The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘The defendant will be silent or I will have him taken down below and the trial will take place in his absence. Yes. Continue, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Mrs Mabel Mazenze!’ I heard the call outside the Court.

  And then the young African girl came in and the Court was hushed; everyone was staring at her remarkable beauty. I remembered the glimpse I had had of her face, through an open door at the end of a passage, on that first night I had arrived in Neranga. She was in the witness-box now, holding up the Bible in a slim, brown hand.

  ‘Are you Mabel Mazenze?’ I asked her, when she had been sworn.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mrs Mabel Mazenze. Are you a lady of the Matatu tribe?’

  ‘Is she Matatu woman? Is that what you mean, Mr Rumpole?’ the Chief Justice rumbled in the background.

  ‘I was trying to put it a little more elegantly, my Lord.’

  The Judge turned to the witness. ‘Don’t mind the elegance. You Matatu woman?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She gave him a glittering smile.

  ‘And are you married to David Mazenze, the defendant in this case?’

  I heard the Court buzz. The reporters were writing, Apu supporters in the public benches were looking shocked and puzzled. Rupert Taboro looked at the ceiling. Grace looked severely at the witness.

  ‘The officer in charge has told us that your client’s wife is called Grace Mazenze, Mr Rumpole.’ The Chief Justice registered elaborate surprise. I obliged him by asking the witness, ‘Did he also go through a ceremony of marriage with you, according to the tribal customs of the Matatu people, on the 8th of March, 1979?’

  A door banged somewhere behind me. It was Jonathan Mazenze leaving Court.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ the witness agreed. ‘David and I did. We kept it secret. Both our people would make us great mischief if they knew of it. And David having a wife of his own people also…’ Her voice trailed away as she looked round the Court, to meet hostile Apu eyes.

  ‘The 8th of March this year was the anniversary of that ceremony. Where did David spend that evening?’ I asked her.

  ‘With me,’ she answered clearly.

  ‘Where was he between nine and eleven that rainy evening?’

  ‘In my… in our house, here in Nova Lombaro. He was with me from before nine o’clock.’

  ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘About quarter past eleven. He went to sleep in his bed at home with Grace as he had a big speech to make the next day. He thought with me he would not do so much sleeping.’

  Mabel looked round the Court, smiling. There was some laughter, but not from the Apu spectators. Grace looked at her with a sort of solemn curiosity, as I asked, ‘Has it been difficult for you to come here and give evidence?’

  ‘I think my family never see me again when they know what I did with an Apu man,’ Mabel answered seriously.

  ‘Why have you come here to give evidence?’

  ‘Only because I know David cannot have killed the old man. Only because of that.’ She looked at the prisoner in the dock. He avoided her eye. ‘And to save his life…’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Mabel Mazenze.’ I sat down and the Chief Justice asked the Attorney-General if he wished to cross-examine the witness. To my extreme surprise Rupert Taboro said that he had no questions to ask. I rose to my feet, determined to make the most of the situation.

  ‘Perhaps my learned friend would help me. Does that mean that the prosecution accepts this witness’s evidence?’

  ‘It simply means, my Lord,’ Taboro said in his most treacly voice, ‘that we have no questions we wish to put.’

  ‘I must insist…’

  But the Chief Justice looked down on me and smiled mirthlessly. ‘No good insisting, Mr Rumpole. In the end it will be a matter entirely for me!’

  I wasn’t able to deal with the Judge’s remark until after the prosecutor’s final speech, which was a fair and reasonable summary of the facts. After he had finished I made my own oration, and I must say it was one of my best, along familiar lines perhaps, but given a feeling of freshness by being made in unfamiliar surroundings. The Court was very quiet. My client was sitting in the dock with his head in his hands. Perhaps, I thought, he had given up hope, but I hadn’t. I reached my peroration and I said:

  ‘It is not a matter entirely for your Lordship.’ And I said it fearlessly. ‘It is a matter for our Common Law! And when London is but a memory and the Old Bailey has sunk back into the primeval mud, my country will be remembered for three things: the British Breakfast, The Oxford Book of English Verse and the Presumption of Innocence! That presumption is the Golden Thread which runs through the whole history of our Criminal Law – so, whether a murder has been committed in the Old Kent Road or on the way to Nova Lombaro, no man shall be convicted if there is a reasonable doubt as to his guilt. And at the end of the day, how can any Court be certain sure that that fearless young woman Mabel Mazenze has not come to tell us the plain and simple truth?’

