The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

‘Mr Hearthstoke. Are you objecting to this?’ Guthrie was looking puzzled.

  ‘If Mr Rumpole wishes to place his client’s previous convictions before the jury, my Lord, why should I object?’ Hearthstoke looked at me complacently, as though I were playing into his hands, and Guthrie whispered to Wilfred, ‘Bright chap, this prosecutor.’

  ‘And can you remember what you thought about it at the time?’ I went on plugging away at Ruby.

  ‘I thought Mr Timson had got away with murder!’

  The jury looked severely at Tony, and Guthrie appeared to think I had kicked a sensational own goal. ‘I suppose that was hardly the answer you wanted, Mr Rumpole,’ he said.

  ‘On the contrary, my Lord. It was exactly the answer I wanted! And having got away with it then, did it occur to you that someone … some avenging angel, perhaps, might wish to frame Tony Timson on this occasion?’

  ‘My lord. That is pure speculation!’ Hearthstoke arose, furious, and I agreed with him. ‘Of course it is. But it’s a speculation I wish to put in the mind of the jury at the earliest possible opportunity.’ So I sat down, conscious that I had at least chipped away at the jury’s certainty. They knew that I should return to the possibility of Tony having been framed and were prepared to look at the evidence with more caution.

  That morning two events of great pith and moment occurred in the case of the Queen against Tony Timson. April went shopping in Morrison Avenue and saw something which considerably changed her attitude. Peanuts Molloy and her friend Chrissie were coming out of the off-licence with a plastic bag full of assorted bottles. As Peanuts held his car door open for Chrissie they engaged in a passionate and public embrace, unaware that they were doing so in the full view of Mrs April Timson, who uttered the single word ‘Bastard!’ in the hearing of the young hopeful Vincent who, being on his school holidays, was accompanying his mother. The other important matter was that Guthrie, apparently in a generous mood as he saw a chance of re-establishing his judicial reputation, sent a note to me and Hearthstoke asking if we would be so kind as to join him, and the other judges sitting at the Old Bailey, for luncheon.

  Guthrie’s invitation came as Hearthstoke was examining Miss Sweating, the schoolmistress-like scientific officer, who was giving evidence as to the bloodstains found about the off-licence on the night of the crime. As this evidence was of some importance I should record that blood of Tony Timson’s group was traced on the floor and on the corner of the shelf by which he had fallen. Blood of the same group as that which flowed in Mrs Ruby Churchill’s veins was to be found on the floor where she lay and on the cosh by Tony’s hand. Talk of blood groups, as you will know, acts on me like the smell of greasepaint to an old actor, or the cry of hounds to John Peel. I was pawing the ground and snuffling a little at the nostrils as I rose to cross-examine.

  ‘Miss Sweating,’ I began. ‘You say there was blood of Timson’s group on the corner of the shelf?’

  ‘There was. Yes.’

  ‘And from that you assumed that he had hit his head against the shelf?’

  ‘That seemed the natural assumption. He had been stunned by hitting his head.’

  ‘Or by someone else hitting his head?’

  ‘But the Detective Inspector told me …’ the witness began, but I interrupted her with ‘Listen to me and don’t bother about what the Detective Inspector told you!’

  ‘Mr Rumpole!’ That grave protector of the female sex on the Bench looked pained. ‘Is that the tone to adopt? The witness is a woman!’

  ‘The witness is a scientific officer, my Lord,’ I pointed out, ‘who pretends to know something about bloodstains. Looking at the photograph of the stains on the corner of the shelf, Miss Sweating, might not they be splashes of blood which fell when the accused was struck in that part of the room?’

  Miss Sweating examined the photograph in question through her formidable horn-rims and we were granted two minutes’ silence which I broke into at last with ‘Would you favour us with an answer, Miss Sweating? Or do you want to exercise a woman’s privilege and not make up your mind?’

  ‘Mr Rumpole!’ The newly converted feminist Judge was outraged. But the witness admitted, ‘I suppose they might have got there like that. Yes.’

  ‘They are consistent with his having been struck by an assailant. Perhaps with another weapon similar to this cosh?’

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Sweating agreed, reluctantly.

  ‘Thank you. Trip no further, pretty sweeting …’ I whispered as I sat down, thereby shocking the shockable Mizz Probert.

