Rumpole and the Angel of Death

by John Mortimer

  To my surprise she answered with a brisk ‘I’d call you fatter!’

  ‘A sensible answer, Hilda.’ I had been brave enough for one evening. ‘You and Mizz Wendy Crump are obviously alike in tolerance and common sense. The only trouble is, she couldn’t say that to Claude because he has a lean and hungry look. Like yon Cassius.’

  ‘Like yon who?’

  ‘No matter.’

  ‘Rumpole, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

  So I told her the whole story of Wendy and Claude and Mizz Probert, with her Sisterhood, ready to tear poor Erskine-Brown apart as the Bacchantes rent Orestes, and the frightened Ballard. She listened with an occasional click of the tongue and shake of her head, which led me to believe that she didn’t entirely approve. ‘Those girls,’ she said, ‘should be a little less belligerent and learn to use their charm.’

  ‘Perhaps they haven’t got as much charm as you have, Hilda,’ I flannelled, and she looked at me with deep suspicion.

  ‘But you say this Wendy Crump doesn’t mind particularly?’

  ‘She seems not to. Only one thing seems to upset her.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘She’s disillusioned about Claude not because of the fat chat, but because she’s found out he’s not the brilliant advocate she once thought him.’

  ‘Hero-worship! That’s always dangerous.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I remember when Dodo and I were at school together, we had an art mistress called Helena Lampos and Dodo absolutely hero-worshipped her. She said Lampos revealed to her the true use of watercolours. Well, then we heard that this Lampos person was going to leave to get married. I can’t think who’d agreed to marry her because she wasn’t much of a catch, at least not in my opinion. Anyway, Dodo was heartbroken and couldn’t bear the idea of being separated from her heroine so, on the morning she was leaving, Lampos could not find the blue silky coat that she was always so proud of.’

  When she starts on her schooldays I feel an irresistible urge to apply the corkscrew to the second bottle of the Ordinaire. I was engaged in this task as Hilda’s story wound to a conclusion. ‘So, anyway, the coat in question was finally found in Dodo’s locker. She thought if she hid it, she’d keep Miss Lampos. Of course, she didn’t. The Lampos left and Dodo had to do a huge impot and miss the staff concert. And, by the way, Rumpole, there’s absolutely no need for you to open another bottle of that stuff. It’s high time you were in bed.’

  At the Temple station next morning I bought a copy of Hello!, a mysterious publication devoted to the happy lives of people I had never heard of. When I arrived in Chambers my first port of call was to the room where Liz Probert carried on her now flourishing practice. She was, as the saying is, at her desk, and I noticed a new scarlet telephone had settled in beside her regulation black instrument.

  ‘Business booming, I’m glad to see. You’ve had to install another telephone.’

  ‘It’s a hotline, Rumpole.’

  ‘Hot?’ I gave it a tentative touch.

  ‘I mean it’s private. For the use of women in Chambers only.’

  ‘It doesn’t respond to the touch of the male finger.’

  ‘It’s so we can report harassment, discrimination and verbally aggressive male barrister or clerk conduct direct to the S.R.L. office.’

  The S -?’

  ‘Sisterhood of Radical Lawyers.’

  ‘And what will they do? Send for the police? Call the fire brigade to douse masculine ardour?’

  ‘They will record the episode fully. Then we shall meet the victim and decide on action.’

  ‘I thought you decided on action before you met Wendy Crump.’

  ‘Her case was particularly clear. Now she’s coming to the meeting of the Sisterhood at five-thirty.’

  ‘Ah, yes. She told me about that. I think she’s got quite a lot to say.’

  ‘I’m sure she has. Now what do you want, Rumpole? I’m before the Divisional Court at ten-thirty.’

  ‘Good for you! I just came in to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Not self-induced drunkenness as a defence? Crump told me she had to look that up for you.’

  ‘It’s not the law. Although I do hear you work for other barristers for nothing, and so deprive their lady pupils of the beginnings of a practice.’

  Mizz Probert looked, I thought, a little shaken, but she picked up a pencil, underlined something in her brief and prepared to ignore me.

