John Mortimer - Rumpole A La Carte

by Rumpole A La Carte(lit)

  'By the way, Claude,' I said, 'what was that case you're meant to have pinched from Inchcape all about?' 'Please', the man looked at a passing bus, as though tempted to dive under it, 'don't remind me of it.' 'But what was the subject matter? Just the gist, you understand.' 'Well, it was a landlord's action for possession. Nothing very exciting.' 'He wanted to turn out a one-parent family?' 'No. I think they were a couple of ladies in the Gay Rights movement. He said they were using the place to run a business.

  Why do you ask?' 'Because,' I tried to encourage him, 'the evidence you have just given may be of great importance.' But Claude didn't look in the slightest cheered up.

  No two characters could have been more contrary than Christopher Jago and his defence counsel. Jago lounged in the witness-box, flashed occasional smiles at the Jury, whose female members looked embarrassed and the males stony-faced. He was a bad witness, truculent, defensive and flippant by turns, and Soapy Sam was finding it hard to conceal his deep disapproval of the blow-dried, shiny-suited giant he was defending.

  As I had called several witnesses, who said they had seen him with Veronica in the Benedict Arms, Jago no longer troubled to deny it. He said he first saw her in the pub at lunchtime with another girl from Fabians' whom he knew slightly and he bought them both a drink. Some time after that he saw her eating her lunch in a corner, alone with a book, and he talked to her.

  'What did you talk about?' I asked when I came to crossexamine.

  'The house business. Prices and that around the area. I didn't chat her up, if that's what you're suggesting. She wasn't the sort of girl I could ever fancy, even if I weren't pretty well looked after in that direction.' He gave the Jury one of his least endearing grins.

  'So why did you meet her so often?' 'I just happened to bump into her, that's all.' '"

  'It's not all, is it? Your meetings were planned. She entered five or six appointments with Morrison in her diary.' To my surprise he didn't answer with a blustering denial that he and Morrison were one and the same person. Had he forgotten his best line of defence, or was he overcome by that strange need to tell the truth, which sometimes seems to attack even the most unsatisfactory witnesses? 'All right then,' he admitted. 'She seemed to want to see me and we made a few dates to meet for a drink round the Benedict.' 'Why did she want to see you?' 'Perhaps she fancied me. It has been known.' He looked at the Jury, expecting a sympathetic giggle that never came. 'I don't know why she wanted us to meet. You tell me.' 'No, Mr Jago. You tell us.' There was a silence then. Jago looked troubled and I thought that he was afraid of the evidence he would have to give.

  'She was a bit scared to tell me about it. She said it would mean a lot of trouble if it got out.' 'What was it, Mr Jago?' I was breaking another of my rules and asking a question without knowing the answer. At that moment I was in search of the truth, a somewhat dangerous pursuit for a defence counsel, but then I wasn't defending Jago.

  He answered my question then, quietly and reluctantly.

  'She was worried about what was happening at Fabians'.' I saw my clients, the father and son, listening, composed and expressionless. They didn't try to stop me and by now it was too late to turn back. 'What did she say was happening at Fabians'?' 'She said they gave the people who wanted to sell their houses very low valuations. Then they sold to some friend who 237 looked independent, but who was really in business with them.

  The friend sold on at the proper price and they shared the difference. She reckoned they'd been doing that for years. On a pretty big scale, I imagine.' Gregory Fabian was writing me a note quite impassively.

  His son was flushed and looked so angry that I was afraid he was going to shout. But his father put a hand on his son's arm before he passed me his message. I remembered that Roger had said Jago practised the same fraud the Fabians were now being accused of.

  'Why do you think she told you that?' I read Gregory's note then: HE'S TRYING TO RUIN US BECAUSE WE KNOW HE KILLED VERONICA. STOP HIM DOING IT.

  'She told me because she was worried. I was in the same business. She wanted my advice. Like I said, perhaps she fancied me, I don't know. She said she hadn't got anyone else, no real friends, she could tell about it.' I thought of the lonely girl who was trapped in a business she couldn't trust, pinning her faith on this unlikely companion.

