‘We are no doubt dealing here, Mr Ballard,’ the Judge intoned solemnly, ‘with a defunct mouse?’
‘Again, alas, no, my lord. The mouse in question was alive.’
‘And kicking,’ I muttered. Staring vaguely round the Court, my eye lit on the Public Gallery where I saw Mary Skelton, the quiet restaurant clerk, watching the proceedings attentively.
‘Members of the jury’ – Ballard had reached his peroration – ‘need one ask if a kitchen is in breach of the Food and Hygiene Regulations if it serves up a living mouse? As proprietor of the restaurant, Mr O’Higgins is, say the prosecution, absolutely responsible. Whomsoever in his employ he seeks to blame, members of the jury, he must take the consequences. I will now call my first witness.’
‘Who’s that pompous imbecile?’ Jean-Pierre O’Higgins was adding his two pennyworth, but I told him he wasn’t in his restaurant now and to leave the insults to me. I was watching a fearful and embarrassed Claude Erskine-Brown climb into the witness-box and take the oath as though it were the last rites. When asked to give his full names he appealed to the Judge.
‘My Lord. May I write them down? There may be some publicity about this case.’ He looked nervously at the assembled reporters.
‘Aren’t you a member of the Bar?’ Judge Graves squinted at the witness over his half-glasses.
‘Well, yes, my Lord,’ Claude admitted reluctantly.
‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of – in most cases.’ At which the Judge aimed a look of distaste in my direction and then turned back to the witness. ‘I think you’d better tell the jury who you are, in the usual way.’
‘Claude …’ The unfortunate fellow tried a husky whisper, only to get a testy ‘Oh, do speak up!’ from his Lordship. Whereupon, turning up the volume a couple of notches, the witness answered, ‘Claude Leonard Erskine-Brown.’ I hadn’t know about the Leonard.
‘On May the 18th were you dining at La Maison Jean-Pierre?’ Ballard began his examination.
‘Well, yes. Yes. I did just drop in.’
‘For dinner?’
‘Yes,’ Claude had to admit.
‘In the company of a young lady named Patricia Benbow?’
‘Well. That is … Er … er.’
‘Mr Erskine-Brown’ – Judge Graves had no sympathy with this sudden speech impediment – ‘it seems a fairly simple question to answer, even for a member of the Bar.’
‘I was in Miss Benbow’s company, my Lord,’ Claude answered in despair.
‘And when the main course was served were the plates covered?’
‘Yes. They were.’
‘And when the covers were lifted what happened?’
Into the expectant silence, Erskine-Brown said in a still, small voice, ‘A mouse ran out.’
‘Oh, do speak up!’ Graves was running out of patience with the witness, who almost shouted back, ‘A mouse ran out, my Lord!’
At this point Ballard said, ‘Thank you, Mr Erskine-Brown,’ and sat down, no doubt confident that the case was in the bag – or perhaps the trap. Then I rose to cross-examine.
‘Mr Claude Leonard Erskine-Brown,’ I weighed in, ‘is Miss Benbow a solicitor?’
‘Well. Yes …’ Claude looked at me sadly, as though wanting to say, Et tu, Rumpole?
‘And is your wife a well-known and highly regarded Queen’s Counsel?’
Graves’s face lit up at the mention of our delightful Portia. ‘Mrs Erskine-Brown has sat here as a Recorder, members of the jury.’ He smiled sickeningly at the twelve honest citizens.
‘I’m obliged to your Lordship.’ I bowed slightly and turned back to the witness. ‘And is Miss Benbow instructed in an important forthcoming case, that is the Balham Minicab Murder, in which she is intending to brief Mrs Erskine-Brown, QC?’
‘Is – is she?’ Never quick off the mark, Claude didn’t yet realize that help was at hand.
‘And were you taking her out to dinner so you might discuss the defence in that case, your wife being unfortunately detained in Cardiff?’ I hoped that made my good intentions clear, even to a barrister.
‘Was I?’ Erskine-Brown was still not with me.
‘Well, weren’t you?’ I was losing patience with the fellow.
‘Oh, yes.’ At last the penny dropped. ‘Of course I was! I do remember now. Naturally. And I did it all to help Philly. To help my wife. Is that what you mean?’ He ended up looking at me anxiously.
‘Exactly.’
