It was almost the collapse of the Judge’s morale. However, he started to talk rather quickly to cover his embarrassment. ‘Oh, yes. Yes, that’s right. Of course he did. Perhaps some of the jury will know that… or not, as the case may be.’ He smiled at the jury, who looked distinctly puzzled, and then at the witness. ‘We haven’t all got your expertise, Mr Gandolphini.’
All I could think of to say was a warning to Mr Justice Featherstone to avoid setting himself up as any sort of con-o-sewer. Wiser counsels prevailed and I didn’t say it.
For our especial delight we then had an appearance in the witness-box by Mrs De Moyne, a well-manicured lady in a dark, businesslike suit, with horn-rimmed glasses and a voice like the side of a nail file. Mrs De Moyne spoke with the assurance of an art lover who weighs up a Post-Impressionist to the nearest dollar, and gives you the tax advantage of a gift to the Museum of Modern Art without drawing breath. She gave a brief account of her visit to the auction room to preview the Cragg in question, of her being assured that the picture had a perfect pedigree, having come straight from the artist’s niece with no dealers involved, and described her successful bidding against stiff competition from a couple of Bond Street galleries and the Italian agent of a collector in Kuwait.
Erskine-Brown asked the witness if she believed she had been buying a genuine Septimus Cragg. ‘Of course I did,’ rasped Mrs De Moyne. ‘I was terribly deceived.’ So Erskine-Brown sat down, I’m sure, with a feeling of duty done.
‘Mrs De Moyne. Wouldn’t you agree,’ I asked as I rose to cross-examine, ‘that you bought a very beautiful picture?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs De Moyne admitted.
‘So beautiful you were prepared to pay sixty thousand pounds for it?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘And it is still the same beautiful picture? The picture hasn’t changed since you bought it, has it, Mrs De Moyne? Not by one drop of paint! Is the truth of the matter that you’re not interested in art but merely in collecting autographs!’
Of course this made the jury titter and brought Erskine-Brown furiously to his hind legs. I apologized for any pain and suffering I might have caused, and went on. ‘When did you first doubt that this was a Cragg?’ I asked.
‘Someone rang me up.’
‘Someone? What did they say?’
‘Do you want to let this evidence in, Mr Rumpole?’ The learned Judge was heard to be warning me for my own good.
‘Yes, my Lord. I’m curious to know,’ I reassured him. So Mrs De Moyne answered the question. ‘That was what made me get in touch with the police,’ she said. ‘The man who called me said the picture wasn’t a genuine Cragg, and it never had belonged to Cragg’s niece. He also said that I’d got a bargain.’
‘A bargain. Why?’
‘Because it was better than a Cragg.’
‘Did he give you his name?’ It was a risky question, dangerous to ask because I didn’t know the answer.
‘He did, yes. But I was so upset I didn’t pay too much attention to it. I don’t think I can remember it.’
‘Try,’ I encouraged her.
‘White. I think it had “white” in it.’
‘Whiting? Whitehead?’ I tried a few names on her.
‘No.’ Mrs De Moyne shook her head defeated. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Thank you, Mrs De Moyne.’ When I sat down I heard a gentle voice in my ear whisper, ‘You were wonderful! Harold said you would be.’ It was the girl, Pauline, who had left her seat to murmur comforting words to Rumpole.
‘Oh nonsense,’ I whispered back, but then had to add, for the sake of truthfulness, ‘Well, just a bit wonderful, perhaps. How do you think it’s going, Myersy?’
The knowing old legal executive in front of me admitted that we were doing better than he expected, which was high praise from such a source, but then he looked towards the witness-box and whispered, ‘That’s the one I’m afraid of.’
The fearful object in Mr Myers’s eyes was a small, grey-haired lady with wind-brightened cheeks and small glittering eyes, wearing a tweed suit and sensible shoes, who took the oath in a clear voice and gave her name as Miss Marjorie Evangeline Price, of 31 Majuba Road, Worthing, and admitted that the late Cragg, R.A., had been her Uncle Septimus.
