Rumpole and the Primrose Path

by John Mortimer

  ‘Great to see you at liberty, Mr Rumpole,’ he said. ‘Last we saw of you was a picture in the papers when you was entering Worsfield Prison. All the family was upset by that. They really was. “Poor old Mr Rumpole,” they said. “They got him at last.” Short sentence, was it?’

  ‘Short, but quite unpleasant,’ I told him. ‘They gave me lunch.’

  But I was also given complimentary membership of the Bunyan Society and got a calendar of forthcoming events. The next bash was drinks on the terrace of the House of Lords, when the great and the good, released from lunch in the nick, would be bribed by glasses of champagne and finger food to sign cheques to help the cause of prison reform.

  Sunlight glittered on the river and warmed the stone walls of Parliament. The champagne frosted the glasses and the Members, relaxing away from the company of the prisoners the Bunyan Society existed to care for, talked in low, agreeable voices, laughed moderately, nibbled at sausages on sticks or gently introduced fragments of celery into avocado dip. I had brought a guest, none other than Lady Sloper, wife of the Beetle Judge.

  ‘My husband tells me that when you’re in a case, Rumpole, he always expects some sort of trouble,’ she had told me when I rang her up.

  ‘No sort of trouble now,’ I assured her. ‘It’s just that the Bunyan Society is terribly keen to have you at their drinks party. They’ve heard you’re fantastically interested in prisons.’

  ‘Well, not all that interested, actually. Beetle keeps putting people into them, of course. But my thing’s Albanian orphans.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ I had tried to sound as though Lady Sloper’s work with Albanian orphans was almost the sole topic of conversation round the Old Bailey. ‘But if they get here, they quite often end up in prison. For all the wrong reasons, of course. Do say “yes”, Lady Sloper. As I say, the Bunyan Society is really desperate to have you.’

  ‘Are they, indeed? And where did you say this party was?’

  ‘Very pleasant surroundings. The terrace of the House of Lords.’

  ‘Really? Well, I do enjoy a party.’ Was this a woman, I wondered, who would go anywhere for a samosa and a glass of champagne? ‘I don’t really see why not.’ Lady Sloper, who, reasonably early on, gave me permission to call her Marjorie, was a small, bright-eyed woman, who made good use of the champagne and was licking her fingers after a particularly succulent samosa when she spotted another Judge. ‘There’s Phillida Erskine-Brown. Beetle really rates her.’

  ‘I think we all do,’ I agreed. Across the gently grazing heads I saw the one-time Portia of our Chambers with her QC husband in tow. He was occupying himself by gazing at the other end of the terrace, where the Home Secretary, today in flaming orange with matching earrings, was being chatted up by the top brass of the Bunyan Society. ‘Beetle says Phillida Erskine-Brown’s top notch on crime, she doesn’t stand for any nonsense from you lot saying it’s all down to bad parenting or insufficient weaning or whatever.’

  ‘Just as well,’ I hastened to agree with Marjorie. ‘There’s so much of it about nowadays.’

  ‘You mean insufficient weaning?’

  ‘No, I mean crime.’ The time had come to bring matters to a head. ‘It’s everywhere, isn’t it? You even saw it from your bedroom window.’

  ‘Well, I saw a man come out of the back door of the house opposite and go off across the garden. Of course, I was the only one who saw it. Beetle was away on circuit.’

  ‘I suppose if he hadn’t been he’d have rushed out and collared the fellow.’

  ‘Certainly not. He’d have dug in under the duvet. You obviously don’t know my husband.’

  ‘We all have a great deal of respect for Beetle.’ I thought it was the right thing to say.

  ‘Oh well, I’m sure he’d be very grateful to you for that.’

  Marjorie’s affection for the judicial insect fell, it was clear, some degrees short of total adulation.

  ‘You seem to have had a pretty good view of the burglar.’

  ‘You’re not defending him, are you?’ She looked at me now with some distrust.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I reassured her. ‘I just happened to read your statement in some papers that got delivered to me by mistake.’

