The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  I crumpled my client’s note with some disgust and threw it on the floor as I stood to bow to the Bull. The Reverend Mordred had just told me he wasn’t prepared to give evidence in his own defence. I would have to get him on his own and twist his arm a little.

  ‘I simply couldn’t take the oath.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you? Have you no religion?’

  The cleric smiled politely and said, less as a question than a statement of fact, ‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’

  We were sitting in one of the brighter hostelries in Newington Causeway. The bleak and sour-smelling saloon bar was sparsely populated by two ailing cleaning-ladies drinking stout, another senior citizen who was smoking the dog-ends he kept in an old Oxo tin and exercising his talents as a Cougher for England, and a large drunk in a woolly bobble-hat who kept banging in and out the Gents with an expression of increasing euphoria. I had entrusted to Mr Morse the solicitor the tricky task of taking Miss Evelyn Skinner to lunch in the public canteen at the Sessions House. I imagined he’d get the full blast of her anxiety over the grey, unidentifiable meat and two veg. Meanwhile I had whisked the Reverend out to the pub where he sat with the intolerably matey expression vicars always assume in licensed premises.

  ‘I felt you might tell me the truth. You of all people. Having your collar on back to front must mean something.’

  ‘Truth is often dangerous. It must be approached cautiously, don’t you think?’ My client bit nervously into a singularly unattractive sausage. I tried to approach the matter cautiously.

  ‘I’ve noticed with women,’ I told him, ‘with my wife, for instance, when we go out on our dreaded Saturday morning shopping expeditions, that She Who Must Be Obeyed is in charge of the shopping-basket. She makes the big decisions. How much Vim goes in it and so forth. When the shopping’s bought, I get the job of carrying the damn thing home.’

  ‘Simple faith is far more important than the constant scramble after unimportant facts.’ Mordred was back on the old theology. ‘I believe that’s what the lives of the Saints tell us.’

  Enough of this Cathedral gossip. We were due back in Court in half an hour and I let him have it between the eyes. ‘Well, my simple faith tells me that your sister had the basket in the shirt department.’

  ‘Does it?’ He blinked most of the time, but not then.

  ‘When Pratt saw you in the Hall of Food you were carrying the shopping-basket, which she’d handed you on the escalator.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Because she’d taken the shirts and put them in the bag when you were too busy composing your sermon on the Problem of Evil to notice.’ I lit a small cigar at that point, and Mordred took a sip of sour bitter. He was still smiling as he started to talk, almost shyly at first, then with increasing confidence.

  ‘She was a pretty child. It’s difficult to believe it now. She was attracted to bright things, boiled sweets, red apples, jewellery in Woolworth’s. As she grew older it became worse. She would take things she couldn’t possibly need … Spectacles, bead handbags, cigarette cases although she never smoked. She was like a magpie. I thought she’d improved. I try to watch her as much as I can, although you’re right, on that day I was involved with my sermon. As a matter of fact, I had no need of such shirts. I may be old-fashioned but I always wear a dog collar. Always.’

  ‘Even on rambles with the Lads’ Brigade?’

  ‘All the same,’ my client said firmly, ‘I believe she did it out of love.’

  Well, now we had a defence: although he didn’t seem to be totally aware of it.

  ‘Those are the facts?’

  ‘They seem to be of no interest to anyone – except my immediate family. But that’s what I’m bound to say, if I take my oath on the Bible.’

  ‘But you were prepared to lie to me,’ I reminded him. He smiled again, that small, maddening smile.

  ‘Mr Rumpole. I have the greatest respect for your skill as an advocate, but I have never been in danger of mistaking you for Almighty God.’

  ‘Tell the truth now. She’ll only get a fine. Nothing!’

  He seemed to consider the possibility, then he shook his head.

  ‘To her it would be everything. She couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘What about you? You’d give up your whole life?’

  ‘It seems the least I can do for her.’ He was smiling again, hanging that patient little grin out like an advertisement for his humility and his deep sense of spiritual superiority to a worldly Old Bailey Hack.

  I ground out my small cigar in the overflowing ashtray and almost shouted. ‘Good God! I don’t know how I keep my temper.’