‘Do you know the defendant Brittling?’ Erskine-Brown began his examination-in-chief, and I growled, ‘Mister Brittling,’ insisting on a proper respect for the prisoner at the Bar. I don’t think the jury heard me. They were all listening eagerly to Miss Marjorie Evangeline Price, who talked to them as though she were having a cup of afternoon tea with a few friends she’d known for years.
‘He came to see me in Worthing. He said he had one of Uncle Septimus’s paintings to sell and he wanted me to put it into the auction for him. The real seller didn’t want his name brought into it.’
‘Did Mr Brittling tell you why?’
‘He said it was a businessman who didn’t want it to be known that he was selling his pictures. People might have thought he was in financial trouble, apparently.’
‘So did you agree to the picture being sold in your name?’
‘I’m afraid it was very wrong of me, but he was going to give me a little bit of a percentage. An ex-schoolmistress does get a very small pension.’ Miss Price smiled at the jury and they smiled back, as though of course they understood completely. She was, unhappily for old Brittling, the sort of witness that the jury love, a sweet old lady who’s not afraid to admit she’s wrong.
‘Did you have any idea that the picture wasn’t genuine?’
‘Oh no, of course not. I had no idea of that. Mr Brittling was very charming and persuasive.’
At which Miss Price looked at my client in the dock and smiled. The jury also looked at him, but they didn’t smile.
‘And how much of the money did Mr Brittling allow you to keep?’
‘I think, I’m not sure, I think it was ten per cent.’
‘How very generous. Thank you, Miss Price.’
Erskine-Brown had shot his bolt and sat down. I rose and put on the sweetest, gentlest voice in the Rumpole repertoire. Cross-examining Miss Price was going to be like walking on eggs. I had to move towards any sort of favourable answer on tiptoe. ‘Miss Price, do you remember your uncle, Septimus Cragg?’ I started to move her gently down Memory Lane.
‘I remember him coming to our house when I was a little girl. He had a red beard and a very hairy tweed suit. I remember sitting on his lap.’
His Lordship smiled at her – he was clearly pro-Price.
‘Is that all you can remember about him?’ I was still probing gently.
‘I remember Uncle Septimus telling me that there were two sorts of people in the world – nurses and patients. He seemed to think I’d grow up to be a nurse.’
‘Oh, really? And which was he?’
‘My Lord, can this possibly be relevant?’ Erskine-Brown seemed to think the question was fraught with danger, when I was really only making conversation with the witness.
‘I can’t see it at the moment, Mr Erskine-Brown,’ the Judge admitted.
‘Which did he say he was?’ I went on, ignoring the unmannerly interruption.
‘Oh, he said he could always find someone to look after him. I think he was a bit of a spoiled baby really.’
The jury raised a polite titter, and Erskine-Brown sat down. I looked as though I’d got an answer of great importance.
‘Did he? Did he say that? Tell me, Miss Price, do you know who Nancy was?’
‘Nancy?’ Miss Price looked puzzled.
‘This picture is of Nancy, apparently. In an hotel bedroom in Dieppe. Who was Nancy?’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea. I suppose she must have been a’ – she gave a small, meaningful pause – ‘a friend of Uncle Septimus.’
‘Yes. I suppose she must have been.’ I pointed to the picture which had brought us all to the Old Bailey. ‘You’ve never seen this picture before?’
‘Oh no. I didn’t ask to s
ee it. Mr Brittling told me about it and, well, of course I trusted him, you see.’ Miss Price smiled sweetly at the jury and I sat down. There’s no doubt about it. There’s nothing more like banging your head against a brick wall than cross-examining a witness who’s telling nothing but the truth.
Later that afternoon the Usher came to counsel engaged on the case with a message. The learned Judge would be glad to see us for a cup of tea in his room. So we were received amongst the red leather armchairs, the Law Reports, the silver-framed photographs of Marigold and the Featherstone twins, Simon and Sarah.
The Judge was hovering over the bone china, dispensing the Earl Grey and petit beurres, and the Clerk of the Court was lurking in the background to make sure there was no hanky-panky, I suppose, or an attempt to drop folding money into the Judge’s wig.
‘Come along, Horace. Sit you down, Claude. Sit you down. You’ll take a dish of tea, won’t you? What I wanted to ask you fellows is… How long is this case going to last?’
