The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  Installed, happy now, on his Bench, Guthrie was treated to the Rumpole examination-in-chief of my distinctly shifty-looking client ‘Dr Horridge’. I was saying, ‘If any of these young ladies misconducted themselves in your Health Centres …’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ the witness protested, ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t. They were spiritually trained, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘All the same, if by any chance they did, was it with your knowledge and approval?’

  ‘Certainly not, my Lord. Quite certainly not!’ Horridge turned to Guthrie, from whom I expected a look of sympathy. Instead, the Judge uttered a sharpish, ‘Come now, Dr Horridge!’

  ‘Yes, my Lord?’ The theological doctor blinked.

  ‘Come, come! We have had the evidence from that young officer, Detective Constable Marten, that he suggested to one of your masseuses … something of “the other”!’

  ‘Something or other, my Lord?’

  ‘No, Dr Horridge.’ The Judge sounded increasingly severe. ‘Something of the other. I’m sure you know perfectly well what that means. To which the masseuse replied, “That will be twenty pounds.” A pretty scandalous state of affairs, I’m sure you’ll agree?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’ What else could the wretched massage pedlar say?

  ‘Are you honestly telling this jury that you had no idea whatever that was going on, in your so-called Health Centre?’

  ‘No idea at all, my Lord.’

  ‘And you didn’t make it your business to find out?’ Guthrie was now well and truly briefed for the prosecution.

  ‘Not specifically, my Lord.’ It wasn’t a satisfactory answer and the Judge met it with rising outrage. ‘Not specifically! Didn’t you realize that decent, law-abiding citizens, husbands and ratepayers might be trapped into the most ghastly trouble just by injuring an elbow – I mean, a knee?’

  ‘I suppose so, my Lord,’ came the abject reply.

  ‘You suppose so! Well. The jury will have heard your answer. What are you doing, Mr Rumpole?’ His Lordship had some reason to look at me. I had wet my forefinger and now held it up in the air.

  ‘Just testing the wind, my Lord.’

  ‘The wind?’ The Judge was puzzled.

  ‘Yes. It seems to have completely changed direction.’

  When the case was concluded, I returned to Chambers exhausted. Thinking I might try my client’s recipe, I lay flat on the floor with my eyes closed. I heard the door open, and the voice of the Hearthrug from far away asking, ‘Rumpole! What’s the matter? Are you dead or something?’

  ‘Not dead. Just laid out spiritually.’ I opened my eyes. ‘Losing a case is always a tiring experience.’

  ‘I’m trying to see Ballard,’ Hearthstoke alleged.

  ‘Well, look somewhere else.’

  ‘He always seems to be busy. I wanted to tell him about Henry.’

  I rose slowly, and with some difficulty, to a sitting position, and thence to my feet. ‘What about Henry?’

  ‘Kissing Dianne in the clerk’s room.’ The appalling Hearthrug did his best to look suitably censorious. ‘It’s just not on.’

  ‘Oh, I agree.’ I was upright by now, but panting slightly.

  ‘Do you?’ He seemed surprised. ‘I thought you’d say it was all just part of the freedom of the subject, or whatever it is you’re so keen on.’

  ‘Oh, good heavens, no! I really think he should stop rehearsing in his place of work.’

  ‘Rehearsing?’ He seemed surprised.

  ‘Didn’t you know? Henry’s a pillar of the Bromley amateur dramatics. He’s playing opposite Dianne in some light comedy or other. Of course, they both work so hard they get hardly any time to rehearse. I’ll speak to them about it. By the way, how’s the housemaid’s knee?’

  ‘The what?’ Clearly, my words had no meaning for the man.

  ‘The dicky ankle, dislocated elbow, bad back, tension in the neck. In a lot of pain, are you?’

  ‘Rumpole! What are you talking about? I am perfectly fit, thank you!’

  ‘No aches and pains of any sort?’ It was my turn to sound surprised.

  ‘None whatever.’

  ‘How very odd! And you’ve been having such a lot of massage lately.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Hearthrug, I was delighted to note, was starting to bluster.