  ‘The prosecution aren’t going to call me.’ You bet they aren‘t, I might have said to her, because your description doesn’t fit the customer they’ve decided has, on past performances, got to be guilty. ‘Beetle’s terribly relieved. He said I’d probably be given a ghastly time by “someone like Rumpole”, I have to tell you.’ She seemed to find the situation enormously amusing. ‘That’s exactly what he said.’

  ‘Well, he was wrong,’ I promised her. ‘I’d have given you the warmest possible welcome. I’d have congratulated you on the clarity of your evidence and your powers of observation. In fact, I’d probably have made you my star witness. That is, if I were doing the case.’

  ‘So it’s lucky you aren’t,’ she told me, ‘because I’m not being called at all.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Lucky for someone, anyway.’ I looked up the terrace to where the colourful Home Secretary had moved away from the governing group of the Bunyan Society. I took Marjorie up to them. I have to say, I bypassed the mustard-keen director, Katey Kershaw; I merely nodded at the Chairman, Sir James Loveridge. I aimed, with Beetle’s wife in tow, straight for the President of the Bunyan, together with the well-heeled Labour peer who had paid for the champagne and canapes. They were being held in no doubt fascinating conversation on prisons and prisoners by the reformed con, Brian Skidmore. I broke, I’m afraid rudely, into their gently murmured conversation to greet Brian. ‘You were dead right about Chirpy Molloy,’ I congratulated him. ‘He couldn’t go straight for a month or two. He’s right back in the nick on another charge of burglary, with use of bathroom to be taken into consideration.’

  Brian smiled knowingly and introduced me to the President and Lord Crane, the Society’s benefactor. ‘We were talking about an inmate Mr Rumpole met when he had lunch with us in Worsfield.’ He brought the top brass up to date with the Molloy affair. ‘He’s a serial burglar who breaks into people’s homes when they’re away on holiday and gives himself a bath and uses all the toiletries.’

  ‘What you might call a clean break.’ Lord Crane made what had to be the day’s worst joke, causing the President to smile indulgently and Brian Skidmore to utter a short yelp of laughter.

  ‘That’s a good one, my Lord. A very good one. On a more serious note, though, I knew this chap Molloy hadn’t got the strength of character to resist going back to his old ways. Everything’s against you when you come out of prison. No money. No job. You meet all the old friends you did crime with ... It’s a hard struggle. I found that. And it needs strength of character.’

  ‘You managed it though, didn’t you, Brian?’ The President of the Bunyan was smiling proudly.

  ‘Yes, sir, I managed it. But as I say, it wasn’t easy. Of course, I had a lot of help from the Bunyan. And I had faith.’

  ‘Religious faith?’ Lord Crane sounded doubtful, as though he wasn’t sure what particular brand of faith might be under discussion.

  ‘It’s what the Bible tells us, isn’t it? Whatever sins we might have done - we’re all capable of redemption.’

  ‘Pity Chirpy Molloy wasn’t,’ I agreed with Brian. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot to introduce Lady Sloper.’ I made the introductions and added, ‘By the way, she and the Judge live just behind the house where Chirpy did his last break-in. She was telling me that she saw a man emerge from the back door. Two o‘clock in the morning under a full moon. Isn’t that right, Lady Sloper?’

  But it was hard to get Marjorie’s full attention. She had for some time been staring at Brian Skidmore. She was looking, wondering, and I remembered the description of the man she had seen by moonlight, in the statement no one had particularly wanted to be used. A tall man, she had said, with a pronounced nose and a bald dome of a head, which shone hairless in the moonlight. She had seen
him clearly until he vanished into the shadows by the garden wall.

  Then she answered my question. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s right.’

  At this there was a flash of light; behind it, in the shadows, Luci was holding her newly acquired digital camera on which, so she had assured me, she could already see the picture she had taken. Brian Skidmore, the perfect ex-prisoner, however, was having none of it. He snatched Luci’s camera from her and stamped on it. ‘No photographs!’ he shouted, startling the quietly murmuring and grazing guests. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you? No photographs allowed!’ So he left the party, and indeed the Bunyan Society, only to be found, without much difficulty, when he was required to help the police with their enquiries.