‘Well, Judge… Guthrie…’ said Erskine-Brown, stirring his tea. ‘That rather depends on Rumpole here. He has to put the defence. If there is a defence.’
‘I don’t want to hurry you, Horace. The point is, I may not be able to sit next Monday afternoon.’ The Judge gave a secret sort of a smile and said modestly, ‘Appointment at the Palace, you know what these things are…’
‘Marigold got a new outfit for it, has she?’ I couldn’t resist asking.
‘Well, the girls like all that sort of nonsense, don’t they?’ he said, as though the whole matter were almost too trivial to mention. ‘It’s not so much an invitation as a Royal command. You know the type of thing.’
‘I don’t know,’ I assured him. ‘My only Royal command was to join the R.A.F. Ground Staff, as I remember it.’
‘Yes, Horace, of course. You old war-horse!’ There was a pause while we all had a gulp of tea and a nibble of biscuit. ‘How much longer are you going to be?’ the Judge asked.
‘Well, not long, I suppose. It’s rather an absurd little case, isn’t it? Bit of a practical joke, really. Isn’t that what it is? Just a prank, more or less.’ I was working my way towards a small fine should the old idiot Brittling go down; but to my dismay Mr Justice Featherstone looked extremely serious.
‘I can’t pretend that I find it a joke, exactly,’ he said, in his new-found judicial manner.
‘Well, I don’t suppose that the shades of the prison house begin to fall around the wretched Brittling, do they? I mean, all he did was to pull the legs of a few so-called con-o-sewers.’
‘And made himself a considerable sum of money in the process,’ said Erskine-Brown, who was clearly anxious to be no sort of help.
‘It’s deceit, Horace. And forgery for personal profit. If your client’s convicted I’m afraid I couldn’t rule out a custodial sentence.’ The Judge bit firmly into the last petit beurre.
‘You couldn’t?’ I sounded incredulous.
‘How could I?’
‘Not send him to prison for a little bit of “let’s pretend”? For a bit of a joke on a pompous profession?’ I put down my cup and stood. My outrage was perfectly genuine. ‘No. I don’t suppose you could.’
Tea with the Judge was over, and I was about to follow Erskine-Brown and the learned Clerk out of his presence, when Mr Justice Featherstone called me back. ‘Oh, Horace,’ he said, ‘a word in your ear.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve noticed you’ve fallen into rather a bad habit.’
‘Bad habit?’ What on earth, I wondered, was he about to accuse me of – being drunk in charge of a forgery case?
‘Hands in pockets when you’re addressing the Court. It looks so bad, Horace. Such a poor example to the younger men. Keep them out of the pockets, will you? I’m sure you don’t mind me pulling you up about it?’
It was the old school prefect speaking. I left him without comment.
The hardest part of any case, I have always maintained, comes when your client enters the witness-box. Up until that moment you have been able to protect him by attacking those who give evidence against him, and by concealing from the jury the most irritating aspects of his personality. Once he starts to give evidence, however, the client is on his own. He is like a child who has left its family on the beach and is swimming, in a solitary fashion, out to sea, where no cries of warning can be heard.
I knew Harold Brittling was going to be a bad witness by the enormously confident way that he marched into the box, held the Bible up aloft and promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He was that dreadful sort of witness, the one who can’t wait to give evidence, and who has been longing, with unconcealed impatience, for his day in Court. He leant against the top of the box and surveyed us all with an expression of tolerant disdain, as though we had made a bit of a pig’s breakfast of his case up to that moment, and it was now up to him to put it right.
I dug my hands as deeply as possible into my pockets, and asked what might prove to be the only really simple question.
‘Is your name Harold Reynolds Gainsborough Brittling?’
‘Yes, it is. You’ve got that perfectly right, Mr Rumpole.’
I didn’t laugh; neither, I noticed, did the jury.
‘You came of an artistic family, Mr Brittling?’ It seemed a legitimate deduction.
‘Oh yes,’ said Brittling, and went on modestly, ‘I showed an extraordinary aptitude, my Lord, right from the start. At the Slade School, which I entered at the ripe old age of sixteen, I was twice a gold medallist and by far the most brilliant student of my year.’
