The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  ‘Is it, Mr Rumpole?’ Medway was a banker of little faith. ‘Every time we’ve had one of these little chats, you’ve told me that you’re owed a considerable amount in fees by Mr Perivale Blythe.’

  ‘Can’t remember how much, of course. But enough to pay off my overdraft and make a large contribution to the National Debt.’ I stood up, anxious to bring this embarrassing interview to a conclusion. ‘Must be scooting along,’ I said. ‘Got to earn both of us some money. Engaged in Court, you know.’

  ‘My advice to you, Mr Rumpole,’ Medway said darkly, ‘is to take steps to make this Mr Perivale Blythe pay up. And without delay.’

  ‘Of course. Get my clerk on to it at once. Now don’t you worry, Medway.’ I opened the door on my way to freedom. ‘Having the Poles in next, are you? Hope you give them a good talking to.’

  When I had told Medway that I had an engagement in Court it was a pardonable exaggeration. In fact I had nothing much to do but settle into my room at 3 Equity Court and write these memoirs. I had found the tête-à-tête in the bank somewhat depressing and I was in a low mood as I turned into the Temple and approached the entrance of our Chambers. There I met our demure Head, Sam Ballard, QC, who was standing on the step in conversation with a young man with dark hair, soft eyes and an expression of somewhat unjustified self-confidence which reminded me of someone. Ballard greeted me with ‘Hullo there, Rumpole. How are you?’

  ‘Tir’d with all these, for restful death I cry,’ I told him candidly.

  ‘As to behold desert a beggar born,

  And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,

  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

  And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d …’

  ‘What’s this talk of death, Rumpole?’ Ballard was brisk and disapproving. ‘You know young Archie Featherstone, don’t you? Mr Justice Featherstone’s nephew.’ He introduced the young man, who smiled vaguely.

  ‘My God. More Featherstones!’ I was amazed. ‘What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?’

  ‘I’m sure he’d like your advice about starting out at the Bar.’

  ‘My advice is, “Don’t”,’ I told the young man.

  ‘Don’t?’ he repeated, pained.

  ‘Don’t slog your heart out. Don’t tramp for years round some pretty unsympathetic Courts. What’ll you have to show at the end of it? You’re up to your eyes in debt to the United Metropolitan Bank and they’ll grudge you such basic nourishment as a couple of dozen non-vintage Château Thames Embankment.’

  ‘Young Featherstone would love to get a seat in our Chambers, Rumpole.’ Ballard had clearly not followed a word I’d said. ‘I’ve told him that at the moment there’s just not the accommodation available.’

  ‘At the moment?’ Was the man expecting a sudden departure from our little band of barristers?

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ll be in your room for ever.’ Ballard didn’t sound too regretful. ‘The time must come when you take things a little more easily. Henry was saying how tired he thought you looked.’

  ‘Tir’d with all these, for restful death I cry …’ I repeated, and I looked at Ballard, remembering, ‘And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d. Oh yes, Ballard. The time’s got to come. Cheer up, young Featherstone,’ I told him. ‘You’ll soon be able to take over my overdraft.’

  I left them there and went to report to the clerk’s room. When I got there I found Henry in position at his desk and Dianne rattling her typewriter in a corner.

  ‘Henry, how much does Perivale Blythe owe me in fees?’ I asked at once.

  ‘Two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five pounds, ninety-three pence, Mr Rumpole,’ Henry said, as if he knew it all by heart.

  ‘You tell me of wealth undreamed of by the United Metropolitan Bank. It’s a debt stretching back over a considerable time, eh, Henry?’

  ‘Stretching back, Mr Rumpole, to the indecency at Swansea in April 1973.’ Henry confirmed my suspicions.

  ‘You have, I suppose, been on to him about it, Henry?’

  ‘Almost daily, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘And what has this blighter Blythe to say for himself?’

  ‘The last time his secretary told us a cheque was in the post.’

  ‘Not true?’ I guessed.

  ‘Not unless it evaporated mysteriously between here and Cheapside.’

  ‘Get after him, Henry, like a terrier. Get your teeth into the man Blythe, and don’t let him go until he disgorges the loot.’

  I looked at Henry’s desk and my eyes were greeted with the unusual and welcome sight of a brief bearing the Rumpole name. ‘Is that a set of papers for me you’re fingering?’ I asked with assumed indifference.