  When I had finished I sat down exhausted. My shirt was sticking to my back. I felt I had made a long journey, and I was now tired out, with nowhere further to go. Had I, I wondered for a low, despairing moment, made the great ‘Golden Thread’ speech for the last time? Was it some irony of fate, some obscure joke, that I should make it finally before a Court full of strange faces in the middle of Africa? I told myself that I had done all I could, that I had said every possible word in David Mazenze’s defence, that the decision to call Mabel was inevitable.

  But then I thought of the consequences of any mistake I might have made, and I found myself shivering in the stifling Court. Through all this the Chief Justice had been summing up, going through the facts of the case, and his voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. I forced myself to pay attention and, at first, I wished I hadn’t.

  ‘Neranga ranks high on the list of civilized countries,’ the deep judicial voice was saying. ‘We observe the rule of law. This is demonstrated by the fact that we have allowed a barrister in from England. He is a “junior” barrister. In England they have quite elderly “juniors”, barristers as “long in the tooth”, he will not mind my saying this, as Mr Horace Rumpole.’

  There was some sycophantic laughter from parts of the Court, in which, I was sorry to see, my learned friend Mr Taboro joined.

  ‘Mr Horace Rumpole has come to plead here,’ the Judge went on, ‘as a guest at our Bar. But he has told us nothing we didn’t already know. We know that a man is innocent until he’s proved guilty. That is the Golden Thread which runs through the law of Neranga. This law is also followed in Britain, I believe. The Court has the evidence of identification given by the Reverend Kenneth Cuazango. On the other hand, we have the positive evidence of Mabel Mazenze, the Matatu woman whom the defendant, a well-known member of the Apu tribe, has married as a second wife – a backward form of indulgence which is not in the best tradition of the New Neranga of Prime Minister Christopher Mabile. In these circumstances the Court is unable to feel that the prosecution has proved this case beyond reasonable doubt. Acting entirely on the principles of ancient Common Law, we pronounce on David Mazenze, whatever we may think of his morality, a verdict of “Not Guilty”. Let the defendant be discharged.’

  ‘Be upstanding in Court!’ the attendant shouted.

  We all stood and, as he left us, I bowed low, and with astonished gratitude, to the Chief Justice, Sir Worthington Banzana. I seemed to be bowing in the middle of an enormous silence. Then the Court began to empty quickly. I saw David Mazenze leaving the dock and, planning to meet him when he had received his congratulations, I turned to Freddy Ruingo.

  ‘We did it, Freddy!’ I smiled at him. ‘We notched up a triumph, I’m sure you’ll agree. We brought the Golden Thread to Samarkand!’ But Mr Ruingo had made off and was dodging away among the crowd as though in some maze. The kindest word was spoken to me by my opponent, who came up smiling. ‘Good win, my learned friend,’ he said. ‘Heartfelt congratulations.’

  ‘Thank
you. You were a great help.’ I meant it. ‘I’d better go and see my client.’

  I moved away, but Taboro put a hand on my arm. ‘I should warn you, old fellow. You may not find him particularly grateful.’

  ‘I did save his life.’ I looked at him, puzzled. But Taboro shook his head sadly. ‘You also broadcast the fact that the leader of the Apu People’s Party had got himself hitched to a Matatu woman. Not too good that, politically speaking. But then, I don’t suppose you’re tremendously interested in local politics. Oh, before you go,’ – he held out a well-manicured hand – ‘could I have my stud back, please?’

  I took off my collar then and there and gave it to him. It seemed that I owed quite enough to Rupert Taboro.

  I went up to the robing room to change, and met no one except the attendant in charge of wigs and gowns, who also seemed aloof, as though anxious to get me out of his domain as soon as possible. When I came downstairs the passage outside the Court was empty and silent.

