‘I don’t care,’ I said, ‘for little scraps in Soho. Sordid stuff. Give me a libel action, when a reputation is at stake.’
‘You think that’s important?’ Morry looked at me seriously, so I treated him to a taste of Othello. ‘Good name in man or woman, dear my lord’ (I was at my most impressive),
‘Is the immediate jewel of their souls;
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing.
’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.’
Everyone, except Erskine-Brown, was listening reverently. After I had finished there was a solemn pause. Then Morry clapped three times.
‘Is that one of your speeches, Mr Rumpole?’
‘Shakespeare’s.’
‘Ah, yes …’
‘Your good name, Mr Machin, is something I shall be prepared to defend to the death,’ I said.
‘Our paper goes in for a certain amount of fearless exposure,’ the Beacon editor explained.
‘The “Beacon Beauties”.’ Erskine-Brown was smiling. ‘I catch sight of it occasionally in the clerk’s room.’
‘Not that sort of exposure, Collywobbles!’ Spratling rebuked his old school friend. ‘We tell the truth about people in the public eye.’
‘Who’s bonking who and who pays,’ Connie from features explained. ‘Our readers love it.’
‘I take exception to that, Connie. I really do,’ Morry said piously. ‘I don’t want Mr Rumpole to get the idea that we’re running any sort of a cheap scandal-sheet.’
‘Scandal-sheet? Perish the thought!’ I was working hard for my brief.
‘You wouldn’t have any hesitation in acting for the Beacon, would you?’ the editor asked me.
‘A barrister is an old taxi plying for hire. That’s the fine tradition of our trade,’ I explained carefully. ‘So it’s my sacred duty, Mr Morry Machin, to take on anyone in trouble. However repellent I may happen to find them.’
‘Thank you, Mr Rumpole.’ Morry was genuinely grateful.
‘Think nothing of it.’
‘We are dedicated to exposing hypocrisy in our society. Wherever it exists. High or low.’ The editor was looking noble. ‘So when we find this female pretending to be such a force for purity and parading her morality before the Great British Public …’
‘Being all for saving your cherry till the honeymoon,’ Connie Coughlin translated gruffly.
‘Thank you, Connie. Or, as I would put it, denouncing premarital sex,’ Morry said.
‘She’s even against the normal stuff!’ Spratling was bewildered.
‘Whereas her own private life is extremely steamy. We feel it our duty to tell our public. Show Mr Rumpole the article in question, Ted.’
I don’t know if they had expected to meet me in Pommeroy’s but the top brass of the Daily Beacon had a cutting of the alleged libel at the ready. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF AMELIA NETTLESHIP BY BEACON GIRL ON THE SPOT, STELLA JANUARY I read, and then glanced at the story that followed. ‘This wouldn’t be the Amelia Nettleship?’ I was beginning to warm to my first libel action. ‘The expert bottler of pure historical bilge water?’
‘The lady novelist and hypocrite,’ Morry told me. ‘Of course I’ve never met the woman.’
‘She robs me of my sleep. I know nothing of her morality, but her prose style depraves and corrupts the English language. We shall need a statement from this Stella January.’ I got down to business.
‘Oh, Stella left us a couple of months ago,’ the editor told me.
‘And went where?’
‘God knows. Overseas, perhaps. You know what these girls are.’
‘We’ve got to find her,’ I insisted and then cheered him up with ‘We shall fight, Mr Machin – Morry. And we shall conquer! Remember, I never plead guilty.’
‘There speaks a man who knows damn all about libel.’ Claude Erskine-Brown had a final mutter.
It might be as well if I quoted here the words in Miss Stella January’s article which were the subject of legal proceedings. They ran as follows: Miss Amelia Nettleship is a bit of a puzzle. The girls in her historical novels always keep their legs crossed until they’ve got a ring on their fingers. But her private life is rather different. Whatever lucky young man leads the 43-year-old Amelia to the altar will inherit a torrid past which makes Mae West sound like Florence Nightingale. Her home, Hollyhock Cottage, near Godalming, has been the scene of one-night stands and longer liaisons so numerous that the neighbours have given up counting. There is considerably more in her jacuzzi than bath salts. Her latest Casanova, so far unnamed, is said to be a married man who’s been seen leaving in the wee small hours. From the style of this piece of prose you may come to the conclusion that Stella January and Amelia Nettleship deserved each other.
