The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  I was still unsettled as I undressed in the matrimonial bedroom in Froxbury Court. Hilda, in hairnet and bed jacket, was propped up on the pillows doing the Daily Telegraph crossword puzzle. As I hung up the striped trousers I thought that it was a scene which would never have been painted by Septimus Cragg. I was reflecting on the difference between my life and that of the rip-roaring old R.A. and I said, thoughtfully, ‘It all depends, I suppose, on where your talents lie.’

  ‘What does?’ Hilda asked in a disinterested sort of way.

  ‘I mean, if my talents hadn’t been for bloodstains, and cross-examining coppers on their notebooks, and addressing juries on the burden of proof… If I’d had an unusual aptitude for jotting down a pair of thighs in a hotel bedroom…’

  ‘You’ve seen her again, haven’t you?’ Hilda was no longer sounding disinterested.

  ‘I might have been living in a farmhouse in Sussex with eight pool-eyed children with eight different mothers, all devoted to me, and duchesses knocking on my door to have their portraits painted. My work might have meant trips to Venice and Aix-en-Provence instead of London Sessions and the Uxbridge Magistrates Court! No, I didn’t see her. She didn’t come to the conference.’

  ‘You want to concentrate on what you can do, Rumpole. Fine chance I ever have of getting invited to the Palace.’

  ‘No need for the black jacket and pin stripes. Throw away the collar like a blunt execution. All you need is an old tweed suit and a young woman who’s kind enough to wear nothing but a soulful expression. What’s all that about the Palace?’

  ‘They’re making Guthrie Featherstone a judge, you know,’ Hilda said, as though it were all, in some obscure way, my fault.

  ‘Whoever told you that?’

  I felt suddenly sorry for the old Q.C., M.P., and worried that the chump’s chances might be blown by a lot of careless talk. For Hilda told me that she had met Marigold Featherstone somewhere near Harrods, and that whilst she had been looking for bargains, the future Lady Marigold had told her that she had acquired a suitable outfit with the ‘Princess Di’ look for a visit to the Palace on the occasion of our not very learned Head of Chambers being awarded a handle to his name. When Hilda, not a little mystified, had asked her what sort of handle they had in mind, Marigold had rushed off in the direction of Sloane Street, urging Hilda to forget every word she had said, forgetting, of course, that She Who Must Be Obeyed never forgets.

  ‘You didn’t tell anyone else this, did you?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, no one except Phillida Erskine-Brown. I happened to run into her going into Sainsbury’s.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘And Phillida explained it all to me. If you get made a judge you’re knighted as a matter of course, and have to go to Buck House and all that sort of thing. So that was why Marigold was buying a new outfit.’

  I was appalled, quite frankly. Phillida Erskine-Brown is a formidable lady advocate, the Portia of our Chambers. As for her husband, as I explained to Hilda, ‘Claude Erskine-Brown gossips about the judiciary in the way teenagers gossip about film actors. Star-struck is our Claude. Practically goes down on his knees to anything in ermine! And he pops into Pommeroy’s whenever he gets a legal aid cheque. Let’s just hope he doesn’t get paid until poor old Featherstone’s got his bottom safely on the Bench.’

  ‘One thing is quite certain, Rumpole,’ said Hilda, filling in a clue. ‘There’s no earthly chance of your ever getting a handle.’

  A few weeks later I had slipped in to Pommeroy’s Wine Bar for a glass of luncheon when Guthrie Featherstone came up to me and, having looked nervously over his shoulder like a man who expects to be joined at any moment by the Hound of Heaven, said, ‘Horace! I came in here to buy a small sherry…’

  ‘No harm in that, Guthrie.’ I tried to sound reassuring.

  ‘And Jack Pommeroy, you know what Jack Pommeroy called me?’ His voice sank to a horrified whisper. ‘He called me “Judge”!’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to get used to it.’ I couldn’t be bothered to whisper.

  Featherstone looked round, appalled. ‘Horace, for God’s sake! Don’t you see what this means? It means someone’s been talking.’

  And then his glance fell on a table where Claude Erskine-Brown was knocking back the Beaujolais Villages with assorted barristers. Featherstone’s cup of unhappiness was full when Erskine-Brown raised his glass, as though in congratulation.

