The First Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘Well, Dad wouldn’t let me speak to no Molloy. He wouldn’t put up with it, like.’

  I stood up, grinding out the stub end of my small cigar in the old Oxo tin thoughtfully provided by H.M.’s government. It was, I thought, about time I called the meeting to order.

  ‘So Jim,’ I asked him, ‘what’s the defence?’

  Little Jim knitted his brows and came out with his contribution. ‘Well. I didn’t do it.’

  ‘That’s an interesting defence. Somewhat novel - so far as the Timsons are concerned.’

  ‘I’ve got my alibi, ain’t I?’

  Jim looked at me accusingly, as at an insensitive visitor to a garden who has failed to notice the remarkable display of gladioli.

  ‘Oh, yes. Your alibi.’ I’m afraid I didn’t sound overwhelmed with enthusiasm.

  ‘Dad reckoned it was pretty good.’

  Mr Bernard had his invaluable file open and was reading from that less-than-inspiring document, our Notice of Alibi.

  ‘Straight from school on that Friday September 2nd, I went up to tea at my Aunt Doris’s and arrived there at exactly 5.30. At 6 p.m. my Uncle Den came home from work accompanied by my Uncle Cyril. At 7 p.m. when this alleged crime was taking place I was sat round the television with my Aunty and two Uncles. I well remember we was watching “The Newcomers”.’

  All very neat and workmanlike. Well, that was it. The family gave young Jim an alibi, clubbed together for it, like a new bicycle. However, I had to disappoint Mr Bernard about the bright shining alibi and we went through the swing doors on our way into Court.

  ‘We can’t use that alibi.’

  ‘We can’t?’ Mr Bernard looked wounded, as if I’d just insulted his favourite child.

  ‘Think about it Bernard. Don’t be blinded by the glamour of the criminal classes. Call the Uncles and the Aunties? Let them all be cross-examined about their records? The jury’ll realize our Jimbo comes from a family of villains who keep a cupboard full of alibis for all occasions.’

  Mr Bernard was forced to agree, but I went into my old place in Court (nearest to the jury, furthest from the witness box) thinking that the devilish thing about that impossible alibi was that it might even be true.

  So there I was, sitting in my favourite seat in Court, down in the firing line, and there was Jim boy, undersized for a prisoner, just peeping over the edge of the dock, guarded in case he ran amok and started attacking the judge, by a huge Dock Officer. There was the jury, solid and grey, listening impassionately as Guthrie Featherstone spread out his glittering mass of incriminating facts before them. I don’t know why it is that juries all look the same; take twelve good men and women off the street and they all look middle-aged, anonymous, slightly stunned, an average jury, of average people trying an average case. Perhaps being a jury has become a special profession for specially average people. ‘What do you want to do when you grow up my boy?’ ‘Be a jury man, Daddy.’ ‘Well done my boy. You can work a five-hour day for reasonable expenses and occasionally send people to chokey.’

  So, as the carefully chosen words of Guthrie Featherstone passed over our heads like expensive hair oil, and as the enthusiastic young MacLay noted it all down, and the Rumpole Supporters Club, the Timsons, sat and pursed their lips and now and then whispered, ‘Lies. All lies’ to each other, I sat watching the judge rather as a noted toreador watches the bull from the barrier during the preliminary stages of the corrida, and remembered what I knew of Mr Justice Everglade, known to his few friends as ‘Florrie’. Everglade’s father was Lord Chancellor about the time when Jim’s grandfather was doing over the Streatham Co-op. Educated at Winchester and Balliol, he always cracked The Times crossword in the opening of an egg. He was most happy with International Trust companies suing each other on nice points of law, and was only there for a fortnight’s slumming down the Old Bailey. I wondered exactly what he was going to make of Peanuts Molloy.

  ‘Members of the jury, it’s right that you should know that it is alleged that Timson took part in this attack with a number of other youths, none of whom have been arrested,’ Featherstone was purring to a halt.

  ‘The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled,’ I muttered, but the judge was busy congratulating learned counsel for Her Majesty the Queen who was engaged that morning in prosecuting the pride of the Timsons.

  ‘It is quite right you should tell the jury that, Mr Featherstone. Perfectly right and proper.’

