John Mortimer - Rumpole 1 - Rumpole of The Bailey

by Rumpole of The Bailey(lit)

  His Honour Judge Crispin-Rice was delighted to see Rumpole and the prosecuting Tooke. He made us Nescaf6 with the electric kettle in his room. He looked younger with his wig off, and, when we had settled such vital matters as how much milk and no sugar thank you, he and Tooke tried to make me envious of their previous night's revelry in the Bar Mess.

  'We had a good evening. You should have been with us, Rumpole. Didn't we have a splendid evening, Vernon?' 'The leader gave us "The Floral Dance".' Tooke relived the great moment.

  'Old Pascoe is wonderful for 75. He entertained us in song.' The judge offered us a Senior Service. 'You'd have enjoyed it.' 'A splendid evening! We fined little Moreton a dozen bottles of claret for talking shop at dinner.' Tooke was bubbling at the memory.

  'We then started hacking away at the penalty! How many bottles were left?' 'None, Judge. As far as I remember' I thought the time had come to return their thoughts to the business in hand.

  'Look here, Judge,' I said. 'At the risk of being fined for talking shop. If... If it so happened I could persuade my client to plead guilty..." His Honour was stirring his cup, giving me no great assistance. 'You might be grateful for a short afternoon.' Even this didn't hook him. I went on, a little desperately. ' She's a remarkable girl.' 'So I can see.' Old Rice Crispies smiled then. Perhaps, I thought, I could rope him into 'Nirvana'.

  'Knows a good deal about Wordsworth.' I didn't know if this would sway the judicial mind.

  'Wordsworth? Is he a mitigating factor?' 'Poor old sheep of the Lake District. He can't afford to lose admirers.' 'No. Well. She'd get the full benefit of pleading guilty.' He was using his judge's voice. I stood up, like a barrister.

  'Can't you tell me any more than that?' 'There are rules.' 'I thought you might indicate...' 'The tariff? You know the tariff. How much was it? Twenty pounds weight. A fair wallop!' 'It was only cannabis.' I tried to make it sound like broken biscuits. 'They use the stuff just like whisky. It doesn't occur to them...' 'But it isn't whisky, is it?' The Judge's voice again. 'It's a Class B drug as defined by the Dangerous Drugs Act.' 'But what do we know about it?' 'That it's illegal. Isn't that all we need to know?' He looked at me then, and gave me a charming smile. 'My God, Rumpole. Are we going to see you turning up in Court in beads?' ' She's got a good character.' I played my last card.

  The judge drained his Nescafe. 'Well, you know about a "good character". Everyone had a "good character" once... I mean, if we let everyone out because of their "good character" no one would ever go inside.' 'ThatM be a scandal. All those empty prisons.' I said it with too much feeling. Rice Crispies looked at me as if I were coming out in a rash.

  'I say, Rumpole. You're not getting involved in this case, are you?' 'Involved? Of course not. No, naturally. But I was thinking possibly a suspended sentence?' At which his Honour Judge Crispin-Rice put his wig back on and said something which was no help at all.

  'You've got your job to do, Rumpole, and I've got mine.' I sweated my guts out in my speech in mitigation, and the judge listened to me with perfect courtesy. He then gave Kathy Trelawny three years in the nicest possible way, and she was taken down to the cells. Vernon Tooke came up to me in the robing room. He was on his way to the gymkhana.

  'Well. Ended nice and quick.' 'Yes, Tooke, very quickly.' 'Going back to London?' 'Tomorrow. I'll be going back tomorrow.' 'Quite an attractive sort of person, your client.' 'Yes, Tooke.' 'All the same. To prison she had to go.' When I came out into the main hall the commune was standing in a little group. Oswald was playing a lament on his flute and the baby was silent. None of them spoke to me, but I heard a voice at my elbow say, 'It seems a shame, sir. A girl like that.' It was Detective Sergeant Jack the Hippie Smedley. And he added what we both knew, 'It's an evil place, Hollo-way.' Out in the street I was nearly run over by a police car. Miss Kathy Trelawny was sitting in the back and saw me. She was still smiling.

  Joviality was at its height in the Crooked Billet that night. Sam told all his old stories, and Bobby played the piano. I stood beside her, my glass of rum on the piano top, and in a pause she looked across at her husband.