  ‘Look! Claude Erskine-Brown, raising his glass at me!’ Featherstone pointed it out, rather unnecessarily, I thought.

  ‘Just a friendly gesture,’ I assured him.

  ‘You remember poor old Moreton Colefax, not made a judge because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.’ The Q.C., M.P., looked near to tears. ‘It’s all round the Temple.’

  ‘Of course it’s not. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Then why is Erskine-Brown drinking to me?’

  ‘He thinks you look like a judge. Beauty, after all, Guthrie my old darling, is entirely in the eye of the beholder.’ Curiously enough, when I said that, Guthrie Featherstone didn’t look particularly cheered up.

  In the course of time, however, Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P., did cheer up, considerably. He fulfilled his destiny, and took on that role which led him to be appointed head boy of his prep school and a prefect at Marlborough, because, quite simply, he never got up anyone’s nose and there were no other likely candidates available.

  At long last Guthrie’s cheerfulness round the Sheridan Club and his dedication to losing golf matches against senior judges earned him his just reward. A man who had spent most of his life in an agony of indecision, who spent months debating such questions as whether we should have a coffee machine in the clerk’s room, or did the downstairs loo need redecorating; a fellow who found it so hard to choose between left and right that he became a Social Democrat; a barrister who agonized for hours about whether it would be acceptable to wear a light grey tie in Chambers in April, or whether such jollifications should be confined to the summer months, was appointed one of Her Majesty’s judges, and charged to decide great issues of life and liberty.

  Arise, Sir Guthrie! From now on barristers, men far older than you, will bow before you. Men and women will be taken off to prison at your decree. You will have made a Lady out of Marigold, and your old mother is no doubt extremely proud of you. There is only one reason, one very good reason, for that smile of amiable bewilderment to fade from the Featherstone features. You may make the most awful pig’s breakfast of the case you’re trying, and they’ll pour scorn on you from a great height in the Court of Appeal.

  So Guthrie Featherstone, in the full panoply of a Red Judge at the Old Bailey, was sitting paying polite and somewhat anxious attention to a piece of high comedy entitled R. v. Brittling, starring Claude Erskine-Brown for the prosecution, and Horace Rumpole for the defence. As the curtain rose on the second day of the hearing the limelight fell on a Mr Edward Gandolphini, an extremely expensive-looking art expert and connoisseur, with a suit from Savile Row, iron-grey hair and a tan fresh from a short break in the Bahamas. In the audience Pauline was sitting with her embroidered holdall, listening with fierce concentration, and in the dock, the prisoner at the Bar was unconcernedly drawing a devastating portrait of the learned Judge.

  ‘Mr Gandolphini.’ Erskine-Brown was examining the witness with all the humble care of a gynaecologist approaching a duchess who had graciously consented to lie down on his couch. ‘You are the author of Cragg and the British Impressionists and the leading expert on this particular painter?’

  ‘It has been said, my Lord.’ The witness flashed his teeth at the learned Judge, who flashed his back.

  ‘I’m sure it has, Mr Gandolphini,’ said Featherstone, j.

  ‘And are you also,’ Erskine-Brown asked most respectfully, ‘the author of many works on twentieth-century painting and adviser to private collectors and galleries throughout the world?’

  ‘I am.’ Gandolphini admitted it.

  �
��And have you examined this alleged “Septimus Cragg”?’ Erskine-Brown gestured towards the picture which, propped on a chair in front of the jury, revealed a world of secret delight miles away from the Central Criminal Court.

  ‘I have, my Lord.’ Mr Gandolphini again addressed himself to the learned Judge. ‘I may say it isn’t included in any existing catalogue of the artist’s works. Of course, at one time, I believe, it was thought it came from a genuine source, the artist’s niece in Worthing.’

  ‘Now we know that to be untrue,’ said Erskine-Brown with a meaningful look at the jury, and thereby caused me to stagger, filled with extremely righteous indignation, to my feet.

  ‘My Lord!’ I trumpeted. ‘We know nothing of the sort – until that has been found as a fact by the twelve sensible people who sit in that jury-box and no one else!’

  ‘Very well,’ said his Lordship, trying to placate everybody. ‘Very well, Mr Rumpole. Perhaps he suspected it to be untrue. Is that the situation, Mr Gandolphini?’