  In the weeks that followed, I had ample opportunity to consider the doctrine of redemption, as I sat, smoking too many small cigars, not fully employed with briefs calculated to interrupt my train of thought. I did, however, receive several visitors who, in their various ways, threw some light on the subject under consideration. The first of these was Claude Erskine-Brown, who subsided into my client’s chair and looked at me with the despairing eyes of a man who can’t decide between drowning and an overdose of sleeping pills as the easiest way out of this cruel world.

  ‘Well, Rumpole,’ he said, ‘it finally happened. At the Bunyan Society do in the House of Lords. You were there, weren’t you?’

  ‘Certainly I was there. But what do you mean by “it”?’

  ‘I was speaking,’ he said bitterly, ‘of the woman who calls herself Home Secretary. She was there, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I saw her. But what I’m groping for, Erskine-Brown, is are you suggesting some sort of consummation?’

  ‘Hardly.’ He gave a short laugh which might have been reasonably described as mirthless.

  ‘I thought not. I didn’t notice you and the Secretary of State in any sort of clinch behind the potted plants.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. I was there with Philly.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that. You and the learned Judge.’

  ‘And that woman, Brenda Heygate, came up to us.’

  ‘Smiling?’

  ‘Smiling at Philly. And engaging her in conversation. In fact, she wanted my wife to chair a committee to decide if people should be able to trace the sperm donors who might have fathered them. Yes, Rumpole,’ Erskine-Brown’s tone became increasingly bitter. ‘Sperm donors! That’s what they were discussing. Then Philly said to her, “Of course, you know my husband.” So this Heygate woman looked at me and do you know what she said?’

  ‘No. Tell me. The suspense is killing me.’

  ‘ “No, we’ve never met.”’

  ‘Is that what she said?’

  ‘That’s exactly what she said. “No, we’ve never met.” And she held out her hand for me to shake. I had kissed her, Rumpole! I had seen her to her car and I had kissed her!’

  ‘On the lips?’ I was trying to get the picture.

  ‘Partially on the lips. And in part on her cheek. She appeared to enjoy it.’

  ‘I’m sure she did.’

  ‘And now she’s saying, “No, we’ve never met.”’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I did my best to give him a crumb of comfort,

  ‘she was lying. Wanting to hide her considerable passion.’

  ‘Please! I know you’re trying to be kind, Rumpole. She had simply and genuinely forgotten my existence.’

  ‘No doubt she had a good deal on her mind. Affairs of State and all that cracking down.’

  ‘What would Affairs of State matter, if she’d been genuinely in love?’

  ‘I see your point. So what it comes to is - the affair’s over?’

  ‘If it ever started.’

  ‘And you can spend more time with your family,’ I told him. ‘You’ve been redeemed.’

  ‘I’ve been what?’

  ‘Redeemed. You might have committed all sorts of sins with the Home Secretary. But now you’re a reformed character. You have been granted redemption without even asking for it. Count yourself lucky, Erskine-Brown.’

  ‘If that’s redemption,’ Claude was lifting himself wearily from my client’s chair, ‘I’m not sure I care for it at all.’

  Some days later, Henry put through a call from my former solicitor, Bonny Bernard. I was delighted to hear him sound as ridden with guilt as any major sinner entering the confessional.

  ‘We’ve done all you suggested, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad to hear it.’ My voice, I hoped, was chilly and the tone curt.

  ‘I’ve seen Lady Sloper and beefed up her statement. And we’re investigating the fingerprint business.’

  ‘Is that all?’ I was preparing myself to think of a suitable penance, such as fifty contested careless drivings in the Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court, but then the persistent Bernard sprang a surprise.

  ‘I’m sending you a brief, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Oh, are you really?’ I kept the chill in my voice. ‘What is it? Bad case of unrenewed telly licence?’

  ‘No. A murder.’

  ‘Is it indeed?’ I couldn’t help the voice warming up a little.

  ‘The unusual thing is,’ Bernard started to elaborate, ‘the death occurred in a Home for the Blind and Partially Sighted.’