  'Look at Sam,' she said. 'He's happy as a tick! What's he want with a slow death on lime juice in a bungalow? I made up my mind. I'm not going to tell him. Are you in favour of that?' 'People not telling people things? People not scattering information like bombs? Oh yes,' I told her. 'I'm all in favour of that.' Then she played 'Roll out the Barrel' and we all joined in, our voices floating out over the sea until Sam called 'Time Please'. I never saw the people from 'Nirvana' again.

  Rumpole and the Honourable Member

  'You're giving me a rape?' My clerk, Albert, had just handed me a brief. He then returned to the complicated business of working out the petty cash account; his desk was covered with slips of paper, a cash box and odd bits of currency. I never inquired into Albert's system of book-keeping, nor did anyone else in Chambers.

  'Don't you want it, Mr Rumpole?' I turned to look at Henry, our second clerk. Henry had joined as an office boy, a small tousled figure who scarcely seemed able to read or write. Albert used him mainly to run errands and make instant coffee, and told him he would only be allowed to take a barrister into Court when he'd learnt to shine his shoes and clean his fingernails. Henry had changed over the years. His shoes were now gleaming, he wore a neat pinstriped suit with a waistcoat, and was particularly assiduous in his attentions to Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P., our Head of Chambers. Albert, as head clerk, got ten percent of our earnings, but Henry was on a salary. I had thought for a long time that Henry thought Albert past it, and had his eye on a head clerk's position. I should add, so you can get the complete picture of life in our clerk's room, that our old lady typist had left us and we had a new girl called Dianne who read quite extraordinarily lurid novels when she wasn't typing, spent a great deal of the day titivating in the loo, and joined Henry in looking pityingly at Albert as he struggled to adjust the petty cash.

  'You don't ask whether you want a rape,' I told Henry sharply. 'Rape comes uninvited.' I was gathering my post from the mantelpiece and looked at it with disgust. 'Like little brown envelopes from the Inland Revenue.' 'Morning Rumpole." I became aware of the presence of young Erskine-Brown who was standing by the mantelpiece, also watching Albert in his struggle to balance the budget. He was holding some sort of legal document and wearing a shirt with broad stripes, elastic-sided boots and an expression of amused contempt at Albert's business methods. As I have made clear earlier in these reminiscences, I don't like Erskine-Brown. I greeted him civilly, however, and asked him if he'd ever done a rape.

  'As you know, Rumpole, I prefer the civil side. I really find crime moderately distasteful.' At this point Erskine-Brown started to complain to Albert about the typing of the distasteful document, some mortgage or other act of oppression, he was carrying, and Albert said if he was interrupted he'd have to start again on his column of figures. I happened to glance down at the pound notes on Albert's desk and noticed one marked with a small red cross in the corner; but I thought no more of it at the time. I then turned my attention to my brief, which I immediately noticed was a paying one and not Legal Aided. I carried it into my room with increased respect.

  The first thing I discovered was that my client was a Labour M.P. named Ken Aspen, The next was that he was accused of no less a crime than the rape of one of his loyal party workers, a girl called Bridget Evans, in his committee room late on the night before the election. I couldn't help feeling pleased, and slightly flattered, that such a case had come my way; the press box at the Bailey was bound to be full and the words of the Rumpole might once again decorate the News of the World. Then I unfolded an election poster and saw the face of Aspen, the workers' friend, a reasonably good-looking man in his early forties, frowning slightly with the concentrated effort of bringing us all a new heaven and a new earth which would still be acceptable to the Gnomes of Zurich. The poster I had was scrawled over and defaced, apparently by the hand of the complainant, Miss Bridge
t Evans, at the time of the alleged crime.

  I lit a small cigar and read on in my instructions, and, as I read, the wonder grew that an Honourable Member, with a wife and family and a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, should put it all at risk for a moment of unwelcomed pleasure on the floor of his committee room by night. I had heard of political suicide, but this was ridiculous, and I believed that any jury would find it incredible too. Of course at that time I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting Mrs Kenneth Aspen.