  Guthrie turned to the witness, smiling, but I wasn’t letting him off quite so easily. ‘My Lord, how can what this witness suspected possibly be evidence?’

  ‘Mr Rumpole. I know you don’t want to be difficult.’ As usual Featherstone exhibited his limited understanding of the case. I considered it my duty to be as difficult as possible.

  ‘May I assist, my Lord?’ said Erskine-Brown.

  ‘I would be grateful if you would, Mr Erskine-Brown. Mr Rumpole, perhaps we can allow Mr Erskine-Brown to assist us?’

  I subsided. I had no desire to take part in this vicarage tea-party, with everyone assisting each other to cucumber sandwiches. I thought that after one day on the Bench Guthrie had learnt the habit of getting cosy with the prosecution.

  ‘Mr Gandolphini,’ Erskine-Brown positively purred at the witness, ‘if you had known that this picture did not in fact come from Miss Price’s collection, would you have had some doubts about its authenticity?’

  ‘That question is entirely speculative.’ I was on my feet again.

  ‘Mr Rumpole.’ Featherstone was being extremely patient. ‘Do you want me to rule on the propriety of Mr Erskine-Brown’s question?’

  ‘I think the time may have come to make up the judicial mind, yes.’

  ‘Then I rule that Mr Erskine-Brown may ask his question.’ Guthrie then smiled at me in the nicest possible way and said, ‘Sorry, Mr Rumpole.’ The old darling looked broken-hearted.

  ‘Well, Mr Gandolphini?’ Erskine-Brown was still waiting for his answer.

  ‘I had a certain doubt about the picture from the start,’ Gandolphini said carefully.

  ‘From the start… you had a doubt…’ Featherstone didn’t seem to be able to stop talking while he wrote a note.

  ‘Take it slowly now. Just follow his Lordship’s pencil,’ Erskine-Brown advised the witness and, in the ensuing pause, I happened to whisper to Myersy, ‘And you may be sure his pencil’s not drawing thighs in Dieppe.’

  ‘Did you say something, Mr Rumpole?’ his Lordship asked, worried.

  ‘Nothing, my Lord, of the slightest consequence,’ I rose to explain.

  ‘I say that because I have extremely acute hearing.’ Featherstone smiled at the jury, and I could think of nothing better to say than, ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘I thought the painting very fine.’ Gandolphini returned to the matter in hand. ‘And certainly in the manner of Septimus Cragg. It is a beautiful piece of work, but I don’t think I ever saw a Cragg where the shadows had so much colour in them.’

  ‘Colour? In the shadows? Could I have a look?’ The Judge tapped his pencil on the Bench and called, ‘Usher.’ Obediently the Usher carried the artwork up to his Lordship on the bench, and his Lordship got out his magnifying glass and submitted Nancy’s warm flesh tints and flowing curves to a careful, legal examination.

  ‘There’s a good deal of green, and even purple in the shadows on the naked body, my Lord,’ Gandolphini explained.

  ‘Yes, I do see that,’ said the Judge. ‘Have you seen that, Mr Rumpole? Most interesting! Usher, let Mr Rumpole have a look at that. Do you wish to borrow my glass, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘No, my Lord. I think I can manage with the naked eye.’ I was brought the picture by the Usher and sat staring at it, as though waiting for some sudden revelation.

  ‘Tell us,’ Erskine-Brown asked the witness. ‘Is “Nancy” a model who appears in any of Cragg’s works known to you?’

  ‘In none, my Lord.’ Gandolphini shook his head, almost sadly.

  ‘Did Cragg paint most of his models many times?’

  ‘Many, many times, my Lord.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Gandolphini.’

  Erskine-Brown sat, apparently satisfied and I rose up slowly, and slowly turned the picture so the witness could see it. ‘You said, did you not, Mr Gandolphini, that this is a beautiful painting.’ I began in a way that I was pleased to see the witness didn’t expect.

  ‘It’s very fine. Yes.’

  ‘Has it not at least sixty thousand pounds’ worth of beauty?’ I asked and then gave the jury a look.

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Can you not? Isn’t part of your trade reducing beauty to mere cash!’

  ‘I value pictures, yes.’ I could see that Gandolphini was consciously keeping his temper.

  ‘And would you not agree that this is a valuable picture, no matter who painted it?’