  Perhaps she thought her confidences would bring them together. At any rate they were an excuse to meet him.

  'Mr Jago, when you called at Gissing Mews that morning...' 'Like I told you. I was interested in the place for a client. I phoned Veronica and...' 'And you kept the appointment and found her dead in the hallway.' 'Yes.' 'Why didn't you telephone the police?' 'Because I was afraid.' 'Afraid you'd be arrested for her murder?' 'No. Not afraid of that.' 'Of what then?' There are moments in some trials when everyone in Court seems to hold their breath, waiting for an answer. This was such an occasion and the answer when it came was totally unexpected.

  'I thought she'd been done over because she'd told me what 238 the Fabians were up to. I thought, that might be you, Christopher, if you get involved any more.' 'You killed her!' Roger Fabian couldn't restrain himself now. Oilie Oliphant uttered some soothing words about understanding the strength of the family feelings, but urged the young man to use his common sense and keep quiet. I did my best to pull myself together and behave like a prosecuting counsel. I asked Jago to take Exhibit p.i in his hand, which he did without any apparent reluctance.

  'I'm bound to put it to you,' I said, 'that you and Veronica Fabian quarrelled that morning when you met in the mews house. You lost your temper and took that knobkerrie off the wall. You swung it up over your head...' 'Like that, you mean?' He lifted the African club and as he did so all the odd pieces of the evidence came together and locked into one clear picture. Christopher Jago was innocent of the murder we had charged him with, and, from that moment, I was determined to get him off.

  The case began and ended in the little house in Gissing Mews. I asked Oilie Oliphant to move the proceedings to the scene of the crime as I wished to demonstrate something to the Jury, having taken the precaution of telling my opponent that if he wanted to get his client off, he'd better support my application. So now the cold, gloomy mews house, with its primitive carvings and grinning African masks, was crammed to the gunwales with legal hacks, jury members, court officials and all the trimmings, including, of course, Jago and the Fabians. In one way or another, as many of us as possible got a view of the hall, where I stood by the telephone impersonating, with only a momentary fear that I might have got it entirely wrong, the victim of the crime. I got Jago to stand in front of me and swing the club, p.i, again in order to strike my head. I was not entirely surprised when neither Sam Ballard, Q.c. nor Mr Justice Oliphant tried to prevent my apparent suicide, although Claude Erskine-Brown did have the decency to mutter, 'Mind out, Rumpole. We don't want to lose you.' Everyone was watching as the tall, flamboyant accused lifted 239 the knobkerrie and tried to swing it above his head. He tried and failed. When I was cross-examining him, I remembered the cramped rooms and low ceilings of the mews cottage. Now as the club bumped harmlessly against the plaster, everyone present understood why Jago couldn't have struck the blow which killed Veronica Fabian. Whoever killed her must have been at least six inches shorter.

  It was my first prosecution and I had managed, against all the odds, to secure an acquittal.

  'You got him off ?' 'Yes.' A few days, it seemed a lifetime, later, I was alone with Gregory Fabian in his white, early Victorian house in Little Venice.

  'Why?' 'Did you want an innocent man convicted? That's a stupid question. Of course you did.' He said nothing and I went on, as I had to. 'You said there's always one child who needs protecting, but you weren't thinking of Veronica, were you? You were talking about your son.' 'What about Roger?' 'What about him? Odd, his habit of accusing other people of the things he did himself.' 'What did he do?' Gregory was quiet, unruffled, still carefully courteous, in spite of what I'd done to him.

/>   'I think you know, don't you? The racket of undervaluing homes, so you could sell them to your secret nominees. He accused Jago of doing that, just as he accused him of Veronica's murder.' The house was very quiet. Mrs Fabian was upstairs somewhere, resting. God knows where Roger was. Even the traffic sounded far away and muted in the darkness of an early evening in January.

  'What are you trying to tell me?' 'What I think. That's all. I'm not setting out to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt.' 'Go on then.' He gave a small sigh, perhaps of resignation.

  'Veronica discovered what was going on and didn't like it.

