John Mortimer - Rumpole A La Carte

by Rumpole A La Carte(lit)

  'Brother Rumpole', Ben looked at me suspiciously, 'I was assured you was taking on this case as an expression of your solidarity with the workers' struggle and the right to withdraw labour.' 'Let's say I'm doing it as an expression of my right to do cases that don't bore me to extinction,' I told him. 'And above all, of course, to irritate Brother Bollard.' 'Who's Bollard?' 'No one of the slightest importance. Don't worry your pretty head about him, my old darling.' And then I started to cross-examine the client quite energetically. 'Now let me put the case against you, Mr Baker. Manslaughter!' The kill someone? That's a joke, that is.' The Basher gave us a hollow laugh.

  '"Manslaughter in jest; no offence i' the world?" There's evidence that as the unfortunate coach driver, now deceased, was being carried to the ambulance, you were heard intoning some ditty about the people's flag being deepest red.' '"The Internationale", Brother,' the client instructed me.

  'We sings it at social events. It's just like "Auld Lang Syne".' 'Or "Somewhere over the Rainbow"?' I suggested, and then went back to the attack. 'At one stage of the negotiations you told your employer, one Ernest Elver...' 'Ernie the Eel, we call him. He's that slippery.' Ben Baker's intervention was not encouraging.

  'You told Elver that if your demands were not met, it might well lead to death?' 'The patience of my executive committee was exhausted.' His answer sounded like a statement on the six o'clock news.

  'Elver was employing non-union cowboys to drive kids on outings. They didn't know the road and they didn't know the vehicles. There was going to be an accident sooner or later.' 'Is that what you meant?' I wasn't convinced.

  'I swear to God!' 'Are you a religious man, Mr Baker?' 'No. Of course, no. Load of codswallop.' This fellow was clearly going to be a walkover for prosecuting counsel, so I warned him, 'Then try and be careful how you give your evidence. In this industrial dispute, I suggest you behaved with total disregard for the law.' 'We never!' You were on a picket line with more than six people.' 'That's not a law. That's a code of practice.' A little knowledge of the law is a dangerous thing, especially or clients. I warned him again, 'Please, Mr Basher... Mr 49 'You're not leaving home?' I did my best to exclude any note of eager anticipation from my voice.

  'No, Rumpole. I am not leaving home. I am taking industrial action. Withdrawing my labour!' 'Hilda! Not you too?' I looked at her in astonishment. I had not yet seen She Who Must Be Obeyed in the role of a shop steward.

  'It's not what you know, but who you know that matters', as my learned friend Claude Erskine-Brown is fond of saying, although the fact that he was so well acquainted with Miss Tricia Benbow, the fair instructing solicitor, got him into quite a bit of trouble lately. I knew Mizz Liz Probert pretty well, and she knew her father. Red Ron Probert, the much-feared and derided Labour Councillor, even better. Red Ron had lots of lines out to members of the trades union movement, including that well-known libertarian Ben Basher Baker ofN.U.C.D.O., and this chain of friendship landed me and Liz Probert briefs for the Defence in the Luxie-Chara case. Accordingly, we made a tryst with the client and met in the interview room at Brixton, where Liz, Mr Bernard, our solicitor, and I sat around the Basher hoping to hear something to our, and his, advantage.

  Our client was the sort of man who always seems to be suffering from a deep sense of injustice. His beaky nose and tuft of unbrushed, receding hair, combined with a paunch and long, thin legs, gave him the appearance of a discontented heron.

  'Brother Rumpole, Sister Probert, the brother from the solicitors' office.' He started off, as though he were addressing the strike committee, 'Comrades and brothers.' 'You make it sound like a case in the Family Division,' I told him.

  'Brother Rumpole', Ben looked at me suspiciously, 'I was assured you was taking on this case as an expression of your solidarity with the workers' struggle and the right to withdraw labour.' 'Let's say I'm doing it as an expression of my right to do cases that don't bore me to extinction,' I told him. 'And above all, of course, to irritate Brother Bollard.' 48 'Who's Bollard?' 'No one of the slightest importance. Don't worry your pretty head about him, my old darling.' And then I started to crossexamine the client quite energetically. 'Now let me put the case against you, Mr Baker. Manslaughter!' The kill someone? That's a joke, that is.' The Basher gave us a hollow laugh.

  ' "Manslaughter in jest, no offence i' the world?" There's evidence that as the unfortunate coach driver, now deceased, was being carried to the ambulance, you were heard intoning some ditty about the people's flag being deepest red.' '"The Internationale", Brother,' the client instructed me.