  ‘Unfortunate case. The poor old theologian got two years, once the Judge felt he had a free hand in the matter. But we were looking through the evidence. Of course, you knew that. That was why you came in to give Mizz Probert a helping hand. I was after another name, as it so happens. But I kept finding yours, Charles Hearthstoke. In for a weekly massage at the Battersea Health Depot and Hanky-Panky Centre.’

  ‘It was entirely innocent!’ he protested.

  ‘Oh, good. You’ll be able to explain that to our learned Head of Chambers. When you can find him.’

  But Hearthrug looked as though he was no longer eager to find Soapy Sam Ballard, or level his dreadful accusations against Henry and Dianne.

  From time to time, and rather too often for my taste, we have Chambers parties, and shortly after the events described previously, Claude Erskine-Brown announced that he was to finance one such shindig; he had some particular, but unknown, cause for celebration. So we were all assembled in Ballard’s room, where Pommeroy’s most reasonably priced Méthode Champenoise was dished out by Henry and Dianne to the members of Chambers with their good ladies and a few important solicitors and such other distinguished guests as Mr Justice Featherstone, now fully restored to health both of mind and elbow. ‘Hear you potted Rumpole’s old brothel-keeper,’ Uncle Tom greeted Sir Guthrie, making a gesture as though playing snooker, ‘straight into the pocket!’

  ‘It was a worrying case,’ Guthrie admitted.

  ‘It must have been for you, Judge. Extremely worrying.’ I saw his point.

  ‘There used to be a rumour about the Temple’ – Uncle Tom was wandering down Memory Lane – ‘that old Helford-Davis’s clerk was running a disorderly house over a sweet shop in High Holborn. Trouble was, no one could ever find it!’ At which point, Hilda, in a new hat, came eagerly up to Guthrie and said, ‘Oh, Judge. How we’re going to envy you all that sunshine!’ And she went on in spite of my warning growl. ‘Of course, we’d love to retire to a warmer climate. But Rumpole’s got all these new responsibilities. He feels he won’t be able to let the Lord Chancellor down.’

  ‘The Lord Chancellor?’ Guthrie didn’t seem quite to follow her drift.

  ‘He’s expecting great things, apparently, of Rumpole. Well’ – she raised her glass – ‘happy retirement.’

  ‘Mrs Rumpole. I’m not retiring.’

  ‘But Marigold distinctly told me that it was to be Ibiza.’

  ‘Well. I had toyed with the idea of loafing about all day in an old pair of shorts and an old straw hat. Soaking up the sun. Drinking Sangria. But no. I feel it’s my duty to go on sitting.’

  ‘Ibiza is no longer necessary,’ I explained to Hilda, but she had to say, ‘Your duty! Yes, of course. Rumpole is going to be doing his duty too.’ At which point, our Head of Chambers banged a glass on his desk for silence. ‘I think we are going to hear about Rumpole’s future now,’ Hilda said, and Ballard addressed the assembled company. ‘Welcome! Welcome everyone. Welcome Judge. It’s delightful to have you with us. Well, in the life of every Chambers, as in every family, changes take place. Some happy, others not so happy. To get over the sadness first. Young Charles Hearthstoke has not been with us long, only three months in fact.’ ‘Three months too long, if you want my opinion,’ I murmured to Uncle Tom, and Bollard swept on with his ill-deserved tribute. ‘But I’m sure we all came to respect his energy and drive. Charles has told me that he found the criminal side of our work here somewhat distasteful, so he is joining a commercial set in the Middle Temple.’ At this news, Henry applauded with enthusiasm. ‘I’m sure we’re all sorry that Charles had to leave us before he could put some of his most interesting ideas for the reform of
Chambers into practice …’

  At this point, I looked at Mizz Probert. I have no idea what transpired when she and Hearthrug had their Chinese meal together, but I saw Liz’s eyes wet with what I took for tears. Could she have been sorry to see the blighter go? I handed her the silk handkerchief from my top pocket, but she shook her head violently and preferred to sniff.

  ‘Now I come to happier news,’ Ballard told us. ‘From time to time, the Lord Chancellor confers on tried and trusty members of the Bar …’

  ‘Like Rumpole!’ This was from Hilda, sotto voce.

  ‘The honour of choosing them to sit as Deputy Circuit Judge.’

  ‘We know he does!’ Hilda again, somewhat louder.