  ‘I do sympathize. He found His ideas irritated people dreadfully. Particularly lawyers.’ He was almost laughing now. ‘But you do understand? I am quite unable to give evidence on oath to the jury.’

  As every criminal lawyer knows it’s very difficult to get a client off unless he’s prepared to take the trouble of going into the witness-box, to face up to the prosecution and to demonstrate his innocence or at least his credentials as a fairly likeable character who might buy you a pint after work and whom you would not really want to see festering in the nick. After all fair’s fair, the jury have just seen the prosecution witnesses put through it, so why should the prisoner at the Bar sit in solemn silence in the dock? I knew that if the Reverend told his story, with suitable modesty and regret, I could get him off and Evelyn would merely get a well-earned talking to. When he refused to give evidence I could almost hear the rustle of unfrocking in the distance.

  Short of having my client dragged to the Bible by a sturdy usher, when he would no doubt stand mute of malice, there was nothing I could do other than address the jury in the unlikely hope of persuading them that there was no reliable evidence on which they could possibly convict the silent vicar. I was warming to my work as Bullingham sat inert, breathing hoarsely, apparently about to erupt.

  ‘Members of the jury,’ I told them. ‘There is a Golden Thread that runs throughout British justice. The prosecution must prove its case. The defence has to prove nothing.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole …’ A sound came from the Judge like the first rumble they once heard from Mount Vesuvius.

  I soldiered on. ‘The Reverend Mordred Skinner need not trouble to move four yards from that dock to the witness-box unless the prosecution has produced evidence that he intended to steal – and not to pay in another department.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole.’ The earth tremor grew louder. I raised my voice a semitone.

  ‘Never let it be said that a man is forced to prove his innocence! Our fathers have defied kings for that principle, members of the jury. They forced King John to sign Magna Carta and sent King Charles to the scaffold and it has been handed down even to the Inner London Sessions, Newington Causeway.’

  ‘If you’d let me get a word in edgeways …’

  ‘And now it is in your trust!’

  I’m not, as this narrative may have made clear, a religious man; but what happened next made me realize how the Israelites felt when the waters divided, and understand the incredulous reaction of the disciples when an uninteresting glass of water flushed darkly and smelt of the grape. I can recall the exact words of the indubitable miracle. Bullingham said, ‘Mr Rumpole. I entirely agree with everything you say. And,’ he added glowering threateningly at the Scout for the prosecution, ‘I shall direct the jury accordingly.’

  The natural malice of the Bull had been quelled by his instinctive respect for the law. He found there was no case to answer.

  I met my liberated client in the Gents, a place where his sister was unable to follow him. As we stood side by side at the porcelain I congratulated him.

  ‘I was quite reconciled to losing. I don’t think my sister would have stood by me somehow. The disgrace you see. I think,’ he looked almost wistful, ‘I think I should have been alone.’

  ‘You’d have been unfrocked.’

  ‘It might have been extremely restf
ul. Not to have to pretend to any sort of sanctity. Not to pretend to be different. To be exactly the same as everybody else.’

  I looked at him standing there in the London Sessions loo, his mac over his arm, his thin neck half-strangled by a dog collar. He longed for the relaxed life of an ordinary sinner, but he had no right to it.

  ‘Don’t long for a life of crime, old darling,’ I told him. ‘You’ve obviously got no talent for it.’

  Upstairs we met Evelyn and Mr Morse. The sister gave me a flicker of something which might have been a smile of gratitude.

  ‘It was a miracle,’ I told her.

  ‘Really? I thought the Judge was exceedingly fair. Come along, Mordred. He’s somewhere else you know, Mr Rumpole. He can’t even realize it’s all over.’ She attacked her brother again. ‘Better put your mac on, dear. It’s raining outside.’

  ‘Yes, Evelyn. Yes. I’ll put it on.’ He did so, obediently.

  ‘You must come to tea in the Rectory, Mr Rumpole.’ I had a final chilly smile from Evelyn.

  ‘Alas, dear lady. The pressure of work. These days I have so little time for pleasure.’