  'We sings it at social events. It's just like "Auld Lang Syne".' 'Or "Somewhere over the Rainbow"?' I suggested, and then went back to the attack. 'At one stage of the negotiations you told your employer, one Ernest Elver...' 'Ernie the Eel, we call him. He's that slippery.' Ben Baker's intervention was not encouraging.

  'You told Elver that if your demands were not met, it might well lead to death?' 'The patience of my executive committee was exhausted.' His answer sounded like a statement on the six o'clock news.

  'Elver was employing non-union cowboys to drive kids on outings. They didn't know the road and they didn't know the vehicles. There was going to be an accident sooner or later.' 'Is that what youmeant?' I wasn't convinced.

  'I swear to God!' 'Are you a religious man, Mr Baker?' 'No. Of course, to. Load of codswallop.' This fellow was dearly going to be a walkover for prosecuting counsel, so I warned him, 'Then try and be careful how you give your evidence. In this industrial dispute, I suggest you behaved with total disregard for the law.' 'We never!' 'You were on a picket line with more than six people.' 'That's not a law That's a code of practice.' A little knowledge of the law is a dangerous thing, especially for clients. I warnid him again, 'Please, Mr Basher... Mr 49 Baker. Let's leave such niceties to Mizz Probert. She has the legal textbooks. Neither you nor I have got time to read them.

  Do you deny you were with more than six people?' 'Some other brothers turned up. To give us extra support, yes.' 'Brothers from your place of work?' 'Not necessarily.' 'Or brothers you'd never seen in your life before?' 'Some of them was. Yes. We needs all the help we can get.' 'Even illegal help?' 'I... I suppose so.' 'Even the help of a brick chucked through the window of a moving charabanc?' I was doing it better than anyone we were likely to have prosecuting us, but Basher came back at me with 'I never did that. I swear it.' 'A witness named Jebb was on the picket line. He says he saw you throw it.' 'Then he's a bloody liar.' 'Not a brother, eh? Possibly a more distant relation.' I sifted through my brief and found the forensic evidence. 'Down at the local nick you were examined forensically...' 'They took a liberty!' I had clearly touched the button marked 'civil rights', but I went on regardless, 'Distinct traces of brick dust were found on your shirt, your trousers and hands.' 'I'd been doing building in my back garden, hadn't I? A man's got to do something when he's out of work.' It wasn't the greatest explanation in the world, and I made so bold as to give him the retort cynical. 'So you indulged in a little bricklaying?' I said. 'How extremely convenient.' Not much later, when Mizz Liz Probert, Mr Bernard and I were making our way towards the gatehouse of the nick, crossing that wasteland where screws stood about with Alsatians, and a few trusties planted pansies in the black earth, my radical junior said, 'So you think he's guilty?' 'Not at all. Sister Liz,' I told her. 'I know he's innocent.' 'Innocent?' 'No criminal's going to stand around singing "The Red 50 Flag" over his victim's dead body,' I explained. 'Not in the presence of the Old Bill, anyway. You wouldn't get the Timsons behaving like that, would you?' 'If he's innocent we might get him off at the committal.' Mr Bernard was on the verge of a dangerous train of thought.

  'Our only chance of getting him off is before a jury. Brother Bernard. We say as little as possible at the committal.' 'All the same, I'd like you there, Mr Rumpole.' I didn't at once follow our instructing solicitor's drift and I said, as jovially as possible, 'Would you. Brother? Always ready to oblige.' 'You see, I might need a few tips,' Mr Ber
nard said, and I must confess I was puzzled, so I asked, 'Tips, Brother Her, ', nard?' And then the man revealed all. 'I thought I'd do the advocacy in the preliminary hearing,' he said. 'Bit of a dummy run for the Lord Chancellor's changes, when we solicitors can appear in the highest Courts of the land. So if you'll sit behind me, Mr Rumpole.' lli 'Behind you. Brother?' I could only give a sigh of resignation and quote Swinburne again: '"That even the weariest river/ Winds somewhere safe to sea".' Change, as I have said, and also decay, in all around I see.

  True to the Lord Chancellor's fearless and totally misguided shake-up of the Bar, Mr Bernard was encouraged to represent Ben Baker before the South London stipendiary magistrate, a small, pinkish, self-important, failed barrister of mediocre intelligence.