  ‘Who’s on trial?’ I couldn’t help asking for further particulars. ‘One of the staff?’

  ‘No, actually it’s one of the patients. And I think she might have a defence.’

  ‘Send it round then.’ A dreadful thought occurred to me.

  ‘I suppose you’ll be taking in a leader?’

  ‘No, Mr Rumpole.’ My solicitor was admirably clear on this point. ‘We thought you’d be better doing this one on your own.’

  ‘Bonny Bernard!’ I was then able to tell him, ‘I have good news for you. You are a solicitor redeemed.’

  I had scarcely slid the tape off the brief in the murder the reformed Bonny Bernard had sent me when, after a brisk knock, Luci Gribble entered the room with a cup of steaming instant. ‘That bloody lunatic at the Bunyan,’ she said, ‘absolutely wrecked my camera. And I was getting some good pics for the Chambers Bulletin.’

  ‘I know.’ I was sympathetic. ‘He didn’t like the sight of his own face.’

  I sipped instant, lit a small cigar, but Luci, instead of going, took her place, as so many customers with a guilty secret do, in my client’s chair.

  ‘Rumpole,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry I shopped you like that.’

  ‘Like what, exactly?’

  ‘Well, telling your wife I hadn’t noticed you on the exercise bike when I signed you in. I’m afraid I got you into trouble.’

  ‘Trouble? Oh, hardly at all,’ I assured her. ‘I’ve been about as welcome in Froxbury Mansions as mice in the larder or a nasty patch of rising damp on the bedroom walls since you grassed about the Lysander Club. That’s all. I’ve had to learn to live with it.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. You told the truth. Some people find doing that an irresistible temptation.’

  ‘But don’t worry. I know exactly how you can make up for your shameful neglect of bicycling duty.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ I was, I have to confess, wary of the Director of Marketing’s plans for my future. When it comes to dealing with marriage, the cure is often worse than the disease.

  ‘All you have to do is to remember the date next Thursday.’

  ‘Why?’ I was mystified. ‘What is the date next Thursday?’

  ‘Just look it up and remember it. That’s all. By the way, I’ve booked a table for the two of you at the Myrtle restaurant.’

  ‘You mean ...’ Some distant memory began to trouble my mind.

  ‘Yes. I do mean. It’s your wedding anniversary and you’re going to take She Who Must Be Obeyed out to dinner.’

  ‘People all talked about Chirpy Molloy leaving his signature on the bathrooms of the houses he burgled. Well, if I know one thing about signatu
res, it is that they get forged. With all his contacts, the Blessed Saint Brian Skidmore knew all about the jewellery scattered around that house in the Sloane Square area. So he decided to do a job which seemed to have Chirpy’s signature written large upon it.’

  ‘Rumpole ...’

  ‘They were so sure it was Chirpy’s work that they didn’t bother to look for fingerprints. But when they started looking, they found Brian’s on a bottle of Machisimo. He wasn’t as careful as Chirpy, you see, and, of course, he never thought anyone would suspect the reformed con with a steady job in the Bunyan Society. He just didn’t take enough care.’

  ‘Rumpole, they’re taking such a long time with my steak.

  Do you think they’re slaughtering the animal?’

  ‘It’s an odd thing about redemption. It seems to come to the most improbable people. Chirpy, it seems, really was redeemed. He’d got his new job and his new girlfriend, and I think he really means to give up invading other people’s bathrooms. But the Sainted Brian, exhibit A in the case for prison as a cure for crime, turns out not to have been redeemed at all. Not only did he want to get his fingers on Adele Alexander’s baubles, he tried to get a reformed con to do his bird for him.’

  ‘Rumpole, that asparagus wasn’t cooked properly. It was hard as nails and had flakes of cheese all over it. It wasn’t right, Rumpole. I should have complained at the time.’

  ‘It might have all worked if I hadn’t picked up the brief sent to Archie Prosser in a moment of treachery. Well, at least I could organize things so that Prosser could win the case. A somewhat rare event, as I understand it, in the life of our newest arrival in Chambers!’

  ‘Rumpole! Do we have to spend the evening discussing your cases?’