  ‘Say goodbye to Mr Rumpole, Mordred.’

  The cleric shook my hand, and gave me a confidential aside. ‘Goodbye, Mr Rumpole. You see it was entirely a family matter. There was no need for anyone to know anything about it.’

  And so he went, in his sister’s charge, back to the isolation of the Rectory.

  Will no one tell me what she sings?

  Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

  For old, unhappy, far-off things,

  And murders long ago.

  Had I, against all the odds, learned something from the Reverend? Was I now more conscious of the value of secrecy, of not dropping bombs of information which might cause ruin and havoc on the family front? It seems unlikely, but I do not know why else I was busily destroying the archive, pushing the photographs into the unused fireplace in my Chambers and applying a match, and dropping the durable articles, including the ostrich egg, into the waste-paper basket. As the flames licked across the paper and set Mrs Tempest the arsonist curling into ashy oblivion, the door opened to admit Miss Trant.

  ‘Rumpole! What on earth are you doing?’

  I turned from the smoking relics.

  ‘You keep things, Miss Trant? Mementoes? Locks of hair? Old letters, tied up in ribbon? “Memories”,’ I started to sing tunelessly, ‘ “were made of this.” ’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’ve got my first brief. From when I prosecuted you in Dock Street.’ This was the occasion when I tricked Miss Trant into boring the wretched Beak with a huge pile of law, and so defeated her.* It was not an incident of which I am particularly proud.

  ‘Destroy it. Forget the past, eh? Miss Trant. Look to the future!’

  ‘All right. Aren’t you coming up to Guthrie Featherstone’s room? We’re laying on a few drinks for George.’

  ‘George? Yes, of course. He’ll have a lot to celebrate.’

  Guthrie Featherstone, QC, MP, the suave and elegant Conservative-Labour MP for somewhere or another who, when he is not passing the ‘Gas Mains Enabling Bill’ or losing politely at golf to various of Her Majesty’s judges, condescends to exercise his duties as Head of Chambers (a post to which I was due to succeed by order of seniority of barristers in practice, when I was pipped at the post by young Guthrie taking silk. Well, I didn’t want it anyway); Guthrie Featherstone occupied the best room in Chambers (first floor, high windows, overlooking Temple Gardens) and he was engaged in making a speech to our assembled members. In a corner of the room I saw our clerk Henry and Dianne the typist in charge of a table decorated by several bottles of Jack Pommeroy’s cooking champagne. I made straight for the booze, and at first Featherstone’s speech seemed but a background noise, like Radio Four.

  ‘It’s well known among lawyers that the finest advocates never make the best judges. The glory of the advocate is to be opinionated, brash, fearless, partisan, hectoring, rude, cunning and unfair.’

  ‘Well done, Rumpole!’ This, of course, was Erskine-Brown.

  ‘Thank you very much, Claude.’ I raised my glass to him.

  ‘The ideal judge, however,’ Featherstone babbled on, ‘is detached, courteous, patient, painstaking and, above all, quiet. These qualities are to be found personified in the latest addition to our Bench of Circuit Judges.’

  ‘ “Circus” Judges, Rumpole calls them,’ Uncle Tom said loudly, to no one in particular.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the QC, MP concluded, ‘please raise your glasses to his Honour Judge George Frobisher.’

  Everyone was smiling and drinking. So the news had broken. George was a Circuit Judge. No doubt the crowds were dancing in Fleet Street. I moved to my old friend to add my word of congratulation.

  ‘Your health, George. Coupled with the name of Mrs Ida Tempest?’

  ‘No, Rumpole. No.’ George shook his head, I thought sadly.

  ‘What do you mean, “No”? Mrs Tempest should be here. To share in your triumph. Celebrating back at the Royal Borough Hotel, is she? She’ll have the Moët on ice by the time you get back.’

  ‘Mrs Tempest left the Royal Borough last week, Rumpole. I have no means of knowing where to find her.’

  At which point we were rudely interrupted by Guthrie Featherstone calling on George to make a speech. Other members joined in and Henry filled up George’s glass in preparation for the great oration.