  ' So Bumble Whitelock, when they made him Chief Justice of the Seaward Isles, I don't know, some God-forsaken hole, had this man in the dock before him, found guilty of living on immoral earnings, and he was puzzled about the sentence. So he sent a runner down to the Docks where the old Chief Justice was boarding a P. & O. steamer home with the urgent messages "How much do you give a ponce?" Look, I'll do this...' It was my practice to retire with my old clerk Albert to Pom-meroy"s Wine Bar in Fleet Street at the end of a day's work to strengthen myself with a glass or two of claret before braving the tube and She Who Must Be Obeyed. During such sessions I seek to divert Albert with a joke or two, usually of a legal nature. I was in full swing when one of the girls who works at Pom-meroy's interrupted us with the full glasses of Chateau Fleet Street. Albert had his wallet out and was paying for the treat.

  'No, sir. Quite honestly.' I happened to see the note as Albert handed it over. It was marked with a small red cross in the corner.

  'All right. My turn next. "So the message was," I returned to my story," How much do you give a ponce? " and the answer came back immediately from the old Chief Justice by very fast rickshaw, "Never more than two and six!" Cheers.' I don't know why but that story always makes me laugh. Albert was laughing politely also.

  'Never more than two and six! You like that one, do you Albert?' 'I've always liked it, sir.' 'It's like a bloody marriage, Albert. We've got to know each other's anecdotes.' 'Perhaps you'd like a divorce, sir. Let young Henry do your clerking for you?' I looked over to the bar. Erskine-Brown was having a drink with Henry and Dianne, they were drinking Vermouth and Henry seemed to be showing some photographs.

  'Henry? We'd sit in here over a Cinzano Bianco, and he'd show me the colour snaps of his holiday in Majorca... No, Albert. We'll rub along for a few more years. Who got me this brief, for instance?' 'The solicitors, sir. They like the cut of your jib.' I ventured to contradict my old clerk. 'Privately paid rapes don't fall from the sky, like apples in a high wind, however my jib is cut.' Then Albert told me how the job had been done, proving once again his true value as a clerk. ' I have the odd drink in here, with Mr Myers of your instructing solicitors. Their managing clerk. Remember old Myersy, he grows prize tomatoes ? Likes to be asked about them, sir. If I may suggest it.' 'Fellow with glasses. Overcoat pockets stuffed with writs. Smokes a mixture of old bed socks?' I remember Myersy.

  'That's him, Mr Rumpole. He thinks our only chance is to crucify the girl.' 'Seems a bit extreme.' Now Albert started to reminisce, recalling my old triumphs.

  'I remember you, sir. When you cross-examined the complainant in that indecent assault in the old Kilburn Alhambra. You brought out as he'd touched her up during the Movietone News.' 'And she admitted she'd sat through the whole of Rosemarie and a half-hour documentary about wild life on the River Dee before she complained to the manager!' 'As I recollect, she fainted during your questioning.' ' Got her on the wing around the tenth question.' It was true. The witness had plummeted like a partridge. Right out of the witness box!

  'I told old Myersy that,' said Albert proudly. "'Will Rumpole be afraid of attacking her?" he said. I told him, "There's not a woman in the world my Mr Rumpole's afraid of.'"

  I was, I suppose, a little late in returning to the mansion flat in Gloucester Road. As I hung up the coat and hat I was greeted by a great cry from the kitchen of 'Rumpole!' It was my wife Hilda, She Who Must Be Obeyed, and I moved towards the source of the shout, muttering, 'Being your slave, what should I do but tend, Upon the hours and times of your desire?' In the kitchen, Mrs Rumpole was to be seen dimly as through a mist of feathers. She was plucking a bird.

  '/ have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do till you require...' 'I was watching the clock,' Hilda told me, ignoring Shakespeare.

  'I've been watching it since half past six!' 'Something blew up. A rape. I bought a bottle of plonk.' I put my peace-offering down on the table. Hilda told me that wouldn't be enough for the feast planned for the morrow, for which she was denuding a guinea-fowl. Our son Nick, back from his year at an American university, was bringing his intended, a Miss Erica Freyburg, to dinner with the family.

  ' If he's bringing Erica,' I said, ' I'll slip down to the health food centre and get a magnum of carrot juice.' I had already met my potential daughter-in-law, a young lady with strong views on dietary matters, and indeed on every other subject under the sun, whom Nick had met in Baltimore.

  ' Sometimes I think you're just jealous of Erica."