  ‘Miss Sweating’ – Guthrie tried to undo my good work – ‘you have also said that the bloodstains on the shelf are consistent with Timson having slipped when he was running out of the shop and striking his head against it?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Miss Sweating agreed eagerly. ‘They are consistent with that, my Lord.’

  ‘Very well.’ His Lordship smiled ingratiatingly at the women of the jury. ‘Perhaps the ladies of the jury would like to take a little light luncheon now?’ And he added, more brusquely, ‘The gentlemen too, of course. Back at five past two, members of the jury.’

  When we got out of Court, I saw my learned friend Charles Hearthstoke standing in the corridor in close conversation with the beautiful shorthand writer. He was, I noticed, holding her lightly and unobtrusively by the hand. Mizz Probert, who also noticed this, walked away in considerable disgust.

  A large variety of judges sit at the Old Bailey. These include the Old Bailey regulars, permanent fixtures such as the Mad Bull Bullingham and the sepulchral Graves, Judges of the lower echelon who wear black gowns. They also include a Judge called the Common Sergeant, who is neither common nor a sergeant, and the Recorder who wears red and is the senior Old Bailey Judge – a man who has to face, apart from the usual diet of murder, robbery and rape, a daunting number of City dinners. These are joined by the two visiting High Court Judges, the Red Judges of the Queen’s Bench, of whom Guthrie was one, unless and until the Lord Chancellor decided to put him permanently out to grass. All these judicial figures trough together at a single long table in a back room of the Bailey. They do it, and the sight comes as something of a shock to the occasional visitor, wearing their wigs. The sight of Judge Bullingham’s angry and purple face ingesting stew and surmounted with horsehair is only for the strongest stomachs. They are joined by various City aldermen and officials wearing lace jabots and tailed coats and other guests from the Bar or from the world of business.

  Before the serious business of luncheon begins, the company is served sherry, also taken whilst wearing wigs, and I was ensconced in a corner where I could overhear a somewhat strange preliminary conversation between our Judge and Counsel for the prosecution.

  ‘Ah, Hearthstoke,’ Guthrie greeted him. ‘I thought I’d invite both Counsel to break bread with me. Just want to make sure neither of you had anything to object to about the trial.’

  ‘Of course not, Judge!’ Hearthstoke was smiling. ‘It’s been a very pleasant morning. Made even more pleasant by the appearance of the shorthand writer.’

  ‘The … ? Oh, yes! Pretty girl, is she? I hadn’t noticed,’ Guthrie fibbed.

  ‘Hadn’t you? Lorraine said you’d been extraordinarily kind to her. She so much appreciated the beautiful pot plant you sent her.’

  ‘Pot plant?’ Guthrie looked distinctly guilty, but Hearthstoke pressed on with ‘Something rather gorgeous she told me. With pink blooms. Didn’t she help you straighten out the shorthand note in the last Timson case?’

  ‘She corrected her mistake,’ Guthrie said carefully.

  ‘Her mistake, was it?’ Hearthstoke was looking at the Judge. ‘She said it’d been yours.’

  ‘Perhaps we should all sit down now.’ Guthrie was keen to end this embarrassing scene. ‘Oh and, Hearthstoke, no need to mention that business of the pot plant around the Bailey. Otherwise they’ll all be wanting one.’ He gave a singularly unconvincing laugh. ‘I can’t give pink blooms to everyone, including Rumpole!’


  ‘Of course, Judge.’ Hearthstoke was understanding. ‘No need to mention it at all now.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now,’ the prosecutor said firmly, ‘justice is going to be done to Timson. At last.’

  Guthrie seemed thankful to move away and find his place at the table, until he discovered that I had been put next to him. He made the best of it, pushed one of the decanters in my direction and hoped I was quite satisfied with the fairness of the proceedings.

  ‘Are you content with the fairness of the proceedings?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m the Judge, aren’t I?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘What on earth’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘Haven’t you asked yourself why you, a High Court Judge, a Red Judge, have been given a paltry little robbery with violence?’ I refreshed myself with a generous gulp of the City of London’s claret.

  ‘I suppose it’s the luck of the draw.’

  ‘Luck of the draw, my eye! I detect the subtle hand of old Keith from the Lord Chancellor’s office.’

