The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  The story he told me went roughly as follows. He dealt, he said, in bric-à-brac, objects d’ art, old furniture – anything he could make a few bob out of. Asked where this property came from, he said we’d find it wise not to ask too many questions. (Well, I sometimes feel the same about my practice at the Bar.) He had a certain amount of space at the back of his shop and he put an advertisement in the local newsagent’s window offering to store people’s furniture for a modest fee. Some months previously a man had telephoned Stanley saying he was a Mr Banks, from the Loyalist League of Welfare and Succour for Victims of Terrorist Attack, and he wanted storage space for a number of packing cases which contained medical supplies for his organization in Northern Ireland. As a result, he received a visit from Mr Banks who paid him three months’ rent in advance, a sum of money which Stanley found extremely welcome. Asked to describe this mysterious Banks he could only remember a man of average age and height, wearing a dark business suit and a white shirt. His sole distinguishing mark was apparently a large pair of gold-rimmed, slightly tinted spectacles. Stanley never saw Mr Banks again, but in due course a lorry arrived with the packing cases which it took a couple of blokes to lift. When I put the point to him he said they did seem heavy for sticking plaster and bandages.

  Later Mr Banks telephoned and said that a man called MacRobert, a name which Stanley assured me meant nothing to him, would be calling to arrange the collection of the cases. MacRobert called whilst Matthew was preparing the breakfast and had wanted to see the goods inside, but before he could do so their conversation was interrupted by the Special Branch in the way I have described. Stanley was arrested and, while trying to escape across the garden wall, MacRobert was shot, so he was not in a position to tell us anything about the mysterious Mr Banks.

  When he had finished his account Stanley looked at me beseechingly. ‘You’ve got to get me out, Mr Rumpole,’ he said. ‘It’s where they’ve put my Matthew.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Bernard tried to console the client. ‘He’s being well looked after, Mr Culp. He’s been put into care.’

  ‘Me too. We’re both in care.’ Stanley managed a smile. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? And it won’t suit either of us. As I say, we’ve always been used to looking after each other.’

  I looked at him, wondering what sort of a client I’d got hold of. If Stanley wasn’t innocent, he was a tender-hearted gunrunner, so keen to be at home with Master Matthew that he flogged automatic rifles to political terrorists to fire off at other people’s sons. It didn’t make sense, but then not very much did in crime or politics.

  Whilst I exercised my legal skills on a bit of gunrunning in Notting Hill Gate, Portia’s practice went on among the jet-setters. Cy Stratton, it seems – I have to confess his name was unknown to me – was an international film star for whom Hilda, who pays more attention to the television set than I can manage, has a soft spot. He had been detected, as well-known film stars too often are, carrying exotic smoking materials through the customs at London Airport. In the consequent proceedings he hired, at a suitable fee, Mrs Phillida Erskine-Brown to make his apologies for him. She was ably assisted in this task by Mizz Liz Probert, to whom I am grateful for an account of the proceedings. Picture then the West Middlesex Magistrates’ Court, unusually filled with reporters and spectators. On the Bench sat three serious-minded amateurs: a grey-haired schoolmaster Chairman, a forbidding-looking woman in a hat and a stout party with a toothbrush moustache and a Trades Union badge. In the dock, Mr Cy Stratton, a carefully suntanned specimen, whose curls were now greying, sat wearing a contrite expression and a suit and tie in place of his usual open-necked shirt and gold chain. On his behalf, our Portia, sincere and irresistible, spoke words which, when Liz Probert reported them to me, seemed to come straight out of Rumpole’s first lesson on getting round to the soft side of the West Middlesex Magistrates as taught by me to Mrs Erskine-Brown in her white-wigged years.

  ‘Cy Stratton is, of course,’ she ended, ‘a household name, known throughout the world from a string of successful films.’ The star in the dock looked gratified. ‘The Bench won’t, I’m sure, punish him for his fame. He is entitled to be treated as anyone else found at London Airport with a small amount of cannabis for his own personal use. At the time he was under considerable personal strain, having just completed a new film, Galaxy Wives.’ The Trades Union official, clearly a fan, nodded wisely. ‘And, may I say this, Mr Stratton is absolutely opposed to hard drugs. He is a prominent member of the Presidential “Say No to Coke” Committee of Los Angeles. In these circumstances, I do most earnestly appeal to you, sir, and to your colleagues. You will do justice to Cy Stratton.’ And here Portia used a gambit which even I have long since rejected as being overripe ham. ‘But let it be justice tempered with that mercy which is the hallmark of the West Middlesex Magistrates’ Court!’