  ‘Is that what you came to complain about?’ she asked without looking at me.

  ‘No. I’ve come to tell you I bought Hello! magazine.’

  ‘Why on earth did you do that?’ She looked up and was surprised to see me holding out the publication in question.

  ‘I heard you read it during long stretches of intense boredom. I thought I might do the same when Mr Injustice Graves sums up to the Jury.’

  ‘I don’t have long moments of boredom.’ Mizz Liz sounded businesslike.

  ‘Don’t you really? Not when you have to sit for hours in Monte’s beauty parlour in Ken High Street?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about . . .’ The protest came faintly. Mizz Probert was visibly shaken.

  ‘It must be awfully uncomfortable. I mean, I don’t think I’d want to sit for hours in a solution of couscous and assorted stewed herbs with the whole thing wrapped up in tinfoil. I suppose Hello! magazine is a bit of a comfort in those circumstances. But is it worth it? I mean, all that trouble to change what a bountiful nature gave you – for the sake of pleasing men?’

  I didn’t enjoy asking this fatal question. I brought Mizz Liz up in the law and I still have respect and affection for her. On a good day she can be an excellent ally. But I was acting for the underdog, an undernourished hound by the name of Claude Erskine-Brown. And the question had its effect. As the old- fashioned crime writers used to say in their ghoulish way, the shadow of the noose seemed to fall across the witness-box.

  ‘No one’s mentioned that to the S.R.L.?’

  ‘I thought I could pick up the hotline, but then it might be more appropriate if Wendy Crump raised it at your meeting this afternoon. That would give you an opportunity to reply. And I suppose Jenny Attienzer might want to raise the complaint about her pupil work.’

  ‘What are you up to, Rumpole?’

  ‘Just doing my best to protect the rights of lady barristers.’

  ‘Anyone else’s rights?’

  ‘Well, I suppose, looking at the matter from an entirely detached point of view, the rights of one unfortunate male.’

  ‘The case against Erskine-Brown has raised strong feelings in the Sisterhood. I’m not sure I can persuade them to drop it.’

  ‘Of course you can persuade them, Liz. With your talent for advocacy, I bet you’ve got the Sisterhood eating out of your hand.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. I can’t promise anything. By the way, it may not be necessary for Crump to attend. I suppose Kate Inglefield may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘Exactly. Claude said “that pupil”. Not “fat pupil”. Try it anyway, if you can’t think of anything better.’

  And so, with the case of the Sisterhood v. Erskine-Brown settled, I was back in the gloomy prison boardroom. When I’d first seen it, members of the caring, custodial and sentencing professions were feasting on sausage-rolls and white wine after A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now it was dressed not for a party but for a trial, and had taken on the appearance of a peculiarly unfriendly Magistrates Court.

  Behind the table at the far end of the room sat the three members of the prisoners’ Board of Visitors who were entitled to try Matthew Gribble. The Chairwoman centre stage was a certain Lady Bullwood, whose hair was piled up in a jet-black mushroom on top of her head and who went in for a good deal of costume jewellery, including a glittering chain round her neck from which her spectacles swung. Her look varied between the starkly judicial and the instantly confused, as when she suddenly
lost control of a piece of paper, or forgot which part of her her glasses were tied to.

  Beside her, wearing an expression of universal tolerance and the sort of gentle smile which can, in my experience, precede an unexpectedly stiff sentence, sat the Bishop of Worsfield, who had a high aquiline nose, neatly brushed grey hair and the thinnest strip of a dog-collar.

  The third judge was an elderly schoolboy called Major Oxborrow, who looked as though he couldn’t wait for the whole tedious business to be over, and for the offer of a large gin-and-tonic in the Governor’s quarters. Beside them, in what I understood was a purely advisory capacity, sat my old friend the Governor, Quintus Blake, who looked as if he would rather be anywhere else and deeply regretted the need for these proceedings. He had, I remembered with gratitude, been so anxious to see Matthew Gribble properly defended that he had sent for Horace Rumpole, clearly the best man for the job. There was a clerk at a small table in front of the Visitors, whose job was, I imagined, to keep them informed as to such crumbs of law as were still available in prison. The Prosecution was in the nervous hands of a young Mr Fraplington, a solicitor from some government department. He was a tall, gangling person who looked as though he had shot up in the last six months and his jacket and trousers were too short for him.