‘Thank you, Mr Rumpole. Thank you very much.’ Erskine-Brown’s gratitude was pathetic. But the Judge couldn’t wait to get on to the exciting bits. ‘Mr Rumpole,’ he boomed mournfully, ‘when are we coming to the mouse?’
‘Oh, yes. I’m grateful to your Lordship for reminding me. Well. What sort of animal was it?’
‘Oh, a very small mouse indeed.’ Claude was now desperately anxious to help me. ‘Hardly noticeable.’
‘A very small mouse and hardly noticeable,’ Graves repeated as he wrote it down and then raised his eyebrows, as though, when it came to mice, smallness was no excuse.
‘And the first you saw of it was when it emerged from under a silver dish-cover? You couldn’t swear it got there in the kitchen?’
‘No, I couldn’t.’ Erskine-Brown was still eager to cooperate.
‘Or if it was inserted in the dining room by someone with access to the serving table?’
‘Oh, no, Mr Rumpole. You’re perfectly right. Of course it might have been!’ The witness’s co-operation was almost embarrassing, so the Judge chipped in with ‘I take it you’re not suggesting that this creature appeared from a dish of duck breasts by some sort of miracle, are you, Mr Rumpole?’
‘Not a miracle, my Lord. Perhaps a trick.’
‘Isn’t Mr Ballard perfectly right?’ Graves, as was his wont, had joined the prosecution team. ‘For the purposes of this offence it doesn’t matter how it got there. A properly run restaurant should not serve up a mouse for dinner! The thing speaks for itself.’
‘A talking mouse, my Lord? What an interesting conception!’ I got a loud laugh from my client and even the jury joined in with a few friendly titters. I also got, of course, a stern rebuke from the Bench. ‘Mr Rumpole!’ – his Lordship’s seriousness was particularly deadly – ‘this is not a place of entertainment! You would do well to remember that this is a most serious case from your client’s point of view. And I’m sure the jury will wish to give it the most weighty consideration. We will continue with it after luncheon. Shall we say, five past two, members of the jury?’
Mr Bernard and I went down to the pub, and after a light snack of shepherd’s pie, washed down with a pint or two of Guinness, we hurried back into the Palais de Justice and there I found what I had hoped for. Mary Skelton was sitting quietly outside the Court, waiting for the proceedings to resume. I lit a small cigar and took a seat with my instructing solicitor not far away from the girl. I raised my voice a little and said, ‘You know what’s always struck me about this case, Mr Bernard? There’s no evidence of droppings or signs of mice in the kitchen. So someone put the mouse under the cover deliberately. Someone who wanted to ruin La Maison’s business.’
‘Mrs O’Higgins?’ Bernard suggested.
‘Certainly not! She’d want the place to be as prosperous as possible because she owned half of it. The guilty party is someone who wanted Simone to get nothing but half a failed eatery with a ruined reputation. So what did this someone do?’
‘You tell me, Mr Rumpole.’ Mr Bernard was an excellent straight man.
‘Oh, broke a lot of little rules. Took away the nail-brushes and the lids of the tidy bins. But a sensation was needed, something that’d hit the headlines. Luckily this someone knew a waiter who had a talent for sleight of hand and a spare-time job producing livestock out of hats.’
‘Gaston Leblanc?’ Bernard was with me.
‘Exactly! He got the animal under the lid and gave it to Alphonse to present to the unfortunate Miss Tricia Benbow. Consequence: ruin for t
he restaurant and a rotten investment for the vengeful Simone. No doubt someone paid Gaston well to do it.’
I was silent then. I didn’t look at the waiting girl, but I was sure she was looking at me. And then Bernard asked, ‘Just who are we talking about, Mr Rumpole?’
‘Well, now. Who had the best possible reason for hating Simone, and wanting her to get away with as little as possible?’
‘Who?’
‘Who but our client?’ I told him. ‘The great maître de cuisine, Jean-Pierre O’Higgins himself.’
‘No!’ I had never heard Mary Skelton speaking before. Her voice was clear and determined, with a slight North Country accent. ‘Excuse me.’ I turned to look at her as she stood up and came over to us. ‘No, it’s not true. Jean-Pierre knew nothing about it. It was my idea entirely. Why did she deserve to get anything out of us?’