  ‘If your Lordship pleases.’ Featherstone was now bowing slightly, and my hackles began to rise. What was this? The old chums’ league? Fellow members of the Athenaeum?

  ‘I am most grateful to your Lordship for that indication.’ Featherstone did his well-known butler passing the sherry act again. I wondered why the old darling didn’t crawl up on the bench with Mr Justice Everglade and black his boots for him.

  ‘So I imagine this young man’s defence is - he wasn’t ejusdem generis with the other lads?’ The judge was now holding a private conversation, a mutual admiration society with my learned friend. I decided to break it up, and levered myself to my feet.

  ‘I’m sorry. Your Lordship was asking about the defence?’

  The judge turned an unfriendly eye on me and fumbled for my name. I told you he was a stranger to the Old Bailey, where the name of Rumpole is, I think, tolerably well known.

  ‘Yes, Mr… er…’ The clerk of the Court handed him up a note on which the defender’s name was inscribed. ‘Rumpole.’

  ‘I am reluctant to intrude on your Lordship’s confidential conversation with my learned friend. But your Lordship was asking about the defence.’

  ‘You are appearing for the young man… Timson?’

  ‘I have that honour.’

  At which point the doors of the Court swung open and Albert came in with Nick, a boy in a blazer and a school-tie who passed the boy in the dock with only a glance of curiosity. I always thank God, when I consider the remote politeness with which I was treated by the Reverend Wilfred Rumpole, that I get on extremely well with Nick. We understand each other, my boy and I, and have, when he’s at home, formed a strong but silent alliance against the almost invincible rule of She Who Must Be Obeyed. He is as fond as I am of the Sherlock Holmes tales, and when we walked together in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, young Nick often played the part of Holmes whilst I trudged beside him as Watson, trying to deduce the secret lives of those we passed by the way they shined their shoes, or kept their handkerchiefs in their sleeves. So I gave a particularly welcoming smile to Nick before I gave my attention back to Florrie.

  ‘And, as Jim Timson’s counsel,’ I told his Lordship, ‘I might know a little more about his case than counsel for the prosecution.’

  To which Mr Justice Everglade trotted out his favourite bit of Latin, i imagine,’ he said loftily, ‘your client says he was not ejusdem generis with the other lads.’

  ‘Ejusdem generis? Oh yes, my Lord. He’s always saying that. Ejusdem generis is a phrase in constant use in his particular part of Brixton.’

  I had hit a minor jackpot, and was rewarded with a tinkle of laughter from the Timsons, and a smile of genuine congratulation from Nick.

  Mr Justice Everglade was inexperienced down the Bailey, he gave us a bare hour for lunch and Nick and I had it in the canteen. There is one thing you can say against crime, the catering facilities aren’t up to much. Nick told me about school, and freely confessed, as I’m sure he wouldn’t have done to his mother, that he’d been in some sort of trouble that term. There was an old deserted vicarage opposite Schoolhouse (my old House and Nick’s) and he and his friends had apparently broken in the scullery window and assembled there for poker parties and the consumption of Cherry Brandy. I was horrified as I drew up the indictment which seemed to me to contain charges of burglary at common law, house breaking under the Forcible Entries Act, contravening the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries Act and Serving Alcohol on Unlicensed Premises.

  ‘Crabtree actually invited a c
ouple of girls from the village,’ Nick continued his confession. ‘But Bagnold never got to hear of that.’

  Bagnold was Nick’s headmaster, the school equivalent of ‘Persil’ White. I cheered up a little at the last piece of information.

  ‘Then there’s no evidence of girls. As far as your case goes there’s no reason to suppose the girls ever existed. As for the

  other charges, which are serious…’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose they are rather.’

  ‘I imagine you were walking past the house on Sunday evening and, attracted by the noise… You went to investigate?’

  ‘Dad. Bagnold came in and found us — playing poker.’

  Nick wasn’t exactly being helpful. I tried another line.

  ‘I know, “My Lord. My client was only playing poker in order not to look too pious whilst he lectured his fellow sixth formers on the evils of gambling and Cherry Brandy”.’

  ‘Dad. Be serious.’

  ‘I am serious. Don’t you want me to defend you?’

  ‘No. Bagnold’s not going to tell the police or anything like that.’