One thing you can say for my learned friend Claude Erskine-Brown is that he takes advice. Having been pointed in the direction of the Kitten-A-Go-Go, he set off obediently to find a cul-de-sac off Wardour Street with his instructing solicitor. He wasn’t to know, and it was entirely his bad luck, that Connie Coughlin had dreamt up a feature on London’s Square Mile of Sin for the Daily Beacon and ordered an ace photographer to comb the sinful purlieus between Oxford Street and Shaftesbury Avenue in search of nefarious goings-on.
Erskine-Brown and a Mr Thrower, his sedate solicitor, found the Kitten-A-Go-Go, paid a sinister-looking myrmidon at the door ten quid each by way of membership and descended to a damp and darkened basement where two young ladies were chewing gum and removing their clothes with as much enthusiasm as they might bring to the task of licking envelopes. Claude took a seat in the front row and tried to commit the geography of the place to memory. It must be said, however, that his eyes were fixed on the plumpest of the disrobing performers when a sudden and unexpected flash preserved his face and more of the stripper for the five million readers of the Daily Beacon to enjoy with their breakfast. Not being a particularly observant barrister, Claude left the strip joint with no idea of the ill luck that had befallen him.
Whilst Erskine-Brown was thus exploring the underworld, I was closeted in the Chambers of that elegant Old Etonian civil lawyer Robin Peppiatt, QC, who, assisted by his junior, Dick Garsington, represented the proprietor of the Beacon. I was entering the lists in the defence of Morry Machin, and our joint solicitor was an anxious little man called Cuxham, who seemed ready to pay almost any amount of someone else’s money to be shot of the whole business. Quite early in our meeting, almost as soon, in fact, as Peppiatt had poured Earl Grey into thin china cups and handed round the petits beurres, it became clear that everyone wanted to do a deal with the other side except my good self and my client, the editor.
‘We should work as a team,’ Peppiatt started. ‘Of which, as leading Counsel, I am, I suppose, the Captain.’
‘Are we playing cricket, old chap?’ I ventured to ask him.
‘If we were it would be an extremely expensive game for the Beacon.’ The QC gave me a tolerant smile. ‘The proprietors have contracted to indemnify the editor against any libel damages.’
‘I insisted on that when I took the job,’ Morry told us with considerable satisfaction.
‘Very sensible of your client, no doubt, Rumpole. Now, you may not be used to this type of case as you’re one of the criminal boys …’
‘Oh, I know’ – I admitted the charge – ‘I’m just a juvenile delinquent.’
‘But it’s obvious to me that we mustn’t attempt to justify these serious charges against Miss Nettleship’s honour.’ The Captain of the team gave his orders and I made bold to ask, ‘Wouldn’t that be cricket?’
‘If we try to prove she’s a sort of amateur tart the jury might bump the damages up to two or three hundred grand,’ Peppiatt explained as patiently as he could.
‘Or four.’ Dick Garsington shook his head sadly. ‘Or perhaps half
a million.’ Mr Cuxham’s mind boggled.
‘But you’ve filed a defence alleging that the article’s a true bill.’ I failed to follow the drift of these faint-hearts.
‘That’s our bargaining counter.’ Peppiatt spoke to me very slowly, as though to a child of limited intelligence.
‘Our what?’
‘Something to give away. As part of the deal.’
‘When we agree terms with the other side we’ll abandon all our allegations. Gracefully,’ Garsington added.
‘We put up our hands?’ I contemptuously tipped ash from my small cigar on to Peppiatt’s Axminster. Dick Garsington was sent off to get ‘an ashtray for Rumpole’.
‘Peregrine Landseer’s agin us.’ Peppiatt seemed to be bringing glad tidings of great joy to all of us. ‘I’m lunching with Perry at the Sheridan Club to discuss another matter. I’ll just whisper the thought of a quiet little settlement into his ear.’
‘Whisper sweet nothings!’ I told him. ‘I’ll not be party to any settlement. I’m determined to defend the good name of my client, Mr Maurice Machin, as a responsible editor.’
‘At our expense?’ Peppiatt looked displeased.