I stood up, looked at my watch and put on the wig that had been resting on the seat beside me. ‘Well, back to Court. Mr Bernard, take a statement from the lady, why don’t you? We’ll call her as a witness.’
Whilst these events were going on down the Bailey, another kind of drama was being enacted in Froxbury mansions. She Who Must Be Obeyed had returned from her trip with Cousin Everard, put on the kettle and surveyed the general disorder left by my surprise party with deep disapproval. In the sitting room she fanned away the barroom smell, drew the curtains, opened the windows and clicked her tongue at the sight of half-empty glasses and lipstick-stained fag ends. Then she noticed something white nestling under the sofa, pulled it out and saw that it was a Young Radical Lawyers sweatshirt, redolent of Mizz Liz Probert’s understated yet feminine perfume.
Later in the day, when I was still on my hind legs performing before Mr Justice Graves and the jury, Liz Probert called at the mansion flat to collect the missing garment. Hilda had met Liz at occasional Chambers parties but when she opened the door she was, I’m sure, stony-faced, and remained so as she led Mizz Probert into the sitting room and restored to her the sweatshirt which the Young Radical Lawyer admitted she had taken off and left behind the night before. I have done my best to reconstruct the following dialogue, from the accounts given to me by the principal performers. I can’t vouch for its total accuracy, but this is the gist, the meat you understand. It began when Liz explained she had taken the sweatshirt off because she was dancing and it was quite hot.
‘You were dancing with Rumpole?’ Hilda was outraged. ‘I knew he was up to something. As soon as my back was turned. I heard all that going on when I telephoned. Rocking and rolling all over the place. At his age!’
‘Mrs Rumpole. Hilda …’ Liz began to protest but only provoked a brisk ‘Oh, please. Don’t you Hilda me! Young Radical Lawyers, I suppose that means you’re free and easy with other people’s husbands!’ At which point I regret to report that Liz Probert could scarcely contain her laughter and asked, ‘You don’t think I fancy Rumpole, do you?’
‘I don’t know why not.’ Hilda has her moments of loyalty. ‘Rumpole’s a “character”. Some people like that sort of thing.’
‘Hilda. Look, please listen,’ and Liz began to explain. ‘Dave Inchcape and I and a whole lot of us came to give Rumpole a party. To cheer him up. Because he was lonely. He was missing you so terribly.’
‘He was what?’ She Who Must could scarcely believe her ears, Liz told me. ‘Missing you,’ the young radical repeated. ‘I saw him at breakfast. He looked so sad. “She’s left me,” he said, “and gone off with her Cousin Everard.” ’
‘Rumpole said that?’ Hilda no longer sounded displeased.
‘And he seemed absolutely broken-hearted. He saw nothing ahead, I’m sure, but a lonely old age stretching out in front of him. Anyone could tell how much he cared about you. Dave noticed it as well. Please can I have my shirt back now?’
‘Of course.’ Hilda was now treating the girl as though she were the prodigal grandchild or some such thing. ‘But, Liz …’
‘What, Hilda?’
‘Wouldn’t you like me to put it through the wash for you before you take it home?’
Back in the Ludgate Circus verdict factory, Mary Skelton gave evidence along the lines I have already indicated and the time came for me to make my final speech. As I reached the last stretch I felt I was making some progress. No one in the jury-box was asleep, or suffering from terminal bronchitis, and a few of them looked distinctly sympathetic. The same couldn’t be said, however, of the scorpion on the Bench.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.’ I gave it to them straight. ‘Miss Mary Skelton, the cashier, was in love. She was in love with her boss, that larger-than-life cook and “character”, Jean-Pierre O’Higgins. People do many strange things for love. They commit suicide or leave home or pine away sometimes. It was for love that Miss Mary Skelton caused a mouse to be served up in La Maison Jean-Pierre, after she had paid the station waiter liberally for performing the trick. She it was who wanted to ruin the business, so that my client’s vengeful wife should get absolutely nothing out of it.’
‘Mr Rumpole!’ His Lordship was unable to contain his fury.
‘And my client knew nothing whatever of this dire plot. He was entirely innocent.’ I didn’t want to let Graves interrupt my flow, but he came in at increased volume, ‘Mr Rumpole! If a restaurant serves unhygienic food, the proprietor is guilty. In law it doesn’t matter in the least how it got there. Ignorance by your client is no excuse. I presume you have some rudimentary knowledge of the law, Mr Rumpole?’