  I was amazed. ‘He isn’t? What’s he going to do?’

  ‘Well… I’ll miss next term’s exeat. Do extra work. I thought I should tell you before you got a letter.’

  ‘Thank you, Nick. Thank you. I’m glad you told me. So there’s no question of… the police?’

  ‘The police?’ Nick was laughing. ‘Of course not. Bagnold doesn’t want any trouble. After all, we’re still at school.’

  I watched Nick as he finished his fish and chips, and then turned my thoughts to Jim Timson, who had also been at school; but with no kindly Bagnold to protect him.

  Back in Court I was cross-examining that notable grass, Peanuts Molloy, a skinnier, more furtive edition of Jim Timson. The cross-examination was being greatly enjoyed by the Tim-sons and Nick, but not much by Featherstone or Chief Detective Inspector ‘Persil’ White who sat at the table in front of me. I also thought that Mr Justice ‘Florrie’ Everglade was thinking that he would have been happier snoozing in the Athenaeum, or working on his grosse-point in Egerton Terrace, than listening to me bowling fast in-swingers at the juvenile chief witness for the prosecution.

  ‘You don’t speak. The Molloys and the Timsons are like the Montagues and the Capulets,’ I put it to Peanuts.

  ‘What did you say they were?’ The judge had, of course, given me my opportunity. I smacked him through the slips for a crafty single. ‘Not ejusdem generis, my Lord,’ I said.

  Nick joined in the laughter and even the ranks of Featherstone had to stifle a smile. The usher called ‘Silence’. We were back to the business in hand.

  ‘Tell me, Peanuts… How would you describe yourself?’

  ‘Is that a proper question?’ Featherstone uncoiled himself gracefully. I ignored the interruption.

  ‘I mean artistically. Are you a latter-day Impressionist? Do all your oils in little dots, do you? Abstract painter? White squares on a white background? Do you indulge in watches melting in the desert like dear old Salvador Dali?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Peanuts played a blocking shot and Featherstone tried a weary smile to the judge.

  ‘My Lord, neither, I must confess, do I.’

  ‘Sit quietly, Featherstone,’ I muttered to him. ‘All will be revealed to you.’ I turned my attention back to Peanuts. ‘Are you a dedicated artist? The Rembrandt of the Remand Centre?’

  ‘I hadn’t done no art before.’ Peanuts confirmed my suspicions.

  ‘So we are to understand that this occasion, when Jim poured out his heart to you, was the first painting lesson you’d ever been to?’

  Peanuts admitted it.

  ‘You’d been at the Remand Centre how long?’

  ‘Couple of months. I was done for a bit of an affray.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you that. And I’m sure the reason you were on remand was entirely creditable. What I want to know is, what inspired you with this sudden fascination for the arts?’

  ‘Well, the chief screw. He suggested it.’

  Now we were beginning to get to the truth of the matter. Like his old grandfather in the Streatham Co-op days, Jim had been banged up with a notable grass.

  ‘You were suddenly told to join the painting class, weren’t you… and put yourself next to Jim?’

  ‘Something like that, yeah.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Florrie frowned. It was all very strange to him and yet he was starting to get the hint of something that wasn’t quite cricket.

  ‘Something like that, my Lord,’ I repeated slowly, giving the judge a chance to make a note. ‘And you were sent there, not in the pursuit of art, Peanuts, but in the pursuit of evidence! You knew that and you supplied your masters with just what they wanted to hear - even though Jim Timson didn’t say a word to you!’

  Everyone in Court, including Nick, looked impressed. D.I. White bit hard on a polo mint and Featherstone oozed to his feet in a rescue bid.

  ‘That’s great, Dad!’

  ‘Thanks, Nick. Sorry it’s not a murder.’

  ‘I don’t know quite what my learned friend is saying. Is he suggesting that the police…’

  ‘Oh, it’s an old trick,’ I said, staring hard at the Chief Inspector. ‘Bang the suspect up with a notable grass when you’re really pushed for evidence. They do it with grown-ups often enough. Now they’re trying it with children!’

  ‘Mr Rumpole,’ the judge sighed, ‘you are speaking a language which is totally foreign to me.’

  ‘Let me try and make myself clear, my Lord. I was suggesting that Peanuts was put there as a deliberate trap.’