  What I didn’t like was the grim squadron of screws who lined the walls as though expecting an outbreak of violence, and the fact that my client was brought in handcuffed and sat between two of the largest, beefiest prison officers available. After Matthew had been charged with committing an assault, obstructing an officer in the course of his duty, and offending against good order and discipline, he pleaded not guilty on my express instructions. Then I rose to my feet. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  ‘Do you wish to address the Court, Mr Rumpole?’ The clerk, a little ferret of a man, was clearly anxious to make his presence felt.

  ‘I certainly do. Have you forgotten to read out the charges of mass murder, war crimes, rioting, burning down E-wing and inciting to mutiny?’

  The ferret looked puzzled. The Chairwoman sorted hopelessly through her papers and Mr Fraplington for the Prosecution said helpfully, ‘This prisoner is charged with none of those offences.’

  ‘Then if he is not,’ I asked, with perhaps rather overplayed amazement, ‘why is he brought in here shackled? Why is this room lined with prison officers clearly expecting a dreadful scene of violence? Why is he being treated as though he were some hated dictator guilty of waging aggressive war? My client, Mr Gribble, is a gentle academic and student of Shakespeare. And there is no reason for him to attend these proceedings in irons.’

  ‘Your client, as I remember, was found guilty of the manslaughter of his wife.’ The handsome bishop was clearly the one to look out for.

  ‘For that,’ I said, ‘he has almost paid his debt to society. Next week, subject to the dismissal of these unnecessary charges, that debt will be fully and finally settled and, as I’m sure the Governor will tell you, during his time in Worsfield he has been a model prisoner.’

  Quintus did his stuff and whispered to the Chairwoman. She found her glasses, yanked them on to her nose and said that, in all the circumstances, my client’s handcuffs might be removed.

  After that the proceedings settled down like an ordinary trial in a Magistrates Court, except for the fact that we were all in gaol already. Mr Fraplington nervously opened the simple facts. Then Steve Barrington, the screw who received the flying chisel, clumped his way to the witness stand and gave the evidence which might keep Matthew Gribble behind bars for a good deal longer. He hadn’t seen the chisel thrown. The first he knew about it was when he was struck on the cheek. Gribble had been the only prisoner working with a chisel and he had seen him using it immediately before he turned away to answer a request from prisoner D41 Molloy. Later he took statements from the prisoners, and in particular from B19 Weaver. What Weaver told him led to the present charges against A13 Gribble. What Weaver told him, I rose to point out, had better come from Weaver himself.

  ‘Mr Barrington’ – I began my cross-examination – ‘you were a teacher once?’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘And you gave it up to become a prison officer?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Is that because you found teaching too difficult?’

  ‘I wonder if this is a relevant question?’ Young Fraplington had obviously been told to make his presence felt and interrupt the Defence whenever possible.

  ‘Mr Fraplington, perchance you wonder at this question? But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole, I’m not exactly sure what you mean.’ The Chairwoman’s glasses were pulled off and swung gently.

  ‘Then you didn’t see A Midsummer Night’s Dream? You missed a treat, Madam. Produced brilliantly by my client and starring Prisoner Weaver as bully Bottom. You enjoyed it, didn’t you, Mr Barrington?’

  ‘I thought they did rather well, yes.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose, as a teacher who gave up the struggle, you could have taught a group of hard-boiled villains to play Shakespeare?’

  ‘Mr Rumpole, I must agree with Mr Fraplington. How is this in the least relevant to the charge of assault?’ The Bishop came in on the act.

  ‘Because I think we may find, Bishop, that this isn’t a case about assault, it’s a case about teaching. Mr Barrington, you would agree that my client took Weaver and taught him to read, taught him about poetry and finally taught him to act?’

  ‘To my knowledge, yes, he did.’