‘If neccessary. Yes! He wouldn’t have published that story unless there was some truth in it. Would you?’ I asked Morry, assailed by some doubt.
‘Certainly not’ – my client assured me – ‘as a fair and responsible journalist.’
‘The trouble is that there’s no evidence that Miss Nettleship has done any of these things.’ Clearly Mr Cuxham had long since thrown in the towel.
‘Then we must find some! Isn’t that what solicitors are for?’ I asked, but didn’t expect an answer. ‘I’m quite unable to believe that anyone who writes so badly hasn’t got some other vices.’
A few days later I entered the clerk’s room of our Chambers in Equity Court to see our clerk Henry seated at his desk looking at the centre pages of the Daily Beacon, which Dianne, our fearless but somewhat hit-and-miss typist, was showing him. As I approached, Dianne folded the paper, retreated to her desk and began to type furiously. They both straightened their faces and the smiles of astonishment I had noticed when I came in were replaced by looks of legal seriousness. In fact Henry spoke with almost religious awe when he handed me my brief in Nettleship v. The Daily Beacon and anor. Not only was a highly satisfactory fee marked on the front but refreshers, that is the sum required to keep a barrister on his feet and talking, had been agreed at no less than five hundred pounds a day.
‘You can make the case last, can’t you, Mr Rumpole?’ Henry asked with understandable concern.
‘Make it last?’ I reassured him. ‘I can make it stretch on till the trump of doom! We have serious and lengthy allegations, Henry. Allegations that will take days and days, with any luck. For the first time in a long career at the Bar I begin to see …’
‘See what, Mr Rumpole?’
‘A way of providing for my old age.’
The door then opened to admit Claude Erskine-Brown. Dianne and Henry regarded him with solemn pity, as though he’d had a death in his family.
‘Here comes the poor old criminal lawyer,’ I greeted him. ‘Any more problems with your affray, Claude?’
‘All under control, Rumpole. Thank you very much. Morning, Dianne. Morning, Henry.’ Our clerk and secretary returned his greeting in mournful voices. At that point, Erskine-Brown noticed Dianne’s copy of the Beacon, wondered who the ‘Beauty’ of that day might be and picked it up before she could stop him.
‘What’ve you got there? The Beacon! A fine crusading paper. Tells the truth without fear or favour.’ My refreshers had put me in a remarkably good mood. ‘Are you feeling quite well, Claude?’
Erskine-Brown was holding the paper in trembling hands and had gone extremely pale. He looked at me with accusing eyes and managed to say in strangled tones, ‘You told me to go there!’
‘For God’s sake, Claude! Told you to go where?’
‘The locus in quo!’
I took the Beacon from him and saw the cause of his immediate concern. The locus in quo was the Kitten-A-Go-Go, and the blown-up snap on the centre page showed Claude closely inspecting a young lady who was waving her underclothes triumphantly over her head. At that moment, Henry’s telephone rang and he announced that Soapy Sam Ballard, our puritanical Head of Chambers, founder member of the Lawyers As Christians Society (L.A.C.) and the Savonarola of Equity Court, wished to see Mr Erskine-Brown in his room without delay. Claude left us with the air of a man climbing up into the dock to receive a stiff but inevitable sentence.
I wasn’t, of course, present in the Head of Chambers’ room where Claude was hauled up. It was not until months later, when he had recovered a certain calm, that he was able to tell me how the embarrassing meeting went and I reconstruct the occasion for the purpose of this narrative.
‘You wanted to see me, Ballard?’ Claude started to babble. ‘You’re looking well. In wonderful form. I don’t remember when I’ve seen you looking so fit.’ At that early stage he tried to make his escape from the room. ‘Well, nice to chat. I’ve got a summons, across the road.’
‘Just a minute!’ Ballard called him back. ‘I don’t read the Daily Beacon.’
‘Oh, don’t you? Very wise,’ Claude congratulated him. ‘Neither do I. Terrible rag. Half-clad beauties on page four and no law reports. So they tell me. Absolutely no reason to bother with the thing!’
‘But, coming out of the Temple tube station, Mr Justice Fishwick pushed this in my face.’ Soapy Sam lifted the fatal newspaper from his desk. ‘It seems he’s just remarried and his new wife takes in the Daily Beacon.’
‘How odd!’