  ‘I’m totally unprepared to say anything on this occasion,’ George said, taking a bit of paper from his pocket to general laughter. Poor old George could never do anything off the cuff.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ George started. ‘I have long felt the need to retire from the hurly-burly of practice at the Bar.’

  ‘Comes as news to me that George Frobisher had a practice at the Bar,’ Uncle Tom said to no one much in a deafening whisper.

  ‘To escape from the benevolent despotism of Henry, now our senior clerk.’ George twinkled.

  ‘Can you do a Careless Driving at Croydon tomorrow, your Honour?’ Henry called out in the cheeky manner he had adopted since he was an office boy.

  Laughter.

  ‘No, Henry, I can’t. So I have long considered applying for a Circuit Judgeship in a Rural Area …’

  ‘Where are you going to, George? Glorious Devon?’ Featherstone interrupted.

  ‘I think they’re starting me off in Luton. And I hope, very soon, I’ll have the pleasure of you all appearing before me!’

  ‘Where did George say they were sending him?’ Uncle Tom asked.

  ‘I think he said Luton, Uncle Tom,’ I told him.

  ‘Luton, glorious Luton!’ Henry sometimes goes too far, for a clerk. I was glad to see that Dianne ssshed him firmly.

  ‘Naturally as a Judge, as one, however humble, of Her Majesty’s Judges, certain standards will be expected of me,’ George went on, I thought in a tone of some regret.

  ‘No more carousing in Pommeroy’s with Horace Rumpole!’ Uncle Tom was still barracking.

  ‘And I mean to try, to do my best, to live up to those standards. That’s really all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you all very much.’

  There was tumultuous applause, increased in volume by the cooking champagne, and George joined me in a corner of the room. Uncle Tom was induced to make his speech, traditional and always the same on all Chambers’ occasions, and George and I talked quietly together.

  ‘George. I’m sorry. About Mrs Tempest …’

  ‘It was your fault, Rumpole.’ George looked at me with an air of severe rebuke.

  ‘My fault!’ I stood amazed. ‘But I said nothing. Not a word. You know me, George. Discretion is Rumpole’s middle name. I was silent. As the tomb.’

  ‘When I brought her to dinner with you and Hilda. She recognized you at once.’

  ‘She didn’t show it!’

  ‘She’s a remarkable woman.’

  ‘I
was junior Counsel, for her former husband. I’m sure he led her on. She made an excellent impression. In the witness-box.’ I tried to sound comforting.

  ‘She made an excellent impression on me, Rumpole. She thought you’d be bound to tell me.’

  ‘She thought that?’

  ‘So she decided to tell me first.’

  I stood looking at George, feeling unreasonably guilty. Somewhere in the distance Uncle Tom was going through the usual form of words.

  ‘As the oldest member of Chambers, I can remember this set before C. H. Wystan, Rumpole’s revered father-in-law, took over. It was in old Barnaby Hawks’s time and the young men were myself, Everett Longbarrow and old Willoughby Grime, who became Lord Chief Justice of Basutoland … He went on Circuit, I understand, wearing a battered opera hat and dispensed rough justice …’

  The other barristers joined in the well-known chorus ‘Under a Bong Tree’.

  ‘As I remember, Ida Tempest got three years.’

  ‘Yes,’ said George.

  ‘Her former husband got seven.’ I was trying to cheer him up. ‘I don’t believe Ida actually applied the match.’

  ‘All the same, it was a risk I didn’t feel able to take.’

  ‘You didn’t notice the smell of burning, George? Any night in the Royal Borough Hotel … ?’

  ‘Of course not! But the Lord Chancellor’s secretary had just told me of my appointment. It doesn’t do for a Judge’s wife to have done three years, even with full remission.’

  I looked at George. Was the sacrifice, I wondered, really necessary? ‘Did you have to be a Judge, George?’

  ‘I thought of that, of course. But I had the appointment. You know, at my age, Rumpole, it’s difficult to learn any new sort of trade.’

  ‘We had no work in those days,’ Uncle Tom continued his trip down memory lane. ‘We had no briefs of any kind. We spent our days practising chip shots, trying to get an old golf ball into the waste-paper basket with …’