  ‘So we may find ourselves appearing before one of our colleagues and be able to discover his wisdom and impartiality on the Bench.’

  ‘You may have Ballard before you, Rumpole,’ Hilda called out in triumph, to my deep embarrassment.

  ‘This little party, financed I may say,’ Ballard smiled roguishly, ‘by Claude Erskine-Brown …’

  ‘So kind of Claude to do this for Rumpole,’ was my wife’s contribution.

  ‘… Is to announce that he will be sitting, from time to time, at Snaresbrook and Inner London, where we wish him every happiness.’

  Ballard raised his glass to Erskine-Brown, as did the rest of us, except for Hilda, who adopted a sort of stricken whisper to ask, ‘Claude Erskine-Brown will be sitting? Rumpole, what happened?’ ‘My sitting,’ I tried to explain to her, ‘like Guthrie Featherstone’s Ibiza, is no longer necessary.’ And then I moved over to congratulate the new Deputy Circus Judge.

  ‘Well done, Claude.’ And I told him, ‘I’ve only got one word of advice for you.’

  ‘What’s that, Rumpole? Let everyone off?’

  ‘Oh, no! Much more important than that. Always pay in cash.’

  Rumpole’s Last Case

  Picture, if you will, a typical domestic evening, à côté de Chez Rumpole, in the ‘mansion’ flat off the Gloucester Road. I am relaxed in a cardigan and slippers, a glass of Jack Pommeroy’s Very Ordinary perched on the arm of my chair, a small cigar between my fingers, reading a brief which, not unusually, was entitled, R. v. Timson. She Who Must Be Obeyed was staring moodily at the small hearthrug, somewhat worn over the ages I must admit, that lay in front of our roaring gas-fire.

  ‘The Timsons carrying a shooter!’ I was shocked at what I had just read. ‘Whatever’s the world coming to?’

  ‘We need a new one urgently,’ Hilda was saying, ‘and we need it now.’ She was still gazing at our hearthrug, scarred by the butt ends of the small cigars I was aiming at the bowl of water that stood in front of the fire.

  ‘It’s like music in lifts and wine in boxes.’ I was lamenting the decline of standards generally. ‘We’ll be having Star Wars machines in Pommeroy’s Wine Bar next. Decent, respectable criminals like the Timsons never went tooled up.’

  ‘Rumpole, you’ve done it again!’ Hilda recovered the end of my cigar from the rug and ground it ostentatiously out in an ashtray as I told her a bit of ash never did a carpet any harm, in fact it improved the texture.

  ‘There’s a perfectly decent little hearthrug going in Debenhams for £100,’ Hilda happened to mention.

  ‘Going to someone who isn’t balancing precariously on the rim of their overdraft.’

  ‘Rumpole, what on earth’s the use of all these bank robberies and the rising crime-rate they’re always talking about if we can’t even get a decent little hearthrug out of it?’ Hilda was clearly starting one of her campaigns, and I got up to recharge my glass from the bottle on the sideboard. ‘Remember what they’re paying for legal aid cases nowadays,’ I told her firmly. ‘It hardly covers the fare to Temple station. And there’s Henry’s ten per cent and the cost of a new briefcase …’

  ‘You’re never buying a new briefcase!’ She was astonished.

  ‘No. No, of course not. I can’t afford it.’ I took a quick sustaining gulp and carried the glass back to my armchair. ‘… And there’s a small claret at Pommeroy’s to recover from the terrors of the day.’

  ‘That’s your trouble, isn’t it, Rumpole.’ She looked at me severely. ‘If it weren’t for the “small claret” at Pommeroy’s we’d have no trouble buying a nice new hearthrug, and if it weren’t for those awful cheroots of yours we shouldn’t need one anyway. I warn you I shall call in at Debenhams tomorrow; it’s up to you to deal with the bank.’

  ‘How do you suggest I deal with the bank?’ I asked her. ‘Tunnel in through the drains and rob the safe? Not carrying a shooter, though. A Timson carrying a shooter! It’s the end of civilization as we know it.’