  By now, even the judge had the point. ‘You are suggesting that Mr Molloy was not a genuine “amateur painter”?’

  ‘No, my Lord. Merely an amateur witness.’

  ‘Yes.’ I actually got a faint smile. ‘I see. Please go on, Mr Rumpole.’

  Another day or so of this, I felt, and I’d get invited to tea at the Athenaeum.

  ‘What did you say first to Jim? As you drew your easel alongside?’

  ‘Don’t remember.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I think we was speaking about the Stones.’

  ‘What “stones” are these?’ The judge’s ignorance of the life around him seemed to be causing him some sort of wild panic. Remember this was 1965, and I was in a similar state of confusion until Nick, whispering from behind me, gave me the clue.

  ‘The Rolling Stones, my Lord.’ The information meant nothing to him.

  ‘I’m afraid a great deal of this case seems to be taking place in a foreign tongue, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Jazz musicians, as I understand it, my Lord, of some noto- riety.’ By courtesy of Nick, I filled his Lordship in on ‘the scene’.

  ‘Well, the notoriety hasn’t reached me!’ said the judge, providing the obedient Featherstone with the laugh of the year, if not the century. When the learned prosecuting counsel had recovered his solemnity, Peanuts went rambling on.

  ‘We was talking about the Stones concert at the Hammersmith Odeon. We’d both been to it, like. And, well… we talked about that. And then he said… Jim said… Well, he said as how he and the other blokes had done the butchers.’

  The conversation had now taken a nasty turn. I saw that the judge was writing industriously. ‘Jim said… that he and the other blokes… had done the butchers.’ Florrie was plying his pencil. Then he looked up at me, ‘Well, Mr Rumpole, is that a convenient moment to adjourn?’

  It was a very convenient moment for the prosecution, as the evidence against us would be the last thing the jury heard before sloping off to their homes and loved ones. It was also a convenient moment for Peanuts. He would have his second wind by the morning. So there was nothing for it but to take Nick for a cup of tea and a pile of crumpets in the ABC, and so home to She Who Must Be Obeyed.

  So picture us three that evening, finishing dinner and a bottle of claret, celeb
rating the return of the Young Master at Hack Hall, Counsel’s Castle, Rumpole Manor, or 25B Froxbury Court, Gloucester Road. Hilda had told Nick that his grandpa had sent his love and expected a letter, and also dropped me the encouraging news that old C. H. Wystan was retiring and quite appreciated that I was the senior man. Nick asked me if I was really going to be Head of Chambers, seeming to look at me with a new respect, and we drank a glass of claret to the future, whatever it might be. Then Nick asked me if I really thought Peanuts Molloy was lying.

  ‘If he’s not, he’s giving a damn good imitation.’ Then I told Hilda as she started to clear away, ‘Nick enjoyed the case. Even though it was only a robbery. Oh, Nick… I wish you’d been there to hear me cross-examine about the bloodstains in the “Penge Bungalow Murder”.’

  ‘Nick wasn’t born, when you did the “Penge Bungalow Murder”.’

  My wife is always something of a wet blanket. I commiserated with my son. ‘Bad luck, old boy.’

  ‘You were great with that judge!’

  I think Nick had really enjoyed himself.

  ‘There was this extraordinary judge who was always talking Latin and Dad was teasing him.’

  ‘You want to be careful,’ Hilda was imposing her will on the pudding plates. ‘How you tease judges. If you’re to be Head of Chambers.’ On which line she departed, leaving Nick and I to our claret and conversation. I began to discuss with Nick the horrifying adventure of The Speckled Band.

  ‘You’re still reading those tales, are you?’ I asked Nick.

  ‘Well… not lately.’

  ‘But you remember. I used to read them to you, didn’t I? After She had ordered you to bed.’

  ‘When you weren’t too busy. Noting up your murders.’

  ‘And remember we were Holmes and Watson? When we went for walks in Hyde Park.’

  ‘I remember one walk.’

  That was odd, as I recall it had been our custom ever at a weekend, before Nick went away to boarding school. I lit a small cigar and looked at the Great Detective through the smoke.

  ‘Tell me, Holmes. What did you think was the most remarkable piece of evidence given by the witness Peanuts Molloy?’