The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  When we had met Mr Bernard at the gates of Brixton and settled down with the ex-Mr Debonair in the interview room, I thought I would put Mizz Probert’s theories to the test. ‘Come from a broken home, did you?’ I asked Snakelegs.

  ‘Broken home?’ The client looked displeased. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Mum and Dad was married forty years, and he never so much as looked at another woman. Hetty and I, we’re the same. What you on about, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘At least you were born in an inner-city area.’

  ‘My old dad wouldn’t have tolerated it. Bromley was really nice in those days. More green fields and that. What’s it got to do with my case?’

  ‘Not much. Just setting my pupil’s mind at rest. Why was your garage being used as a cellar for fine wines?’

  ‘Bit of good stuff, was it?’ Snakelegs seemed proud of the fact.

  ‘Didn’t you try it?’

  ‘Teetotal, me. You know that.’ The client sounded shocked. ‘Although the wife, she will take a drop of tawny port at Christmas. Not that I think it’s right. It’s drink that leads to crime. We all know that, don’t we, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘So how …?’

  ‘Well, I got them all a bit cheap. Not for myself, you understand. They’d be no good for Hetty and me. But I thought it was a drop of stuff I might sell on to anyone having a bit of a wedding – anything like that.’

  ‘And where did you get it? The Judge might be curious to know.’ I felt a sudden weariness, such as whoever it was among the ancient Greeks who had just pushed a stone up a hill, and seen it come rolling down again for the three-millionth time, must have felt. It was one thing to win a case because the prosecution evidence wasn’t strong enough for a conviction. It was another, and far more depressing matter, to be putting forward the same distinctly shopworn defence throughout a working life. I just hoped to God that Snakelegs wasn’t going to babble on about a man in a pub.

  ‘Well, there was this fellow what I ran into down the Needle Arms … What’s the matter, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘Please, Snakelegs’ – my boredom must have become evident – ‘can’t we have some sort of variation? Judge Bullingham’s getting tremendously tired of that story.’

  ‘Bullingham?’ Snakelegs was understandably alarmed. ‘We’re not getting him again, are we?’

  ‘Not if I can help it. This character in the Needle Arms – not anyone whose name you happen to remember?’ I lit a small cigar and waited in hope.

  ‘Afraid I can’t help you there, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘You can’t help me? And he sold you all these crates of stuff. Who’s got the list of exhibits?’ Mizz Probert handed it to me immediately. ‘Cheval Blanc. St émilion …’

  ‘No. That wasn’t the name. It was more like, something Irish …’ Snakelegs looked at me. ‘What’s our chances, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘Our chances?’ I gave him my considered opinion. ‘Well, you’ve heard about snowballs in hell?’

  ‘You saw me right last time.’

  ‘Last time the losers didn’t come forward to claim their property.’

  ‘Because of the insurance.’ Liz filled in the details.

  ‘Mizz Probert remembers. This time the loser of the wine is principal witness for the prosecution.’

  ‘Martyn Vanberry.’ Bernard was looking at the prosecution witness statements. First among them was indeed the proprietor of Vanberry’s – purveyors of fine wines, Prentice Alley in the City of London – not a specially attractive character, the highly respectable public-school bully.

  Back in the Deux Chevaux, I felt a little guilty about disillusioning Liz Probert and depriving Snakelegs of an unhappy childhood. I complimented her on her runabout and asked if it weren’t by any chance a present from her father, the Canon. It was then that she told me that her father was, in fact, the leader of the South-east London Council widely known as Red Ron Probert. He was a man, no doubt, whose own article of religion was the divine right of the local Labour Party to govern that area of London, and he frequently appeared on television chat-shows to speak up for minority rights. His ideal voter was apparently an immigrant Eskimo lesbian, who strongly supported the IRA.

  ‘Is there anything wrong with Ron Probert being my father?’

  ‘Nothing at all provided you don’t chatter about it to our learned Head of Chambers. Do you think you could point this machine in the general direction of Luton? I’m going to take a nap.’

  ‘What are we doing in Luton?’

  ‘Seeing a witness.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t allowed to see witnesses.’

  ‘This is an expert witness. We’re allowed to see them.’