  ‘And since this pupillage and this friendship began, Weaver, too, has been a model prisoner?’

  ‘We haven’t had any trouble from him lately. No.’

  ‘Whereas before the pupillage, he was a general nuisance?’

  ‘He was a handful. Yes. That’s fair enough. He’s a big man and . . .’

  ‘Alarming when out of control?’

  ‘I’d have to agree with you.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad we see eye to eye, Mr Barrington. So before Matthew Gribble took him on, so to speak, there’d been several cases of assault, three of breaking up furniture, disobeying reasonable orders, throwing food. An endless list?’

  ‘He was constantly in trouble. Yes.’

  ‘And since he and Gribble became friends, nothing?’

  ‘I believe that’s right.’

  ‘So you believe Matthew Gribble’s influence on Weaver has been entirely for the good.’

  ‘I said, so far as I know.’

  ‘So far as you know. Well, we’ll see if anyone knows better. Now, you questioned the other prisoners, Timson and Molloy, about this incident in the carpenter’s shop?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘And what did they tell you?’

  ‘They said they hadn’t seen anything.’

  ‘And did you believe them?’

  ‘Do I have to answer that question?’

  ‘I have asked the question, and I’ll trouble you to answer it.’

  ‘No, I didn’t altogether believe it.’

  ‘Because prisoners don’t grass.’

  ‘What was that, Rumpole?’ The Chairwoman asked for an explanation.

  ‘Prisoners don’t tell tales. They don’t give evidence against each other. On the whole. Isn’t that true, Mr Barrington?’

  ‘I thought they might have seen something, but they were sheltering the culprit. Yes.’

  ‘So Timson might have seen Molloy do it. Or Molloy might have seen Timson do it. Or either of them might have seen Weaver do it. But they weren’t telling. Is that possible?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible. Yes.’

  ‘Or Weaver might have seen Timson or Molloy do it and blamed it on Gribble to protect them?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have done that.’ There was an agitated whisper from my client and I stooped to give him an ear.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have blamed it on me. I know Bob wouldn’t do that.’

 
‘Matthew,’ I whispered sternly, ‘your time to give evidence will come later. Until it does, I’d be much obliged if you’d take a temporary vow of silence.’ I went back to work. ‘Yes, officer. What was your answer to my question?’

  ‘B19 Weaver had a particular admiration for A13 Gribble, sir. I don’t think he’d have blamed him. Not just to protect the other two.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have blamed him just to protect the other two, eh?’ The Bishop, who seemed to have cast himself as the avenging angel, dictated a note to himself with resonant authority.

  Bottom the Weaver towered over the small witness table and the screws that stood behind him. He looked at the Visitors, his head slightly on one side, his nose broken and never properly set, and smiled nervously, as he had stood before the court of Duke Theseus, awkward, on his best behaviour, likely to be a bore, but somehow endearing. He didn’t look at A13 Gribble, but my client looked constantly at him, not particularly in anger but with curiosity and as if prepared to be amused. That was the way, I thought, he might have watched Bob Weaver rehearsing the play.

  Mr Fraplington had no trouble in getting the witness to tell his story. He was in the carpenter’s shop in the morning in question. They were making the scenery. He was enjoying himself as he enjoyed everything about the play. Although he was dead nervous about doing it, it was the best time he’d ever had in his life. A13 Gribble was a fantastic producer, absolutely brilliant, and had changed his life for him. ‘Made me see a new world’, was the way he put it. Well, that morning when all the others were busy working and Mr Barrington was turned away, he’d seen A13 Gribble pick up the chisel and throw it. It struck the prison officer on the cheek, causing bleeding which he fully believed was later seen to by the hospital matron. He kept quiet for a week, because he was reluctant to get the best friend he ever had into trouble. But then he’d told the investigating officer exactly what he saw. He felt he had to do it. Doing the play was the best day in his life. Standing there, telling the tale against his friend, was the worst. Sometimes he thought he’d rather be dead than do it. That was the honest truth. To say that Battering Bob was a good witness is an understatement. He was as good a witness as he was a Bottom; he didn’t seem to be acting at all.