  Counsel is briefed for Mr Dennis Timson. He will ‘know the Timson family of old’. It appears that Dennis and his Cousin Cyril entered the premises of the ‘Penny-Wise Bank’ in Tooting by masquerading as workers from British Telecom inspecting underground cables that were laid in Abraham Avenue. Whilst working underground the two defendants contrived to burrow into the ‘strongroom’ of the ‘Penny-Wise’ and open the safe, abstracting therefrom a certain quantity of cash and valuables. As they were doing so, they were surprised by a Mr Huggins, a middle-aged bank guard. It is clear from the evidence that Huggins was shot and wounded by a revolver, which was then left at the scene of the crime. The alarm had been given and the two Timson cousins were arrested by police officers who arrived at the scene of the crime.

  Mr Dennis Timson admits the break-in and the theft. He says, however, that he had no idea that his Cousin Cyril was carrying a ‘shooter’, and is profoundly shocked at such behaviour in a member of the family. He is most anxious to avoid the ‘fourteen’, which he believes would be the sentence if the jury took the view he was party to the wounding of Mr Huggins. Cyril Timson, who, instructing solicitors understand, is represented by Mrs Phillida Erskine-Brown, QC, as ‘silk’ with Mr Claude Erskine-Brown as her ‘learned junior’, will, it seems likely, say that it is all ‘down to’ our client, Dennis. He has told the police (DI Broome) that he had no idea Dennis came to the scene ‘tooled up’, and that he was horrified when Dennis shot the bankguard. It seems clear to those instructing that Cyril is also anxious to avoid the ‘fourteen’ at all costs.

  Counsel will see that he is faced with a ‘cut-throat’ defence with the defendants Timson blaming each other. Counsel will know from his long experience that in such circumstances the prosecution is usually successful, and both ‘throat-cutters’ tend to ‘go down’. Counsel may think it well to have a word or two with Mr Cyril Timson’s ‘silk’, Mrs Phillida Erskine-Brown, who happens to be in Counsel’s Chambers, to see if Cyril will ‘see sense’ and stop ‘putting it all down’ to Mr Dennis Timson.

  Counsel is instructed to appear for Mr Dennis Timson at the Old Bailey, and secure his acquittal on the charges relating to the firearm. Those instructing respectfully wish learned Counsel ‘the best of British luck’.

  Dear old Bernard, the Timsons’ regular solicitor, was a great one for the inverted comma. He had put the matter clearly enough in his instructions with my brief in R. v. Timson, and the case as he described it had several points of interest as well as a major worry. Both Cyril and Dennis were well into middle age and, at least so far as Cyril was concerned, somewhat overweight. The whole enterprise, setting up a tent over a manhole in the road and carrying out a great deal of preliminary work in the guise of men from British Telecom, seemed ambitious for men whom I should never have thought of as bank robbers. It was rather as though the ends of a pantomime horse had decided to get together and play Hamlet. Den and Cyril Timson, I thought, should have stuck to thieving frozen fish from the Cash & Carry. The Penny-Wise affair seemed distinctly out of their league.

  The fly in the ointment of our case had been accurately spotted by the astute and experienced Bernard. In a cut-throat defence, two prisoners at the Bar blame each other. The prosecutor invariably weighs in with titbits of information designed to help the mutual mayhem of
the two defendants and the jury pot them both. The prospects were not made brighter by the fact that his Honour Judge Bullingham was selected to preside over this carnage. On top of all this anxiety, I was expecting my overdraft, already bursting at the seams constructed for it by Mr Truscott of the Caring Bank, to be swollen by Hilda’s extravagant purchase of a new strip of floor covering.

  And then an event occurred which set me on the road to fortune and so enabled me to call this particular account ‘Rumpole’s Last Case’.

  My luck began when I called in at the clerk’s room on the first morning of R. v. Timson and found, as usual, Uncle Tom getting a chip shot into the waste-paper basket, Dianne brewing up coffee and Henry greeting me with congratulations such as I had never received from him after my most dramatic wins in Court (barristers, according to Henry, don’t win or lose cases, they just ‘do’ them and he collects his ten per cent). ‘Well done, indeed, Mr Rumpole,’ he said. ‘You remember investing in the barristers clerks’ sweepstake on the Derby?’ In fact I remembered his twisting my arm to part with two quid, much better spent over the bar at Pommeroy’s. ‘You drew that Dire Jeans,’ Henry told me.

  ‘I drew what?’