  Luton is not exactly one of the Jewels of Southern England. American tourists don’t brave the terrorists to loiter in its elegant parks or snap each other in the Cathedral Close, but its inhabitants seem friendly enough and the first police officer we met was delighted to direct us to the Monty Mantis Service Station. It was a large and clearly thriving concern, selling not only petrol but new and second-hand cars, cuddly toys, garden furniture, blow-up paddling pools, furry dice and anoraks. The proprietor remembered my face from Vanberry’s, and when I gave him a hint of what we wanted, invited us into his luxuriously appointed office, where we sat on plastic zebra-skin covered furniture, gazing at pictures of peeing children and crying clowns, while he poured us out a couple of glasses of Cheval Blanc from his own cellar, so that I might understand the experience. When I made my delight clear, he said it was always a pleasure to meet a genuine enthusiast.

  ‘And you, Mr Mantis,’ I ventured to ask him, ‘I’ve been wondering how you became so extraordinarily well informed in wine lore. I mean, where did you get your training?’

  ‘Day trip to Boulogne. 1963. With the Luton Technical.’ He refilled our glasses. ‘Unattractive bunch of kids, we must have been. Full of terminal acne and lavatory jokes. Enough to drive “sir” what took us into the funny farm. We were all off giving him the slip. Trying to chase girls that didn’t exist, or was even fatter and spottier than the local talent round the Wimpy. Anyway, I ended up in the station buffet for some reason, and spent what I’d been saving up for an unavailable knees’ trembler, if you’ll pardon my French, Miss Probert. I bought a half bottle. God knows what it was. Ordinaire de la Gare, French railways perpetual standby. And there was I, brought up on Tizer and Coke that tastes of old pennies, and sweet tea you could stand the spoon up in, and it came as a bit of a revelation to me, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Tasting of Flora and the country green … Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! …’

  ‘Shame you can’t ever talk about the stuff without sounding like them toffee noses round Vanberry’s. Well, I bought four bottles and kept a cellar under my bed and shared it out in toothmugs with a chosen few. Then when I started work at the garage, I didn’t go round the pub Friday nights. I began investing …’

  ‘And acquired your knowledge?’

  ‘I don’t know football teams, you see. Haven’t got a clue about the Cup. But I reckon I know my vintages.’

  ‘Such as the Cheval Blanc 1971.’ I sampled it again.

  ‘All right, is it?’

  ‘It seems perfectly all right.’

  ‘You’re sure you won’t, Miss Probert?’

  ‘I never have.’

  Liz Probert, I thought, a hard worker, with all the puritanism of youth.

  ‘This is better, perhaps’ – I held my glass to the light – ‘than the Cheval Blanc round Vanberry’s?’

  Monty Mantis looked at me then and began to laugh. It was not unkind, but genuinely amused laughter, coming from a man who no doubt knew his wines.

  Our clerk Henry is a star of his local amateur dramatic society, and is famous, as I understand it, for the Noël Coward roles he undertakes. Henry’s life in the theatre has its uses for us as a fellow Thespian is Miss Osgood, who, when she is not appearing in some role made famous by the late Gertrude Lawrence, is in charge of the lists down the Ol
d Bailey. Miss Osgood can exercise some sort of control on which case comes before which judge, and when the wheel of fortune spins to decide such matters, she can sometimes lay a finger on it. I had fortunately hit on a time when Henry and Miss Osgood were playing opposite each other in Private Lives and I asked our clerk to use his best endeavours with his co-star to see that R. v. Snakelegs Timson did not come up for trial before Judge Bullingham. On the night before the hearing, Henry rang Froxbury Court to give me the glad news that the case was fixed to come on before a judge known to his many friends and admirers as Moley Molesworth.

  ‘A wonderful judge for us,’ I told Bernard and Liz Probert as we assembled at the door of the Court the next morning. ‘I’ll have Moley eating out of my hand. Mildest-mannered chap that ever thought in terms of probation.’

  ‘For receiving stolen wine?’ Bernard sounded doubtful.

  ‘Oh, yes. I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Community service is his equivalent of dispatching chaps to the galleys.’

  But just when everything seemed set fair, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand blew up in the shape of Miss Osgood, who came to announce that his Honour Judge Molesworth was confined to bed with a severe cold and would not, therefore, be trying Snakelegs.

  ‘A severe cold? What’s the matter with the old idiot, can’t he wrap up warm?’