  ‘Mr Myers brought it in, sir. It’s a case at the Bailey.’ Henry confirmed the good news.

  ‘God bless old Myersy. A man who pays up from time to time.’ I looked at the brief. ‘What is it, Henry? Murder? Robbery? Sudden death?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Rumpole.’ Henry realized that I would be disappointed. ‘It seems to be about Sun-Sand Mobile Homes.’

  When I went up to my room to familiarize myself with the brief Henry had given me, I threw my hat, as usual, on to the hatstand; but, the hatstand not being there, the Rumpole headgear thudded to the ground. Of course, I knew what had happened. Erskine-Brown had always coveted the old hatstand that had stood in my room for years and, when he had a big conference, he put it in his room to impress the clientele. Before I started work I crept along the passage, found Erskine-Brown’s room empty and purloined the old article of furniture back again. Then I sat down, lit a small cigar, and studied the facts in the case of R. v. Armstrong.

  The trouble had started at a Sun-Sand holiday site in Cornwall. A family returned from a cold, wet day on the beach and had their mobile holiday home towed away before they could get at their high tea. Other punters were apparently sold holidays in mobile homes which were said to have existed only in the fertile imagination of my client, Frank Armstrong.

  In due course police officers – Detective Inspector Limmeridge and Detective Sergeant Banks – called on Sun-Sand Holidays in North London. The premises were small and unimposing but the officers noticed that they were elaborately equipped with all the latest gadgets of computer technology. The young chairman of the company was there, busily pressing buttons and anxiously watching figures flash and hearing the bleeps and hiccoughs of such machines at work. When arrested, Mr Armstrong was given permission to telephone his solicitor, but when he did so he found that the gentleman in question had just slipped out of the office.

  Eventually Frank Armstrong was allowed bail and turned up in my room at Chambers with old Myers, the solicitor’s clerk (or legal executive, as such gentlemen are now called), whom I would rather have with me on a bad day at the Bailey than most of the learned friends I can think of. I had asked Miss Fiona Allways to join us and generally help with the sums.

  ‘My brother Fred and I, we was born into the modern world, Mr Rumpole,’ said Frank. ‘And what is the name of the game, in the world today?’

  ‘Space Invaders?’ I hazarded a guess. My client looked at me seriously. In spite of a sharp business suit, his gaucho moustache, longish hair, gold watch and bracelet, Playboy Club tie and the manner of a tough young businessman, Frank Armstrong looked younger than I had expected, and both pained and puzzled by the turn of events.

  ‘The name of the game is leisure interests and computer technology,’ he told me seriously. ‘You won’t believe this, Mr Rumpole. You will not believe it.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Our old dad kept a fruit barrow in the Shepherd’s Bush Market.’

  ‘Not incredible,’ I assured him.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Well, he made a few bob in his time and when he died my brother and I divided the capital. Fred went into hardware, right?’

  ‘Ironmongery?’

  ‘You’re joking,’ Frank said. ‘Fred joined the microchip revolution. Looking round your office now, Mr Rumpole
, I doubt it’s fully automated. There are delays in sending your bills out, right?’

  ‘Sometimes I think my bills are sent out by a carrier pigeon with a poor sense of direction,’ I admitted.

  ‘Trust in the computer, Mr Rumpole, and you’d have so much more time, leisure-wise. That’s the …’

  ‘Name of the game?’ I hazarded.

  ‘Yes, indeed. That’s why I saw my future definitely in the leisure industry.’

  ‘ “Leisure industry”. Sounds like a contradiction in terms.’

  Frank didn’t hear my murmur. He was clearly off on a favourite subject. ‘Who wants hotel expenses these days? Who needs porters, tips, waiter service? All the hassle. The future, as I see it, is in self-catering mobile homes set in A3 and B1 popularity, mass appeal holiday areas. That’s the vision, Mr Rumpole, and it’s got me where I am today.’

  ‘On bail, facing charges of fraud and fraudulent conversion,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Mr Rumpole. I want you to believe this …’

  ‘Try me again.’

  ‘I just don’t understand it. I want to tell you that very frankly. I was doing my best to run a go-ahead service industry geared to the needs of the eighties. What went wrong exactly?’ Frank asked plaintively. I got up, stretched the legs and lit a small cigar.