  Well, sometimes the old ones work best. Much moved, Cy Stratton looked as though he were about to applaud; even the lady in the hat seemed mollified. The Chairman smiled his thanks at Phillida and, after a short retirement and a warning to Cy to set a good example to his huge army of fans, imposed a fine of three hundred pounds.

  ‘And I had that,’ said Cy to his learned Counsel and Liz outside the Court, ‘in my pants pocket.’

  ‘They might have given you two months,’ Phillida told him, ‘and you wouldn’t have had that in your pants pocket.’

  On that occasion Cy told Phillida he had a proposition to put to her and invited her to share a celebratory bottle of Dom Perignon with him in some private place. However, she declined politely, gathered her legal team about her, and saying, ‘We do have to work, you know, at the Bar,’ drove back to the Temple, doing so, Liz thought, in a sort of reverie brought on by an impulsive kiss from her grateful client.

  I was in our clerk’s room a few days later, with Claude and Phillida, sorting out our business affairs when a messenger arrived with a huge cellophane-wrapped bouquet and called out, ‘Flowers for Erskine-Brown!’ I asked Claude if he had an admirer, but they appeared to be for his wife and he asked, somewhat nervously, I thought, as she read the card attached, if they were from anyone in particular.

  ‘Oh, no. Flowers just drop on me by accident, from the sky.’ Phillida sounded testy. ‘Do try not to be silly, Claude.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re from a satisfied client,’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes, they are!’

  ‘Really, Portia? Who was that?’

  ‘Oh, someone I kept out of prison. Nothing tremendously important.’ She sounded casual, and Uncle Tom, our oldest inhabitant, who was as usual practising approach shots at the waste-paper basket, began to reminisce. ‘I’ve never had a present from a satisfied client,’ he told us. ‘Not that I’ve had many clients at all, come to that, satisfied or not. I suppose it’s better to have no clients than those that aren’t satisfied. Damn! I seem to be in a bunker.’ His golf ball had taken refuge behind Dianne’s desk.

  ‘What’ve I got this afternoon, Henry?’ Phillida asked. And when he told her she had a 3.30 conference she supposed, after some thought, that she could be back in time. Meanwhile Uncle Tom was off down Memory Lane in pursuit of presents from satisfied clients. ‘Old Dickie Duckworth once had a satisfied client,’ he told us. ‘Some sort of a Middle Eastern Prince who was supposed to have got a Nippy from Lyons Corner House in pod and Dickie turned up at Bow Street and got him off. So you know what this fellow sent as a token of his appreciation? An Arab stallion! Well, Dickie Duckworth only had a small flat in Lincoln’s Inn. No one ever sent me an Arab stallion. Chip shot out of the bunker!’

  At that moment, Superintendent Rodney of the Special Branch, together with an official from the prosecution service, entered our clerk’s room. Soapy Sam Ballard, QC, the Head of our Chambers, had been briefed to prosecute Stanley Culp and they were to see him in conference. Unfortunately Uncle Tom’s chip shot was rather too successful; his golf ball rose into the air and struck the Superintendent smartly on the kneecap, pro
ducing a cry of pain and dire consequences for Uncle Tom.

  The note on Phillida’s bouquet was a pressing invitation to meet Cy Stratton for lunch at the Savoy Hotel. I suppose the suntanned and ageing Adonis had figured too largely in her thoughts since the trial for her to pass up the invitation, and when they met he surprised her by suggesting that they share a bottle of champagne and a surprise packet from the delicatessen on a bench in the Embankment Gardens. So Phillida found herself eating pastrami on rye and drinking Dom Perignon out of a plastic cup, both excited by the adventure and nervous at the amount of public exposure she was receiving. I learnt, long after the event, and when certain decisions had been made, the gist of Cy’s conversation on that occasion from my confiding ex-pupil. It seems that after complimenting her on looking great – ‘Great hair, great shape. Classy nose. Great legal mind’ – Cy informed her that their ‘vibes’ were good and that they should spend more time together. He had, he said, ‘A proposition to put’.

  ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t.’ Phillida was flattered but nervous.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You shouldn’t put a proposition to me.’

  ‘Can’t a guy ask?’

  ‘It might be a great deal better if a guy didn’t.’

  ‘I need you, Phillida.’ The actor was at his most intense, and he moved himself and the sandwiches closer to her.

  ‘You may think you do.’

  ‘I know I do. Desperately.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate.’ There has always been a strong streak of common sense in our Portia.

  ‘I swear to you. I can’t find anyone to do what I’d expect of you.’

  ‘You can’t?’

  ‘Not a soul. They haven’t the versatility.’

  ‘What would you expect of me exactly?’ Phillida was still nervous, but interested. His answer, she confessed, came as something of a surprise. ‘Only, to take over the entire legal side of Cy Stratton Enterprises. Real estate. Audio-visual exploitations. Cable promotions. I want your cool head, Phillida, and your legal know-how.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you want?’ She tried not to sound in the least disappointed.

  ‘Come to the sunshine. I’ll find you a house on the beach.’

  ‘I have got two children,’ she told him.

  ‘The kids’ll love it.’

  ‘And a husband,’ she admitted. ‘He’s a lawyer too.’

  ‘Maybe we could use him, as your assistant?’

  ‘You don’t send children away from home in California?’ The idea was beginning to appeal to Portia.

  ‘Summer camps, maybe. Think about it, Phillida. Our vibes are such we should spend more time together.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. Can I have another sandwich?’ She put out her hand and Cy held it and looked into her eyes. And then Liz Probert, walking through the Gardens, stopped in front of them as Cy was saying, ‘Find our own space together. That’s all it takes!’

  ‘Good afternoon. Having a picnic?’ Liz’s greeting was somewhat cold. Phillida quickly released her hand. ‘Oh, Probert,’ she greeted her colleague formally. ‘You remember Cy Stratton?’

  ‘Of course. Illegal possession.’ Liz looked at Phillida. ‘A satisfied client?’

  The Erskine-Browns’ private life was, you see, not exactly private – either they were spied on by Liz Probert or overheard by Rumpole. A few evenings later I was at my corner table in Pommeroy’s trying to raise my alcohol level from the dangerous low to which it had sunk, when I heard their raised voices once again from the pew behind me. ‘Haven’t we been getting into a bit of a rut lately, Claude?’ was the far from original remark which collared my attention.

  ‘It’s hardly fair to say that.’ Claude sounded pained. ‘When I got us tickets for Tannhäuser.’

  ‘It’s like Tristan’s education. You want him to go to Bogstead and Winchester and New College. Because you went to Winchester and New College and your father went to Winchester …’

  ‘And Balliol. There was an unconventional streak in Daddy.’

  ‘Claude. Don’t you ever long to go to work in an open-necked shirt and cotton trousers?’

  ‘Of course not, Philly.’ The man was shocked. ‘In an open-necked shirt and cotton trousers, the Judges at the Old Bailey can’t even hear you. You’d be quite inaudible and sent up to the Public Gallery.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean that, Claude. Don’t you ever long for the sun?’

  ‘You want me to book up for Viareggio again?’ Claude clearly thought he’d solved it, but his wife disillusioned him.

  ‘Not just a holiday, Claude. I mean a change in our lives. It’s only fair I should tell you this. There’s someone I might want to spend time with in, well, a different sort of life. It’s not that I’m in love in the least. Nothing to do with that. I just want a complete change. I sometimes feel I never want to go back to Chambers.’

  This fascinating dialogue was interrupted again by the arrival of Ballard at their table. He had come to report the disgraceful occurrence of a superintendent of the Special Branch smitten by a golf ball, a blow from which, it seemed, he didn’t think Chambers would ever recover. I didn’t know then how the differences of the Erskine-Browns were to be resolved, but Phillida did come into Chambers the next morning, and there found an official-looking letter from the Lord Chancellor which was to have some considerable effect on the case of R. v. Culp.