  ‘Keith?’ His Lordship looked around him nervously.

  ‘Oh, yes. “Give Guthrie Timson,” he said. “Give him a chance to redeem himself by potting the fellow and sending him down for ten years. The women of England will give three hearty cheers and Featherstone will be the Lord Chancellor’s blue-eyed boy again.” Don’t fall for it! You can be better than that, if you put your mind to it. Sum up according to the evidence and the hell with the Lord Chancellor’s office!’

  ‘Horace! I don’t think I’ve heard anything you’ve been saying.’

  ‘It’s up to you, old darling. Are you a man or a rubber stamp for the Civil Service?’

  Guthrie looked round desperately for a new subject of conversation and his eye fell on our prosecutor who was being conspicuously bored by an elderly alderman. ‘That young Hearthstoke seems a pretty able sort of fellow,’ he said.

  ‘Totally ruthless,’ I told him. ‘He’d stop at nothing to win a case.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  Guthrie took the decanter and started to pour wine into his own glass. His hand was trembling slightly and he was staring at Hearthstoke in a haunted way.

  ‘Horace,’ he started confidentially, ‘you’ve been practising at the Old Bailey for a considerable number of years.’

  ‘Almost since the dawn of time.’

  ‘And you can see nothing wrong with a Judge, impressed by the hard work of a Court official, say a shorthand writer, for instance, sending that official some little token of gratitude?’

  ‘What sort of token are you speaking of, Judge?’

  ‘Something like’ – he gulped down wine – ‘a pot plant.’

  ‘A plant?’

  ‘In a pot. With pink blossoms.’

  ‘Pink blossoms, eh?’ I thought it over. ‘That sounds quite appropriate.’

  ‘You can see nothing in any way improper in such a gift, Horace?’ The Judge was deeply grateful.

  ‘Nothing improper at all. A “Busy Lizzie”?’

  ‘I think her name’s Lorraine.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘You reassure me, Horace. You comfort me very much.’ He took another swig of the claret and looked fearfully at Hearthstoke. Poor old Guthrie Featherstone, he spent most of his judicial life painfully perched between the horns of various dilemmas.

  ‘In the car after we arrested him, driving away from the off-licence, Tony Timson said, “You got me this time, then.” ’ This was the evidence of that hammer of the Timsons, Detective Inspector Brush. When he had given it, Hearthstoke looked hard at the jury to emphasize the point, thanked the officer profusely and I rose to cross-examine.

  ‘Detective Inspector. Do you know a near neighbour of the Timsons named Peter, better known as “Peanuts”, Molloy?’

  ‘Mr Peter Molloy is known to the police, yes,’ the Inspector answered cautiously.

  ‘He and his brother Greg are leading lights of the Molloy firm? Fairly violent criminals?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord,’ Brush told the Judge.

  ‘Have you known both Peanuts and his brother to use coshes like this one in the course of crime?’

  ‘Well. Yes, possibly …’

  ‘My Lord, I really must object!’ Hearthstoke was on his feet and Guthrie said, ‘Mr Rumpole. Your client’s own character …’

  ‘He is a petty thief, my Lord.’ I was quick to put Tony’s character before the jury. ‘Tape recorders and freezer-packs. No violence in his record, is there, Inspector?’

  ‘Not up to now, my Lord,’ Brush agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Very well. Did you think he had been guilty of that attempted murder charge, after he and his wife quarrelled in the bathroom?’

  ‘I thought so, yes.’

  ‘You were called to the scene very quickly when the quarrel began.’

  ‘A neighbour called us.’

  ‘Was that neighbour a member of the Molloy family?’

  ‘Mr Rumpole, I prefer not to answer that question.’

  ‘I won’t press it.’ I left the jury to speculate. ‘But you think he got off lightly at his first trial?’ I was reading the note Tony Timson had scribbled in the dock while listening to the evidence as DI Brush answered, ‘I thought so, yes.’

  ‘What he actually said in the car was “I suppose you think you got me this time, then?” ’

  ‘No.’ Brush looked at his notebook. ‘He just said, “You got me this time, then.” ’

  ‘You left out the words “I suppose you think” because you don’t want him to get off lightly this time?’