I wasn’t going to tangle with Graves on legal matters. Instead I confined my remarks to the more reasonable jury, ignoring the Judge. ‘You’re not concerned with the law, members of the jury,’ I told them, ‘you are concerned with justice!’
‘That is a quite outrageous thing to say! On the admitted facts of this case, Mr O’Higgins is clearly guilty!’ His Honour Judge Graves had decided but the honest twelve would have to return the verdict and I spoke to them. ‘A British judge has no power to direct a British jury to find a defendant guilty! I know that much at least.’
‘I shall tell the jury that he is guilty in law, I warn you.’ Graves’s warning was in vain. I carried on regardless.
‘His Lordship may tell you that to his heart’s content. As a great Lord Chief Justice of England, a Judge superior in rank to any in this Court, once said, “It is the duty of the Judge to tell you as a jury what to do, but you have the power to do exactly as you like.” And what you do, members of the jury, is a matter entirely between God and your own consciences. Can you really find it in your consciences to condemn a man to ruin for a crime he didn’t commit?’ I looked straight at them. ‘Can any of you? Can you?’ I gripped the desk in front of me, apparently exhausted. ‘You are the only judges of the facts in this case, members of the jury. My task is done. The future career of Jean-Pierre O’Higgins is in your hands, and in your hands alone.’ And then I sat down, clearly deeply moved.
At last it was over. As we came out of the doors of the Court, Jean-Pierre O’Higgins embraced me in a bear hug and was, I greatly feared, about to kiss me on both cheeks. Ballard gave me a look of pale disapproval. Clearly he thought I had broken all the rules by asking the jury to ignore the Judge. Then a cheerful and rejuvenated Claude came bouncing up bleating, ‘Rumpole, you were brilliant!’
‘Oh yes,’ I told him. ‘I’ve still got a win or two in me yet.’
‘Brilliant to get me off. All that nonsense about a brief for Philly.’
‘Not nonsense, Leonard. I mean, Claude. I telephoned the fair Tricia and she’s sending your wife the Balham Minicab Murder. Are you suggesting that Rumpole would deceive the Court?’
‘Oh’ – he was interested to know – ‘am I getting a brief too?’
‘She said nothing of that.’
‘All the same, Rumpole’ – he concealed his disappointment – ‘thank you very much for getting me out of a scrape.’
‘Say no more. My life is devoted to helping the criminal classes.’
/> As I left him and went upstairs to slip out of the fancy dress, I had one more task to perform. I walked past my locker and went on into the silks’ dressing-room, where a very old QC was seated in the shadows snoozing over the Daily Telegraph. I had seen Ballard downstairs, discussing the hopelessness of an appeal with his solicitor, and it was the work of a minute to find his locker, feel in his jacket pocket and haul a large purse out of it. Making sure that the sleeping silk hadn’t spotted me, I opened the purse, slipped in the nail-brush I had rescued from Uncle Tom’s tin of golf balls, restored it to the pocket and made my escape undetected.
I was ambling back up Fleet Street when I heard the brisk step of Ballard behind me. He drew up alongside and returned to his favourite topic. ‘There’s nothing for it, Rumpole,’ he said, ‘I shall chain the next one up.’
‘The next what?’
‘The next nail-brush.’
‘Isn’t that a bit extreme?’
‘If fellows, and ladies, in Chambers can’t be trusted,’ Ballard said severely, ‘I am left with absolutely no alternative. I hate to have to do it, but Henry is being sent out for a chain tomorrow.’
We had reached the newspaper stand at the entrance to the Temple and I loitered there. ‘Lend us 20p for the Evening Standard, Bollard. There might be another restaurant in trouble.’
‘Why are you never provided with money?’ Ballard thought it typical of my fecklessness. ‘Oh, all right.’ And then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the purse. Opening it, he was amazed to find his ten pees nestling under an ancient nail-brush. ‘Our old nail-brush!’ The reunion was quaintly moving. ‘I’d recognize it anywhere. How on earth did it get in there?’
‘Evidence gets in everywhere, old darling,’ I told him. ‘Just like mice.’
When I got home and unlocked the front door, I was greeted with the familiar cry of ‘Is that you, Rumpole?’
The Collected Stories of Rumpole Page 60