  She asked Jago's advice, and I expect he told her to keep him well-informed. No doubt so he could make something out of it when it suited him to do so. Then I think Roger found out what his sister was doing. Well, she wasn't his real sister, was she? She was the loved girl, who had arrived after he was born, the child he was always jealous of. I expect he found out she had a date to meet Jago at the mews house. He went after her to stop her. I don't think he meant to kill her.' 'Of course he didn't.' The father was still trying, I thought, to persuade himself.

  'He lost his temper with her. They quarrelled. She tried to telephone for help and he ripped out the phone. Remember that's how they found it. Then he took the knobkerrie off the wall. He's short enough to have been able to swing it without hitting the ceiling. But you know all that, don't you?' Gregory Fabian didn't answer, relying, I suppose, on his right to silence.

  'You wanted Roger to be safe. You wanted him to be protected, forever. And the best way of doing that was to get someone else found guilty. That's what you paid me to do. To be quite technical, Mr Fabian, you paid me to take part in your conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.' 'You said,' he sounded desperately hopeful, 'that you couldn't prove it...' 'It's not my business to prosecute. It never has been. And it's not my business to take part in crime. I told Henry to send your money back.' He stood up then and moved between me and the door. I thought for a moment that the repressed violence of the Fabians might erupt and he would attack me. But all he said was 'Poor Roger.' 'No, Poor Veronica. You should never have stopped her becoming a novelist.' I walked past him and out of the house. I heard him call after me 'Mr Rumpole!' But I didn't stop. I was glad to be out in the darkness, breathing in the mist from the canal, away from a house silenced by death and deception.

  I decided to walk a while from the Fabian house, feeling I had, among other things, to think over what remained of my life.

  'Mr Rumpole, although briefed for the Prosecution and under a duty to present the prosecution case to you, took it into his head, no doubt because of the habit of a lifetime, to act for the Defence. So, the basis of our fine adversarial system, which has long been our pride, has been undermined. Mr Rumpole will have to consider where his future, if any, is at the Bar. In the absence of a prosecutor, you and I, Members of the Jury, will just have to rely on good old British common sense.' These were the words with which Oilie sent the Jury out to consider its verdict, which turned out to be a resounding not guilty for everyone, except Rumpole whose conduct had been, according to his Lordship, in his final analysis, 'grossly unprofessional'.

  It was while I was brooding on these judicial pronouncements that I heard the sound of revelry by night and noticed that I was passing a somewhat glitzy art nouveau pub, picked out in neon lights, called the Benedict Arms. I remembered that this was the night of Christopher Jago's celebration party, to which he had invited not only his defenders, but, and in all the circumstances of the case, this was understandable, the prosecution team as well. I had persuaded Claude not to sit moping at home and I'd promised to meet him there. Accordingly I called into the saloon of the Benedict and was immediately told that Chris's piss-up was on the first floor.

  I climbed up to a celebration very unlike our Chambers parties in Equity Court. Music, which sounded to my un, " trained ear very like the sound produced by a pneumatic drill pounding a pavement, shook the windows. There were a number of metallically blonde girls in skirts the size of pocket handkerchiefs and tops kept up by some stretch of the imagination and a fair number of men with moustaches, whom I took for downmarket estate agents. Like dark islands in a colourful sea, the lawyers had clearly begun, with the exception of the doleful Erskine-Brown, to enjoy the party.

  'Thanks for coming.' Jago stood before me. 'Do you always work for the other side? If you do, I'm bloody glad I didn't 242 have you defending me.' It was the sort of joke I could do without and then, to my astonishment, I saw him put an arm around Mizz Liz Probert and say, 'You know this little legal lady, I'm sure, Mr Rumpole? I told her she can have my briefs any day of the week, quite honestly!' And I was even more astonished to see that Mizz Liz, far from kneeing this rampant chauvinist in the groin, smiled charmingly at the man she thought had been saved from a life sentence by the efforts of her co-mortgagee.

  Wandering on into the throng of celebrators, I saw Bollard in close proximity to his grateful instructing solicitor, Tricia Benbow. It seemed to me that Soapy Sam had been the victim of much passive alcoholism, no doubt absorbed from the glass he held in his hand.