  ‘I imagine a close study of the accounts might tell us that,’ I said. ‘By the way, that’s one of the reasons I’ve asked you to give Miss Allways a little brief. She’s got a remarkable head for figures.’

  ‘And quite a figure for heads, I should think.’ Frank gave our lady barrister one of his ‘Playboy Club’ leers and laughed. Fiona froze him with a look.

  ‘Pardon me, Miss Allways. Probably out of place, right?’ Our client apologized and Miss Allways ignored him and rattled out some businesslike instructions to old Myers. ‘I’d like the accounts sent down to Chambers as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘There’s a great deal of spadework to be done.’

  ‘This is where we’re in a certain amount of difficulty.’ Myers coughed apologetically.

  ‘Surely not?’

  ‘You see, the accounts were all given to Mr Armstrong’s previous solicitor. That was the firm that acted for his father back in the fruit barrow days and went on acting till after our client’s arrest.’

  ‘It’s perfectly simple.’ Fiona was impatient. ‘You’ve only got to get in touch with the former solicitors.’

  ‘Well, not quite as simple as all that, Miss Allways. We’ve tried writing but we never get an answer to our letters and when we telephone, well, the gentleman dealing with the matter always seems to have just slipped out of the office.’

  ‘Really? What’s the name of the firm?’ Miss Allways asked, but I was ahead of her. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess,’ I said. ‘What about Blythe, Winterbottom and Paisley?’

  ‘Well,’ our client admitted dolefully. ‘This is it.’

  At the end of the day I called into Pommeroy’s Wine Bar and the first person I met was Claude Erskine-Brown on his way out. Of course I went straight into the attack.

  ‘Erskine-Brown,’ I said accusingly. ‘Hatstand-pincher!’

  ‘Rumpole. That’s a most serious allegation.’

  ‘Hatstand-pinching is a most serious crime,’ I assured him.

  ‘You don’t need a hatstand in your room, Rumpole. Criminals hardly ever wear hats. I happened to have a conference yesterday with three solicitors all with bowlers.’

  ‘That hatstand is a family heirloom, Erskine-Brown. It belonged to my old father-in-law. I value it highly,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh, very well, Rumpole. If that’s the attitude.’ He was leaving me.

  ‘Goodnight, Erskine-Brown. And keep your hands off my furniture.’

  As I penetrated the interior, I saw our clerk Henry, who is, far more effectively than the egregious Bollard, the true Head of our Chambers and ruler of our lives, in the company of the ever-faithful Dianne. I asked him to name his poison, which he did, in an unattractive manner, as Cinzano Bianco and lemonade.

  ‘Dianne?’ I included her in the invitation.

  ‘I’ll have the same.’ She looked somewhat meltingly at Henry. ‘It’s what we used to have in Lanzarotte.’

  ‘Did you really? Well, I won’t inquire too deeply into that. And a large cooking claret, Jack, and no doubt you’d be happy to cash a small cheque?’ I asked the host as he came past pushing a cloth along the counter.

  ‘Well, not exactly happy, Mr Rumpole.’ Pommeroy was not in one of his sunnier moods.

  ‘Come on, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You haven’t lent a penny to Poland, have you? This is a much safer bank than the United Metropolitan. Oh, give yourself one while you’re about it,’ I said, as Jack moved reluctantly to get the drinks and the money. Then I turned to my clerk in a businesslike manner. ‘Now then, Henry, about this abominable Blythe. Not surfaced, by any stretch of the imagination?’

  ‘No, Mr Rumpole. Not as yet, sir.’

  ‘Not as yet. Lying in his hammock in some South Sea Island, is he, fondling an almond-eyed beauty and drinking up our brief fees and refreshers?’

  ‘I’ve made inquiries around the Temple. Mr Brushwood in Queen Elizabeth’s Buildings had the same problem, his clerk was telling me. Blythe owed well into four figures, and they couldn’t find hide nor hair of him, sir.’

  ‘But poor old Tommy Brushwood is …’ The claret had come and I resorted to it.

  ‘No longer with us. I know that, sir. And as soon as he’d gone, Blythe called on Mr Brushwood’s widow and got her to give him some sort of release for a small percentage. She signed as executor, not quite knowing the form, I would imagine. Cheers, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Cheers everso.’ Dianne smiled at me over the fizzy concoction.