The jury appeared to be moderately nauseated by this glowing account of himself. I changed the subject. ‘Mr Brittling, did you know the late Septimus Cragg?’
‘I knew and loved him. There is a comradeship among artists, my Lord, and he was undoubtedly the finest painter of his generation. He came to a student exhibition and I think he recognized… well…’
I was hoping he wouldn’t say ‘a fellow genius’; he did.
‘After that did you meet Cragg on a number of occasions?’
‘You could say that. I became one of the charmed circle at Rottingdean.’
‘Mr Brittling. Will you take in your hands Exhibit One.’
The Usher lifted Nancy and carried her to the witness-box. Harold Brittling gave me a look of withering scorn.
‘This is a beautiful picture!’ he said. ‘Please don’t call it “Exhibit One”, Mr Rumpole. “Exhibit One” might be a blunt instrument or something.’
The witness chuckled at this; no one else in Court smiled. I prayed to God that he’d leave the funnies to his learned Counsel.
‘Where did that picture come from, Mr Brittling?’
‘I really don’t remember very clearly.’ He looked airily round the Court as though it were a matter of supreme unimportance.
‘You don’t remember?’ The Judge didn’t seem able to believe what he was writing down.
‘No, my Lord. When one is leading the life of an artist, small details escape the memory. I suppose Septimus must have given it to me on one of my visits to him. Artists pay these little tributes to each other.’
‘Why did you take it to Miss Price and ask her to sell it?’ I asked as patiently as possible.
‘I suppose I thought that the dealers would have more faith in it if it came from that sort of source. And I rather wanted the old puss to get her little bit of commission.’
One thing emerged clearly from that bit of evidence: the jury didn’t approve of Miss Price being called an ‘old puss’. In fact, Brittling was going down with them like a cup of cold cod liver oil.
‘Mr Brittling. What is your opinion of that picture?’ Of course I wanted him to say that it was a genuine Cragg. Instead he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. ‘I think it is the work of the highest genius…’
‘Slowly please…’ The Judge was writing this art criticism down.
‘Just watch his Lordship’s p
encil,’ I advised the witness.
‘I think it is a work of great beauty, my Lord… The painting of the curtains, and of the air in the room… Quite miraculous!’
‘Did Septimus Cragg paint it?’ I tried to bring Brittling’s attention back to the case.
‘It’s a lovely thing.’ And then the little man actually shrugged his shoulders. ‘What does it matter who painted it?’
‘For the purposes of this case, you can take it from me – it matters,’ I instructed him. ‘Now, have you any doubts that it is a genuine Cragg?’
‘Only one thing gives me the slightest doubt.’ Like all bad witnesses Brittling was incapable of a simple answer.
‘What’s that?’
‘It really seems to be too good for him. It exists beautifully on a height the old boy never reached before.’
‘Did you paint that picture, Mr Brittling?’ I tried to direct his attention to the charge he was facing.
‘Me? Is someone suggesting I did it?’ Brittling seemed flattered and delighted.
‘Yes, Mr Brittling. Someone is.’
‘Well, in all modesty, it really takes my breath away. You are suggesting that I could produce a masterpiece like that!’ And Mr Brittling smiled triumphantly round the Court.
‘I take it, Mr Rumpole, that the answer means “no”.’ The Judge was looking understandably confused.
‘Yes, of course. If your Lordship pleases.’
Featherstone, j. had interpreted Brittling’s answer as a denial of forgery. I thought that no further questions could possibly improve the matter, and I sat down. Erskine-Brown rose to cross-examine with the confident air of a hunter who sees his prey snoozing gently at a range of about two feet.
‘Mr Brittling,’ he began quietly. ‘Did you say you “laundered” the picture through Miss Price?’
‘He did what, Mr Erskine-Brown?’ The Judge was not quite with him.
‘Sold the picture through Miss Price, my Lord, because it seemed such an unimpeachable source.’
‘Yes.’ The witness didn’t bother to deny it.
‘Does that mean that the picture isn’t entirely innocent?’
‘Mr Erskine-Brown, all great art is innocent.’ Brittling was outraged. It seemed that all we had left was the John Keats defence:
The Second Rumpole Omnibus Page 24