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Rumpole. We can transfer you to another Court immediately.’ Miss Osgood smiled with the charm of the late Gertrude Lawrence. ‘Judge Bullingham’s free.’

  Why is it that whoever dishes out severe colds invariably gives them to the wrong person?

  ‘Mr Rumpole. Do you wish to detain this gentleman in the witness-box?’

  The Bull had clearly recognized Snakelegs, and remembered the antiques in the frozen peas. He looked with equal disfavour at the dock and at defending Counsel. It was only when his eye lit upon young Tristram Paulet for the prosecution, or the chief prosecution witness, Martyn Vanberry, who was now standing, at the end of his evidence-in-chief, awaiting my attention, that he exposed his yellowing teeth in that appalling smirk which represents Bullingham’s nearest approximation to moments of charm.

  ‘I have one or two questions for Mr Vanberry,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh’ – his Lordship seemed surprised – ‘is there any dispute that your client, Timson, had this gentleman’s wine in his possession?’

  ‘No dispute about that, my Lord.’

  ‘Then to what issue in this case can your questions possibly be directed?’

  I was tempted to tell the old darling that if he sat very quietly and paid close attention he might, just possibly, find out. Instead, I said that my questions would concern my client’s guilt or innocence, a matter which might be of some interest to the jury. And then, before the Bull could get his breath to bellow, I asked Mr Vanberry if the wine he lost was insured.

  ‘Of course. I had it fully insured.’

  ‘As a prudent businessman?’

  ‘I hope I am that, my Lord,’ Vanberry appealed to the Judge, who gave his ghastly smile and murmured as unctuously as possible, ‘I’m sure you are, Mr Vanberry. I am perfectly sure you are.’

  ‘And how long have you been trading as a wine merchant in Prentice Alley in the City of London?’ I went on hacking away.

  ‘Just three years, my Lord.’

  ‘And done extremely well! In such a short time.’ The Bull was still smirking.

  ‘We have been lucky, my Lord, and I think we’ve been dependable.’

  ‘Before that, where were you trading?’ I interrupted the love duet between the witness and the Bench.

  ‘I was selling pictures. As a matter of fact I had a shop in Chelsea; we specialized in nineteenth-century watercolours, my Lord.’

  ‘The name of the business?’

  ‘Vanberry Fine Arts.’

  ‘Manage to find any insurance claims for Vanberry Fine Arts …?’ I turned to whisper to Bernard, but it seemed he was still making inquiries. Only one thing to do then, pick up a blank sheet of paper, study it closely and ask the next question looking as though you had all the answers in your hands. Sometimes, it was to be admitted, the old-fashioned ways are best.

  ‘I must put it to you that Vanberry Fine Arts made a substantial insurance claim in respect of the King’s Road premises.’

  ‘We had a serious break-in and most of our stock was stolen. Of course I had to make a claim, my Lord.’ Vanberry still preferred to talk to his friend, the Bull, but at least he had been forced by the information he thought I had to come out with some part of the truth.

  ‘You seem to be somewhat prone to serious break-ins, Mr Vanberry,’ I suggested, whereupon the Bull came in dead on cue with, ‘It’s the rising tide of lawlessness that is threatening to engulf us all. You should know that better than anyone, Mr Rumpole!’

  I thought it best to ignore this, so I then called on the usher to produce Exhibit 34, which was, in fact, one of the bottles of allegedly stolen wine.

  ‘You’re not proposing to sample it, I hope, Mr Rumpole?’ The Bull tried heavy sarcasm and the jury and the prosecution Counsel laughed obediently.

  ‘I’m making no application to do so at the moment,’ I reassured him. ‘Mr Vanberry. You say this bottle contains vintage claret of a high quality?’

  ‘It does, my Lord.’

  ‘Retailing at what price?’

  ‘I think around fifty pounds a bottle.’

  ‘And insured for …?’

  ‘I believe we insured it for the retail price. Such a wine would be hard to replace.’

  ‘Of course it would. It’s a particularly fine vintage of the … What did you say it was?’ The Bull charged into the arena.

  ‘Cheval Blanc, my Lord.’

  ‘And we all know what you have to pay for a really fine Burgundy nowadays, don’t we, members of the jury?’

  The members of the jury – an assortment of young unemployed blacks, puzzled old-age pensioners from Hackney and grey-haired cleaning ladies – looked at the Judge and seemed to find his question mystifying.