  The Prosecution was in the hands of a deeply confused young man from the Crown Prosecution Service who kept losing documents. Detective Inspector Walcroft, the officer in charge of the case, sat listening and taking notes, clearly pained by the poor performances on offer. And, if you can believe it, Horace Rumpole, star of the Penge Bungalow Murders and leading actor in so many dramas down the Bailey, sat mum and junior to his instructing solicitor. After enough evidence had been given to send a canonized saint for trial, Mr Bernard, against all my advice, arose in order to argue that the 5i case should be thrown out. 'And so far as the brick dust on our client's trousers goes,' I heard him saying, 'we have a complete answer!' 'Don't tell the Old Bill what it is.' I whispered a terrible warning, as I saw D. I. Walcroft preparing to note down our defence. 'The truth of the matter is perfectly simple,' Bernard banged on regardless, 'my client was building a wall in his back garden.' I saw the D. I. write this down with a smile of cynical amusement, and the Beak suggested that where the brick dust came from was surely a matter for the Jury. But Bernard had the bit between his teeth and said there was no evidence to commit the Basher to trial.

  'But, Mr Bernard', at least the perky little magistrate knew the rudiments of his job, 'we have the statement of a Mr Gerald Jebb who actually saw your client hurl the brick.' 'Clearly an unreliable witness.' Bernard was enjoying himself.

  'If you recall, he couldn't even remember how many pickets there were between him and my client. Or how they were dressed, or...' 'The time of high tide at Dungeness?' I suggested in a whisper and the Bench weighed in with 'Whether or not Mr Jebb is a reliable witness is also a matter for the Jury.' 'But, sir! What about the presumption of innocence?' Bernard had a stab at pained outrage.

  'Very well, Mr Bernard. What about it?' The Beak was clearly bored, and my solicitor chose this inopportune moment to attempt a Rumpolesque peroration, complete with gestures.

  After all, he's seen me do it often enough.'With the evidence in doubt, my client is entitled to be acquitted!' he boomed majestically. 'That is the golden thread which runs through British justice. We are all of us innocent until you can be certain sure we must be guilty. And I put it to you, sir. In my humble submission. My contention is. You couldn't find my client guilty on a charge of non-renewed dog licence on the vague and unsatisfactory evidence of this fellow Jebb!' 'Not now, old darling,' I whispered to the fellow on his feet.

  'We don't do that bit now. We save it for the Jury.' And the Magistrate clearly agreed. 'Mr Bernard,' he said through a prodigious yawn, 'your client will be committed for trial in the Central Criminal Court. Before a jury and a judge.' 'As you please, sir.' And Bernard hissed under his breath, 'And I very much hope he's a judge with no prejudice against trades unions.' The moving finger wrote on the history of The Queen v. 'Basher' Baker and spelled out the name of Mr Justice Guthrie Featherstone. Those familiar with these records will know that, many years ago, the Head of our Chambers was Hilda's father, C. H. Wystan. When old Wystan dropped off the twig I had hoped to have become Head, but a far younger man named Guthrie Featherstone, Q.c., m.p., 'popp'd in between the election and my hopes' and came to rule our roost at Equity Court.

  Guthrie was either a left-wing member of a right-wing party, or a right-wing member of a left-wing party, for the life of me, I can't now recall which. Whichever it was, I don't remember him ever coming out strongly in favour of the brothers on the shop floor. Guthrie was married to the formidable Marigold Featherstone, a handsome woman who managed to speak like a ventriloquist, you couldn't see her lips move. The Featherstones lived in Knightsbridge, which Marigold found convenient for Harrods, and had two perfectly acceptable children called Simon and Sarah. My wife, Hilda, greatly admires Marigold, takes bridge lessons with her and often complains to her about Rumpole.

  For some reason the then Lord Chancellor took it into his head to make Guthrie, who suffered from a total inability to make up his mind about anything, a red judge. Clad in scarlet and ermine, Mr Justice Featherstone presided over his cases in a ferment of doubt, desperately anxious to do the right thing, fearful of the Court of Appeal, and frequently tempted to make the most reckless pronouncements which got him into trouble with the newspapers. Despite all these glaring character defects, there was something quite decent about old Guthrie. He often tried, in his nervous and confused fashion, to do justice, and he was, in every way, a better egg than Soapy Sam Ballard, Q.c., who succeeded him as Head of Chambers at Equity Court.

  53 Having given the old darling the benefit of every conceivable doubt, I have to report that he was pretty shocked when the Prosecution opened a case of homicide on the picket line. He had an ancient and reptilian clerk named Wilfred who frequently fell asleep in Court. One morning, early in the trial, Wilfred was helping his master into fancy dress for the day's performance and they had something like the following conversation, the gist of which I owe to Wilfred's recollection, prompted by a pint or two of draft Guinness. 'We've got to watch the trades unions,' Mr Justice Featherstone started off.