  'Jealous? About Nicky?' I had got the bottle of plonk open and was sitting at the kitchen table, the snow of feathers settling gently.

  'You want your son to be happy, don't you?' ' Of course. Of course I want him to be happy.' Then I put my problem to Hilda. 'Can you understand why an M.P., an Honourable Member, with a wife and a couple of kids should suddenly take it into his head to rape anyone?' 'An M.P.? What side's he on?' 'Labour.' 'Oh well then.' Hilda had no doubt about it. 'It doesn't surprise me in the least.' The next day the Honourable Member, Ken Aspen, was sitting in my Chambers, flanked by his solicitor's clerk Myers and a calm, competent, handsome woman who was introduced to me as his wife, Anna. I suggested that she might find it less embarrassing to slip out while we discussed the intimate details, perhaps to buy a hat. Well, some judges still like hats on women in Court, but Mrs Aspen, Anna, told me that she intended to stay with her husband every moment that she could. A dutiful wife, you see, and the loyalty shone out of her.

  Aspen spoke in a slightly modified public-school accent, and I thought the 'Ken' and the just flattened vowels were a concession to the workers, like a cloth cap on a Labour Member. Being a politician, he started off by looking for a compromise, couldn't I perhaps have a word with Miss Bridget Evans? No, I couldn't, nor could I form a coalition with the judge to defeat her on a vote of no confidence. I received 'Ken's' permission to call him 'Mr Aspen' and then I asked him to tell his story.

  It seemed that it was late at night in the committee room and both Janice Crowshott, the secretary, and Paul Etherington, the agent, had gone home. Bridget Evans asked Aspen into her office, saying the duplicating machine was stuck. When he got in she closed the door, and started to talk about politics.

  'You're going to tell me that the door of the duplicating room was locked so you could have a good old chat about Home Rule for Wales?' 'Of course not.' 'Or that it was during a few strong words about the export figures that her clothes got torn?' ' She started to accuse me of being unfaithful.' 'To her?' I was puzzled.

  'To my principles.' 'Oh. Those.' I wanted to hear his defence, not his platitudes.

  'She said I'd betrayed her, and all the Party workers. I'd betrayed Socialism.' 'Well, you were used to hearing that,' I supposed. 'That must be part of the wear and tear of life in the dear old Labour Party.' 'Then she started talking about Anna.' 'She wanted Ken to leave me." Mrs Aspen was leaning forward, half smiling at me.

  'It was the whole set-up she objected to. The house in Hampstead Garden Suburb. The kids' schools.' 'Where do they go exactly?' ' Sarah's at the convent and Edward's down for Westminster.' 'And the loyal voters are down for the Comprehensive.' I couldn't resist it, but it earned me a distinctly unfriendly look from Mrs Aspen.

  ' I think after that, she started screaming at me. All sorts of abuse. Obscenities. I can't remember. Righteous indignation 1 And then she started clawing at me. Telling me I didn't even have the courage to..."

  'The courage. To what?' 'To make love to her. That's what Ken belie
ved,' Mrs Aspen supplied the answer. She'd have made an excellent witness, and I began to regret she wasn't on trial.

  'Thank you. Is that true?' 'Of course it's true. Ken made love to her. As she wanted. On the floor.' Again Mrs Aspen provided the answer.

  'You believed that was what she wanted?' At last my client spoke up for himself. 'Yes. Yes. That's what I believed.' I lit a small cigar, and began to get a sniff of a defence. The House of Lords has decided it's a man's belief that matters in a rape case; there are very few women among the judges of the House of Lords. Meanwhile the Honourable Member carried on with the good work.

  'She was goading me. Shouting and screaming. And then, when I saw what she'd done to my face on the poster!' I found the election poster, scored over with a pen and torn.

  'You saw that ihenY 'Yes. Yes. I think so.' 'You'd better be sure about this. You saw this poster scrawled on before anything happened?' 'Yes. I'm almost sure.' 'Not almost sure, Mr Aspen. Qtate, quite sure?' 'Well. Yes.' 'She didn't do it when you were there?' 'No.' 'So she must have done it before she called you into the room?' 'That would seem to follow,' Mr Myers took his pipe out of his mouth for the first time, 'Oh yes, Mr Myers. You see the point?' I congratulated him.