  ‘It’s a claret, my Lord. Not a Burgundy,’ Vanberry corrected the Judge, as I thought unwisely.

  ‘A claret. Yes, of course it is. Didn’t I say that? Yes, well. Let’s get on with it, Mr Rumpole.’ Bullingham was not pleased.

  ‘You lost some fifty cases. It was insured for six hundred pounds a case, you say?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘So you recovered some thirty thousand pounds from your insurers?’

  ‘There was a considerable loss …’

  ‘To your insurance company?’

  ‘And a considerable profit to whoever dealt with it illegally,’ the Bull couldn’t resist saying, so I thought it about time he was given a flutter of the cape: ‘My Lord, I have an application to make in respect of Exhibit 34.’

  ‘Oh, very well. Make it then.’ The Judge closed his eyes and prepared to be bored.

  ‘I wish to apply to the Court to open this bottle of alleged Cheval Blanc.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ The Bull’s eyes opened.

  ‘Your Lordship seemed to have the possibility in mind …’

  ‘Mr Rumpole!’ – I watched the familiar sight of the deep purple falling on the Bullingham countenance – ‘from time to time the weight of these grave proceedings at the Old Bailey may be lifted when the Judge makes a joke. One doesn’t do it often. One seldom can. But one likes to do it whenever possible. I was making a joke, Mr Rumpole!’

  ‘I’m sure we’re all grateful for your Lordship’s levity,’ I assured him, ‘but I’m entirely serious. My learned pupil, Mizz Probert, has come equipped with a corkscrew.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole!’ – the Judge was exercising almost superhuman self-control – ‘may I get this quite clear. What would be your purpose in opening this bottle?’

  ‘The purpose of tasting it, my Lord.’

  It was then, of course, that the short Bullingham fuse set off the explosion. ‘This is a Court of L
aw, Mr Rumpole,’ he almost shouted. ‘This is not a barroom! I have sat here for a long time, far too long in my opinion, listening to your cross-examination of this unfortunate gentleman who has, as the jury may well find, suffered at the hands of your client. But I do not intend to sit here, Mr Rumpole, while you drink the exhibits!’

  ‘Not “drink” ’ – I tried to calm the Bull – ‘ “taste”, my Lord. And may I say this: if the defence is to be denied the opportunity of tasting a vital exhibit, that would be a breach of our fundamental liberties! The principles we have fought for ever since the days of Magna Carta. In that event I would have to make an immediate application to the Court of Appeal.’

  ‘The Court of Appeal, did you say?’ I had mentioned the only institution which can bring the Bull to heel – he dreads criticism by the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary which might well get reported in The Times. ‘You would take the matter up to the Court of Appeal?’ he repeated, somewhat aghast.

  ‘This afternoon, my Lord.’

  ‘That’s what you’d do?’

  ‘Without hesitation, my Lord.’

  ‘What do you say about this, Mr Tristram Paulet?’ The Judge turned for help to the prosecution.

  ‘My Lord. I’m sure the Court would not wish my learned friend to have any cause for complaint, however frivolous. And it might be better not to delay matters by an application to the Court of Appeal.’ Paulet is one of Nature’s old Etonians, but I blessed him for his words which were also welcomed by the Bull. ‘Exactly what was in my mind, Mr Tristram Paulet!’ the Judge discovered. ‘Very well, Mr Rumpole. In the quite exceptional circumstances of this case, the Court is prepared to give you leave to taste …’

  So, in a sense, the party was on. Mizz Probert produced a corkscrew from her handbag. I opened the bottle, a matter in which I have had some practice, and asked the Judge and my learned friend, Mr Paulet, to join me. The usher brought three of the thick tumblers which are used to carry water to hoarse barristers or fainting witnesses. While this operation was being carried out, my eye lighted on Martyn Vanberry in the witness-box – he looked suddenly older, his expensive tan had turned sallow and I saw his forehead shining with sweat. He opened his mouth, but no sound of any particular significance emerged. And so, in the ensuing silence, Tristram Paulet sniffed doubtfully at his glass, the Bull took a short swig and looked enigmatic, and I tasted and held the wine long enough in my mouth to be certain. It was with considerable relief that I realized that the label on the bottle was an unreliable witness, for the taste was all too familiar – that of Château Thames Embankment 1985, a particularly brutal year.