscott about it,’ she made the order. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be inviting you to the Savoy Grill now, Rumpole?’
‘No, Hilda. I don’t suppose he will.’ I got up then to recharge our glasses, and, after a thoughtful sip, Hilda spoke more reasonably.
‘I’m not sure,’ she told me, ‘that I ever wanted to sit with you on a hotel verandah all day, drinking Planter’s Punch.’
‘Well. Perhaps not.’
‘We might have run out of conversation.’
‘Yes. I suppose we might.’
She had another sip or two and then, much to my relief, came out with ‘So things could be worse.’
‘They are,’ I had to break it to her.
‘What?’
‘They are worse, Hilda.’
‘What’ve you done now?’ She sighed over the number of offences to be taken into consideration.
‘Only promised Detective Inspector Broome that I’d done my last case. Oh, and told the Jury exactly what I thought of the Mad Bull. In open Court! I’ll probably be reported to the Bar Council. For disciplinary action to be considered.’
‘Rumpole!’ Of course she was shocked. ‘Daddy would be ashamed of you.’
‘That’s one comfort.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Your Daddy, Hilda, has already been called to account by the Great Benchers of the Sky. I hope he was able to explain his hopeless ignorance of bloodstains.’
There was a long silence and then She said, ‘Rumpole.’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you going to be doing tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘I mean’ – and Hilda made this clear to me – ‘I hope you’re not really going to retire or anything. I hope you’re not going to be hanging round the flat all day. You will be taking your usual tube. Won’t you? At eight forty-five?’
‘To hear is to obey.’ I lifted my glass of Pommeroy’s Ordinary to the light, squinted at it, and noted its somewhat murky appearance. ‘ “Courage!” he said, and pointed towards the Temple tube station.’
So it came about that at my usual hour next morning I opened the door of our clerk’s room. Henry was telephoning, Dianne was brightening up her nails and Uncle Tom was practising chip shots into the waste-paper basket. Nothing had changed and nobody seemed particularly surprised to see me.
‘Henry,’ I said, when our clerk put down the telephone.
‘Yes, Mr Rumpole?’
‘Any chance of a small brief going today, perhaps a spot of indecency at the Uxbridge Magistrates Court?’
* See Rumpole’s Return, Penguin Books, 1980.
* See ‘Rumpole and the Course of True Love’ in The Trials of Rumpole, Penguin Books, 1979.
* See Rumpole’s Return, Penguin Books, 1980.
* See ‘Rumpole and the Fascist Beast’ in The Trials of Rumpole, Penguin Books, 1979.
* See ‘Rumpole and the Younger Generation’ in Rumpole of the Bailey, Penguin Books, 1978.
* See Rumpole’s Return, Penguin Books, 1980.
* See ‘Rumpole and the Age for Retirement’ in The Trials of Rumpole, Penguin Books, 1979.
* See ‘Rumpole and the Alternative Society’ in Rumpole of the Bailey, Penguin Books, 1978.
* See ‘Rumpole and the Genuine Article’ in Rumpole and the Golden Thread, Penguin Books, 1983.
* See ‘Rumpole and the Alternative Society’ in Rumpole of the Bailey, Penguin Books, 1978.
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