  In due course, Miss Sturt, his social worker, brought young Matthew Culp to visit his father in Brixton Prison. A special room was set aside for visits by prisoners’ children, and the two Culps sat together trying to cheer each other up, Matthew being, by all accounts, the more decisive of the two. He told his father that he was determined to help him and that he meant to see to it that they were soon able to renew their contented domestic life together. He also asked Stanley to pass on certain information to me, his brief, as a consequence of which Mr Bernard made another appointment for me to visit the alleged gunrunner.

  ‘My Matthew saw him, Mr Rumpole,’ Stanley told me as soon as we were ensconced in the interview room. ‘He says he saw that Mr Banks you were so interested in.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Once when he came about leaving the packing cases, what he said were medical supplies for his charitable organization. Matthew can tell them all about it. And that last morning, my Matthew’ll say, he saw the same man in gold-rimmed glasses get out of the police car.’

  ‘So that’s the trap you walked into?’ If Stanley were a criminal, he was clearly incompetent.

  ‘Trap?’ He looked at me, puzzled.

  ‘Oh, yes. Isn’t that the way they shoot tigers? Tie a goat to a tree, wait for the tiger to come hunting, and then shoot. In this case, Mr Culp, you were the bait. Possibly innocent. The only question is …’ I looked thoughtfully at Stanley. ‘How much did the goat know?’

  ‘I didn’t know anything, Mr Rumpole,’ he protested. ‘Medical supplies they were, as far I was concerned. But Matthew will tell you all about it.’

  ‘Your boy’s prepared to give evidence?’ Mr Bernard looked encouraged.

  ‘Ready and willing. He wants to help all he can.’

  ‘And you want me to put him in the witness-box? How old is he? Twelve?’

  ‘But such an old head on his shoulders, Mr Rumpole. I told you how he masters his geometry.’

  ‘He may be a demon on equilateral triangles, but he’s a bit young for a starring role, down the Old Bailey.’

  ‘Please, Mr Rumpole,’ my client begged me. ‘He’d never forgive me if we didn’t let him have his say. We make it a rule, you see, to look after each other.’

  The man was so eager, and obviously proud of the son he trusted to save him. But I was still not convinced of the wisdom of calling young Matthew to give evidence in the daunting atmosphere of the Central Criminal Court.

  When Phillida had opened her official-looking envelope she spread the news it contained around Chambers. Ballard then called a meeting, and opened the agen
da in his usual ponderous, not to say pompous, fashion.

  ‘The first business today,’ he began, ‘is to congratulate Phillida Erskine-Brown, who has received gratifying news from the Lord Chancellor’s office. She has been made a Recorder and so will sit in as a criminal judge from time to time, in the intervals of her busy practice.’

  ‘A Daniel come to justice!’ I saluted her.

  ‘How do you feel about having your wife sit in judgement, Claude?’ Hoskins asked.

  ‘I’d say, used to it by now,’ Claude gave him the reply jocular.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Phillida looked becomingly modest. ‘Quite honestly, it’s come as a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Of course, we all know that the Lord Chancellor is anxious to promote women, so perhaps, Phillida, you’ve found the way to the Bench a little easier than it’s been for some of us.’ Ballard was never of a generous nature and he found congratulating other learned friends very hard.

  ‘I suppose we’d see you Lord Chancellor by now, Bollard, if only you’d been born Samantha and not Sam,’ was my comment.

  ‘My second duty is a less pleasant one.’ Soapy Sam ignored me. ‘Which is why I have asked Uncle Tom not to join this meeting. Something quite inexcusable in a respectable barristers’ Chambers has occurred. An officer of the Special Branch arrived to see me in conference. Rather a big matter. Gunrunning to Ulster. You may have read about R. v. Culp in the newspapers? Terrorist got shot in Notting Hill Gate … Well, you can see it’s an extremely heavy case.’

  ‘Oh, I’m in that,’ I told him casually. ‘Storm in a teacup, I think you’ll find.’

  ‘Superintendent Rodney came here for a consultation with myself,’ Ballard continued with great seriousness. ‘He walked into the clerk’s room and was struck on the knee by a golf ball! I need hardly say who was responsible.’

  ‘Uncle Tom!’ Hoskins guessed the answer.

  ‘He’s been playing golf in there as long as I can remember.’ Erskine-Brown was querulous.