  'They're getting too much power again. Trying to run the country.' 'Getting too big for their boots, my Lord?' Wilfred suggested.

  To which Guthrie replied, laughing, 'And their boots are probably big enough in all conscience! Remember the Winter of Discontent, do you?' Here he referred to a strike of many trades, including that of grave-diggers, some years ago under another government. 'You couldn't even get buried then!' 'Terrible thing, my Lord,' Wilfred clucked with disapproval.

  'Oh, yes, Wilfred. A terrible thing. Not that I want to get buried. Not yet awhile, anyway. I don't particularly want to go on a chara. But people do. And they should be given the opportunity.' 'Very good, some of these charas, I believe, my Lord,' Wilfred pointed out. 'They have toilets.' 'Yes. Oh, yes, I dare say they do. Not that I suppose I'll ever find out. I can't quite picture Lady Featherstone aboard a chara!' 'No, my Lord. I can't picture it myself,' said Wilfred, joining in the judicial mirth.

  'Think they're above the law, these union bosses do.' Guthrie became serious again. 'What's the country coming to, Wilfred? The Summer of Discontent, that's what I call it.' ' 'What it brings to mind, my Lord,' Wilfred suggested, 'is the French Revolution.' 'Does it, Wilfred? Well, yes. I suppose it does. Well, let me tell you this. Rumpole's not getting away with it again.' 54 'With the French Revolution, my Lord?' Ideas were flowing a little too fast for Wilfred.

  'Don't be silly! With manslaughter! You know there's a sort of legend grown up round the Bailey. Old Rumpole gets away with it every time. Even my wife, even Lady Featherstone, thinks Rumpole can twist me round his little finger!' 'Very astute lady, if I may say so, my Lord.' Wilfred had a healthy respect for Marigold.

  'That's as may be, Wilfred. But old Rumpole is not getting away with this one. I tell you, I've taken a good look at Union Boss Baker. And I don't like what I see. I intend to pot him good and proper', at this, his Lordship imitated a man playing billiards, 'in off the red! At least he won't be able to go on strike in prison!' It was at this point that, after a brief knock, another judge, considerably senior in years and experience to Guthrie, named Sir Simon Parsloe, blew into the room to discuss what he called the 'dotty schemes the Lord Chancellor's got to reform the Bar'. Stowing away G
uthrie's mufti jacket and hat, Wilfred was privy to a plan for a few top judges to rise early and meet in Mr Justice Parsloe's room in the Law Courts to discuss the best way of foiling the lunatic scheme which would have solicitors appearing in the top Courts, solicitors sitting on the Bench, 'solicitors in the House of Lords, if we're not bloody careful, overturning our judgments', to adopt the vivid language of Sir Simon Parsloe, 'and,' he added, 'we judges have got to take some sort of action.' 'You don't mean', poor old Featherstone was aghast, 'our jobs are at risk?' 'Well, who knows? Anything can happen. Can you make yourself free, Guthrie?' 'They'd better try and stop me!' Our judge was uncharacteristically decisive. 'Sound fellow!' Parsloe departed with a vague salute and Guthrie turned to confide in his clerk.

  Jobs at risk!' He seemed close to tears. 'Can you believe it, Wilfred? The Summer of Discontent, I tell you. That's what I call it.' The Prosecution of Ben Baker was in the hands of Soapy Sam 55 Ballard, q.c., with Claude Erskine-Brown as his learned junior.

  It seemed that this pair were quite ready to do trades union cases, so long as they weren't on the side of the workers. That morning, Ballard called Gerald Jebb, who was Basher Baker's contemporary and a fellow member of N.U.C.D.O. Mr Jebb was a small, cheerful man with a turned-up nose who looked like a grey-haired schoolboy. I feared that he was the most dangerous of all adversaries, an honest witness. Ballard took him through the events of the fatal day, until he reached the point when my client got hurriedly out of the way of an advancing Luxie-Coach. Then he asked Mr Jebb, 'From your position on the picket line, did you see the defendant Baker stoop down?' 'My Lord', I rose slowly to my hind legs, 'I didn't know that leading questions were allowed. Even in cases against trades union officials.' 'Leading questions are not allowed in any case, Mr Rumpole,' my Lord said. 'As you know perfectly well. Yes, carry on, Mr Ballard.' I subsided, clear in the knowledge of which side Guthrie was on.