‘What’s odd?’
‘A Judge’s wife. Reading the Beacon.’
‘Hugh Fishwick married his cook,’ Ballard told him in solemn tones.
‘Really? I didn’t know. Well, that explains it. But I don’t see why he should push it in your face, Ballard.’
‘Because he thought I ought to see it.’
‘Nothing in that rag that could be of the slightest interest to you, surely?’
‘Something is.’
‘What?’
‘You.’
Ballard held out the paper to Erskine-Brown, who approached it gingerly and took a quick look.
‘Oh, really? Good heavens! Is that me?’
‘Unless you have a twin brother masquerading as yourself. You feature in an article on London’s Square Mile of Sin.’
‘It’s all a complete misunderstanding!’ Claude assured our leader.
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘I can explain everything.’
‘I hope so.’
‘You see, I got into this affray.’
‘You got into what?’ Ballard saw even more cause for concern.
‘This fight’ – Claude wasn’t improving his case – ‘in the Kitten-A-Go-Go.’
‘Perhaps I ought to warn you, Erskine-Brown.’ Ballard was being judicial. ‘You needn’t answer incriminating questions.’
‘No, I didn’t get into a fight.’ Claude was clearly rattled. ‘Good heavens, no. I’m doing a case, about a fight. An affray. With Coca-Cola bottles. And Rumpole advised me to go to this club.’
‘Horace Rumpole is an habitué of this house of ill-repute? At his age?’ Ballard didn’t seem to be in the least surprised to hear it.
‘No, not at all. But he said I ought to take a view. Of the scene of the crime. This wretched scandal-sheet puts the whole matter in the wrong light. Entirely.’
There was a long and not entirely friendly pause before Ballard proceeded to judgement. ‘If that is so, Erskine-Brown,’ he said, ‘and I make no further comment while the matter is sub judice, you will no doubt be suing the Daily Beacon for libel?’
‘You think I should?’ Claude began to count the cost of such an action.
‘It is quite clearly your duty. To protect your own reputation and the reputation of this Chambers.’
&nb
sp; ‘Wouldn’t it be rather expensive?’ I can imagine Claude gulping, but Ballard was merciless.
‘What is money,’ he said, ‘compared to the hitherto unsullied name of number 3, Equity Court?’
Claude’s next move was to seek out the friend of his boyhood, ‘Slimey’ Spratling, whom he finally found jogging across Hyde Park. When he told the Beacon deputy editor that he had been advised to issue a writ, the man didn’t even stop and Erskine-Brown had to trot along beside him. ‘Good news!’ Spratling said. ‘My editor seems to enjoy libel actions. Glad you liked your pic.’
‘Of course I didn’t like it. It’ll ruin my career.’
‘Nonsense, Collywobbles.’ Spratling was cheerful. ‘You’ll get briefed by all the clubs. You’ll be the strippers’ QC’
‘However did they get my name?’ Claude wondered.
‘Oh, I recognized you at once,’ Slimey assured him. ‘Bit of luck, wasn’t it?’ Then he ran on, leaving Claude outraged. They had, after all, been to Winchester together.
When I told the helpless Cuxham that the purpose of solicitors was to gather evidence, I did so without much hope of my words stinging him into any form of activity. If evidence against Miss Nettleship were needed, I would have to look elsewhere, so I rang up that great source of knowledge, ‘Fig’ Newton, and invited him for a drink at Pommeroy’s.
Ferdinand Isaac Gerald, known to his many admirers as ‘Fig’ Newton, is undoubtedly the best in the somewhat unreliable band of professional private eyes. I know that Fig is now knocking seventy; that, with his filthy old mackintosh and collapsing hat, he looks like a scarecrow after a bad night; that his lantern jaw, watery eye and the frequently appearing drip on the end of the nose don’t make him an immediately attractive figure. Fig may look like a scarecrow but he’s a very bloodhound after a clue.
‘I’m doing civil work now, Fig,’ I told him when we met in Pommeroy’s. ‘Just got a big brief in a libel action which should provide a bit of comfort for my old age. But my instructing solicitor is someone we would describe, in legal terms, as a bit of a wally. I’d be obliged if you’d do his job for him and send him the bill when we win.’
The Collected Stories of Rumpole Page 50