  ‘I have said…’ I knew that he was going to try and avoid answering the question, and I interrupted him. ‘You have said it’s beautiful. Were you not telling this jury the truth, Mr Gandolphini?’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘ “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all

  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

  I turned and gave the jury their two bobs’ worth of Keats.

  ‘Is that really all we need to know, Mr Rumpole?’ said a voice from on high.

  ‘In this case, yes, my Lord.’

  ‘I think I’ll want to hear legal argument about that, Mr Rumpole.’ Featherstone appeared to be making some form of minor joke, but I answered him seriously. ‘Oh, you shall. I promise you, your Lordship.’ I turned to the witness. ‘Mr Gandolphini, by “beauty” I suppose you mean that this picture brings joy and delight to whoever stands before it?’

  ‘I suppose that would be a definition.’

  ‘You suppose it would. And let us suppose it turned out to have been painted by an even more famous artist than Septimus Cragg. Let us suppose it had been done by Degas or Manet.’

  ‘Who, Mr Rumpole?’ I seemed to have gone rather too fast for his Lordship’s pencil.

  ‘Manet, my Lord. Edouard Manet.’ I explained carefully. ‘If it were painted by a more famous artist it wouldn’t become more of a thing of beauty and a joy to behold, would it?’

  ‘No… but…’

  ‘And if it were painted by a less famous artist – Joe Bloggs, say, or my Lord the learned Judge, one wet Sunday afternoon…’

  ‘Really, Mr Rumpole!’ Featherstone, j., smiled modestly, but I was busy with the con-o-sewer. ‘It wouldn’t become less beautiful, would it, Mr Gandolphini? It would have the same colourful shadows, the same feeling of light and air and breeze from the harbour. The same warmth of the human body?’

  ‘Exactly the same, of course, but…’

  ‘I don’t want to interrupt…’ Erskine-Brown rose to his feet, wanting to interrupt.

  ‘Then don’t, Mr Erskine-Brown!’ I suggested. The suggestion had no effect. Erskine-Brown made a humble submission to his Lordship. ‘My Lord, in my humble submission we are not investigating the beauty of this work, but the value, and the value of this picture depends on its being a genuine Septimus Cragg. Therefore my learned friend’s questions seem quite irrelevant.’

  At which Erskine-Brown subsided in satisfaction, and his Lordship called on Rumpole to reply.

  ‘My learned friend regards this as a perfectly ordinary criminal case,’ I said. �
�Of course it isn’t. We are discussing the value of a work of art, a thing of beauty and a joy forever. We are not debating the price of fish!’

  There was a sound of incipient applause from the dock, so I whispered to Myersy, and instructed him to remind Brittling that he was not in the pit at the Old Holborn Empire but in the dock at the Old Bailey. I was interrupted by the Judge saying that perhaps I had better pursue another line with the witness.

  ‘My Lord,’ I said. ‘I think we have heard enough – from Mr Gandolphini.’ So I sat and looked triumphantly at the jury, as though I had, in a way they might not have entirely understood, won a point. Then I noticed, to my displeasure, that the learned Judge was engaged in some sort of intimate tête-à-tête with the man Gandolphini, who had not yet left the witness-box.

  ‘Mr Gandolphini, just one point,’ said the Judge.

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘I happen myself to be extremely fond of Claude Lorrain,’ said Featherstone, pronouncing the first name ‘Clode’ in an exaggerated Frog manner of speaking.

  ‘Oh, my Lord, I do so agree.’ Gandolphini waxed effusive.

  ‘Absolutely super painter, isn’t he? Now, I suppose, if you saw a good, a beautiful picture which you were assured came from a reputable source, you might accept that as a “Clode” Lorrain, mightn’t you?’

  ‘Certainly, my Lord.’

  ‘But if you were later to learn that the picture had been painted in the seventeenth century and not the eighteenth! Well, you might change your opinion, mightn’t you?’

  Featherstone looked pleased with himself, but the turn of the conversation seemed to be causing Gandolphini intense embarrassment. ‘Well, not really, my Lord,’ he murmured.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Will you tell us why not?’ The learned Judge looked nettled and prepared to take a note.

  Gandolphini hated to do it, but as a reputable art expert he had to say, ‘Well. You see. Claude Lorrain did paint in the seventeenth century, my Lord.’