  ‘But Henry, why has this Blythe not been reported to the Law Society? Why hasn’t he been clapped in irons,’ I asked him, ‘and transported to the colonies?’

  ‘All the clerks have thought of reporting him, of course. But if we did that we’d never get paid, now would we?’

  ‘Despite that drink you indulge in, which has every appearance of chilled Lucozade, I believe you still have your head screwed on, Henry. I have another solution.’

  ‘Honestly, Mr Rumpole? I’d be glad to hear it.’

  ‘We need Blythe as a witness in the Sun-Sand Mobile Homes case.’

  ‘R. v. Armstrong?’

  ‘Your memory serves you admirably. We’ll get Newton the Private Dick to find Blythe so he can slap a subpoena on him. If “Fig” Newton can’t find the little horror, no one can. Isn’t that all we need?’

  ‘I hope so, Mr Rumpole,’ Henry said doubtfully. ‘I really hope so.’

  Ferdinand Ian Gilmour Newton, widely known in the legal profession as ‘Fig’ Newton, was a tall, gloomy man who always seemed to be suffering from a heavy cold. No doubt his work, forever watching back doors, peering into windows, following errant husbands in all weathers, was responsible for his pink nostrils and the frequent application of a crumpled handkerchief. I have known Fig Newton throughout my legal career. He appeared daily in the old-style divorce cases, when his evidence was invariably accepted. Since the bonds of matrimony can now be severed without old Fig having to inspect the sheets or observe male and female clothing scattered in a hotel bedroom, his work has diminished; but he can still be relied upon to serve a writ or unearth an alibi witness. He seems to have no interests outside his calling. His home life, if it exists at all, is a mystery. I believe he snatches what sleep he can while sitting in his battered Cortina watching the lights go on and off in the bedroom of a semi-detached, and he dines off a paper of fish and chips as he guards the door of a debtor who has gone to earth.

  Fig Newton called at the offices of Blythe, Winterbottom and Paisley early one morning and asked to see Mr Perivale Blythe. He was greeted by a severe-looking secretary, a lady named Miss Claymore, with spectacles, a tweed skirt and cardigan, and a Scots accent. Despite her assuring him that
Perivale Blythe was out of the office and not expected back that day, the leech-like Fig sat down and waited. He learned nothing of importance, except that round about noon Miss Claymore went into an inner office to make a telephone call. The detective was able to hear little of the conversation, but she did say something about the times of trains to Penzance.

  When Miss Claymore left her office, Fig Newton followed her home. He sat in his Cortina in Kilburn outside the Victorian building, divided into flats, to which Miss Claymore had driven her small Renault. He waited for almost two hours, and when Miss Claymore finally emerged she had undergone a considerable change. She was wearing tight trousers of some satin-like material and a pink fluffy sweater. Her feet were crammed into high-heeled gold sandals and she was without her spectacles. She got into the Renault and drove to Soho, where she parked with considerable daring halfway up a pavement, and went into an Italian restaurant where she met a young man. Fig Newton kept observation from the street and was thus unable to share in the lasagne and the bottle of Valpolicella, which he carefully noted down. Later the couple crossed Frith Street and entered a Club known as the ‘Pussy Cat A-Go-Go’, where particularly loud music was being played. Fig Newton was later able to peer down into the basement of this Club, where, lit by sporadic, coloured lights, Miss Claymore was dancing with the same young man, whom he described as having the appearance of a young business executive with features very similar to those of our client.

  On the evening that Mr Perivale Blythe’s secretary went dancing, I was reading on the sofa at 25B Froxbury Court, smoking a small cigar and recovering from a hard day of writing this account in my Chambers. Suddenly, and without warning, my wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, dropped a heavy load of correspondence on to my stomach.

  ‘Hilda,’ I protested. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Bills, Rumpole. Can’t you recognize them?’

  ‘Electricity. Gas. Rates. Water rates.’ I gave them a glance. ‘We really must cut down on these frivolities.’

  ‘All gone red,’ Hilda told me.

  ‘It’s only last month’s telephone bill.’ I looked at a specimen. ‘We should lay that down for maturing. You don’t have to rush into paying these things, you know. Mr Blythe hasn’t paid me much of anything since 1972.’