  Then, under the sound of the pneumatic drill, I heard the shrilling of a telephone and I was hailed by Jago, who had answered it.

  'Mr Rumpole. It's your clerk. He says it's urgent.' 'All right. For God's sake, turn off the music for five minutes.' I took the telephone from him. 'Henry!' 'I've got an awkward situation here, Mr Rumpole. The truth of the matter is Mrs Ballard is here.' 'Oh. Bad luck.' 'She happened to come out of her sprains and fractures refresher course and she wanted to meet up with her husband.

  She said, ' Henry's voice sank to a conspiratorial murmur in which I could detect an almost irresistible tendency to laughter, 'he told her he was going to a Lawyers As Christians Society meeting tonight and might be late home. But she wants to know where the meeting's being held so she can join him, if at all possible.' 'Henry, you didn't tell her he was at a piss-up in the Benedict Arms, Maida Vale?' 'No, sir. I didn't think it would be well received.' 'Why involve me in this sordid web of intrigue?' 'Well, we don't want to land the Head of Chambers in it, do we, Mr Rumpole? Not in the first instance, anyway.' Our clerk was positively giggling.

  'Where is the wife of Bollard now?' 'She's in the waiting-room, sir.' 'Put me through to her. Henry. Without delay.' And when Mrs Ballard came on the line, I greeted her warmly.

  'Matey... I mean. Marguerite. This is Horace Rumpole speaking.' 'Horace! Whatever are you doing there? And where's Sam?' 'Oh, I'm afraid brother Ballard can't come to the phone.

  He's busy preparing to induct a new member.' 'A new member. Who?' The.' 'You, Horace?' The ex-Matron sounded incredulous.

  'Of course. I have decided to put away the sins of the world and lead a better, purer life in future.' 'But where are you meeting?' 'I'm afraid that can't be divulged over the telephone.' 'Why ever not?' 'For your own safety I think it's better for you not to know.

  We've had threatening calls from militant Methodists.' 'Horace. Are you sure Sam's all right? I can hear a lot of voices.' 'Oh, it's a very full house this evening. Hold on a minute.' I held the phone away from my ear for a while and then I told her, 'Sam really can't get away now. He says he'll see you back in Waltham Cross and don't wait up for him. He'll probably be exhausted.' 'Exhausted?' She sounded only a little suspicious. 'Why?' 'It's the spirit,' I said. 'You know how it tires him.' 'Is he filled with it?' Her suspicions seemed gone and her voice was full of admiration.

  'Oh, yes,' I assured her, 'right up to the brim.' I put down the phone and the blast of road-mending music was restored. I then approached our Head of Chambers, who was standing with Dave Inchcape, Tricia, the solicitor, having danced away with her liberated client.

  'That was your wife on the phone,' I told him.

  'Good heavens.' The man was still sober enough to panic.

  'She's not coming here?' 244 'Oh, no. I gave you a perfect alibi. Tell you about it later.

  I'll also tel
l you my solution to the Case of the Altered Brief.

  I'm getting into the habit of solving mysteries.' 'I'd better go and find Liz.' Inchcape seemed anxious to get away.

  'No, you stay here, David.' I spoke with some authority and the young man stood, looking anxious. 'We're all but toys in the hands of women and your particular commander-in-chief is Mizz Liz Probert. I know you come into the clerk's room early to see what's arrived in the post, all white-wigs do. To your horror you found you'd been engaged by a flinty-hearted landlord to kick two ladies, active in Gay Rights, out of house and home. How could you face your co-habitee, if you did a case like that? It was a matter of a moment. Members of the Jury,' I addressed an imaginary tribunal, 'for David Inchcape to scratch out his name and write Mr Claude Erskine-Brown in block capitals.' 'Is this true?' Ballard tried his best to look judicial, although he was somewhat unsteady on his pins.

  David Inchcape's silence provided the answer.

  I was rather late home that evening and climbed into bed beside Hilda's sleeping back. I had no professional duties the next day and wandered into the kitchen in my dressing-gown and with a head still throbbing from the pile-driving music at Jago's celebration. I found Hilda in a surprisingly benign mood, all things considered, but I also noticed something missing from our home.