  ‘Now would I do a thing like that, sir?’ Brush gave us his most honestly pained expression.

  ‘That, Inspector Brush, is a matter for this jury to decide.’ And the jury looked, by now, as though they were prepared to consider all the possibilities.

  Lord Justice MacWhitty’s wife, it seems, met Marigold Featherstone in Harrods, and told her she was sorry that Guthrie had such a terrible attitude to women. There was one old Judge, apparently, who made his wife walk behind him when he went on circuit, carrying the luggage, and Lady MacWhitty said she felt that poor Marigold was married to just such a tyrant. When we finally discussed the whole history of the Tony Timson case at the Chambers party, Guthrie told me that Marigold had said that she was sick and tired of women coming up to her and feeling sorry for her in Harrods.

  ‘You see,’ Guthrie had said to his wife, ‘if Timson gets off, the Lord Chancellor and all the women of England will be down on me like a ton of bricks. But the evidence isn’t entirely satisfactory. It’s just possible he’s innocent. It’s hard to tell where a fellow’s duty lies.’

  ‘Your duty, Guthrie, lies in keeping your nose clean!’ Marigold had no doubt about it.

  ‘My nose?’

  ‘Clean. For the sake of your family. And if this Timson has to go inside for a few years, well, I’ve no doubt he richly deserves it.’

  ‘Nothing but decisions!’

  ‘I really don’t know what else you expected when you became a Judge.’ Marigold poured herself a drink. Seeking some comfort after a hard day, the Judge went off to soak in a hot bath. In doing so, I believe Lady Featherstone made it clear to him, he was entirely on his own.

  Things were no easier in the Rumpole household. I was awakened at some unearthly hour by the wireless booming in the living room and I climbed out of bed to see Hilda, clad in a dressing-gown and hairnet, listening to the device with her pencil and notebook poised whilst it greeted her brightly with ‘Good morning, students. This is first-year Criminal Law on the Open University. I am Richard Snellgrove, law teacher at Hollowfield Polytechnic, to help you on this issue … Can a wife give evidence against her husband?’

  ‘Good God!’ I asked her, ‘what time does the Open University open?’

  ‘For many years a wife could not give evidence against her husband,’ Snellgrove to
ld us. ‘See R. v. Boucher 1952. Now, since the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, a wife can be called to give such evidence.’

  ‘You see, Rumpole.’ Hilda took a note. ‘You’d better watch out!’ I found and lit the first small cigar of the day and coughed gratefully. Snellgrove continued to teach me law. ‘But she can’t be compelled to. She has been a competent witness for the defence of her husband since the Criminal Evidence Act 1898. But a judgement in the House of Lords suggests she’s not compellable …’

  ‘What’s that mean, Rumpole?’ She asked me.

  ‘Well, we could ask April Timson to give evidence for Tony. But we couldn’t make her,’ I began to explain, and then, perhaps because I was in a state of shock from being awoken so early, I had an idea of more than usual brilliance. ‘April Timson!’ I told Hilda, ‘She won’t know she’s not compellable. I don’t suppose she tunes into the “Open at Dawn University”. Now I wonder …’

  ‘What, Rumpole. What do you wonder?’

  ‘Quarter to six.’ I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘High time to wake up Bernard.’ I went to the phone and started to dial my instructing solicitor’s number.

  ‘You see how useful I’ll be to you’ – Hilda looked extremely pleased with herself – ‘when I come to work in your Chambers.’

  ‘Oh, Bernard,’ I said to the telephone, ‘wake you up, did I? Well, it’s time to get moving. The Open University’s been open for hours. Look, an idea has just crossed my mind …’

  ‘It crossed my mind, Rumpole,’ Hilda corrected me. ‘And I was kind enough to hand it on to you.’

  When Mr Bernard called on April Timson an hour later, there was no need for him to go into the nice legal question of whether she was a compellable witness or not. Since she had seen Peanuts and her friend Chrissie come out of the ‘offey’ she was, she made it clear, ready and willing to come to Court and tell her whole story.

  ‘Mrs April Timson,’ I asked Tony’s wife when, to the surprise of most people in Court including my client, she entered the witness-box, as a witness for the defence, ‘some while ago you had a quarrel with your husband in a bathtub. What was that quarrel about?’