  I came out on to the steps of the Law Courts, and was hit in the face by the heat and blinding sunshine. And as I stood there blinking, two Nerangan policemen in khaki shorts with revolvers bumping against their hips, came running towards me. They grabbed my arms and hustled me, too astonished to protest, into a waiting police car. The engine roared, the tyres screeched on the burning road, and we were off, scattering chickens and children and the remnants of a crowd. It had happened at long, long last. After an endless career in crime, I was under arrest.

  Of course I always knew I’d end up in the Nick. It was my nightmare, a recurring dream from the days when I was a nipper. I could hardly close my eyes without hearing a voice somewhere saying, ‘And the least sentence I can possibly pass on you is about a hundred years in the chokey.’ Extraordinary thing, perhaps that’s what made me take up the law. These thoughts were racing, in a confused fashion, through my head as I was hustled into the presence of Mr Akimbu, the blazered Superintendent of Police. He was holding a cable and looking at me with extreme hostility. ‘Mr Rumpole. Will you please explain this cablegram which we have intercepted. Addressed to you, I think, at the Hotel Majestic.’

  I took the document in question, looked at the signature and felt a flood of relief. Of course, I realized that the thing could have been phrased more happily.

  ‘Please take your time – we have the whole night before us.’

  The Superintendent’s words were not particularly encouraging. I read him the message on the cable: ‘ “Murder fixed for 21st of this month at 10.30 a.m. Signed Henry.” ’

  ‘What murder, Mr Rumpole? And who is your associate, “Henry”?’

  Akimbu stood up and moved towards me. I felt a sense of pleasurable anticipation from the policemen by the door. The interrogation was about to begin.

  ‘Good heavens. This is really very funny!’ I smiled round the room, and got no reaction.

  ‘Funny? You find murder “funny”, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘No. No, of course not,’ I assured him. ‘But I see how you’ve been misled. It really is quite a joke.’

  ‘Not a real murder?’ The Superintendent frowned.

  ‘No. No, of course. It is a real murder. A very real murder.’ I heard myself babbling. I clearly had no talent for being interrogated.

  ‘The 21st. That will be…’ The Superintendent examined a calendar on the wall. ‘Ten days from now.’ He turned on me triumphant.

  ‘Ten days from now I shall be back in England. No need for you to worry.’

  ‘Leaving the dirty side of the business, I suppose,’ the Superintendent almost sneered, ‘to this Henry.’

  At which moment an intercom buzzed on his desk. The Superintendent answered with a Nerangan word, and a moment later a police officer opened the door to admit Arthur Remnant, Her Majesty’s High Commissioner to the State of Neranga.

  ‘There you are, Rumbold!’ He came in smiling. ‘You know what, my dear fellow, you need a good lawyer!’

  I was booked back on the midnight plane. Earlier in the evening I was invited for cocktails at the High Commission. There was a fair sprinkling of guests – politicians, the Head of Nerangan Radio and his good lady, and some leading members of the Nerangan Bar, who smiled at me in a knowing sort of way but otherwise avoided my company. I stood under a portrait of the Queen and drank a reviving whisky and soda. Remnant looked at me as though it would take him a long time to get over the joke and said, ‘It was a splendid result. Just what our brilliant Prime Minister always had in mind!’

  ‘The Prime Minister wanted me to win?’ I confess I wasn’t following his drift.

  ‘Just the way to please the International Monetary Fund, old fellow, and reassure Barclays Bank, and put Christopher Mabile in line for a “K” at the next Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference. You’ve probably earned him a bally knighthood, apart from the fact that you’ve seen off David Mazenze.’

  ‘Seen him off? I was under the impression that I’d got him acquitted.’ Never had a remarkable victory, I thought, been met with such a singular lack of acclaim.

  ‘The Apus would never have let him hang,’ Remnant explained patiently, as to a child. ‘They’d have risen in their thousands – plenty of guns available in the bush, didn’t they tell you? But they’re a lazy people. Nothing in today’s verdict to get them going. And they won’t move a finger for a leader who married a Matatu woman.’

  ‘Just a minute. I want to know…’ But Remnant was moving away from me.

  ‘What do you want to know, old fellow?’

  ‘Who shot the Bishop?’

  ‘The poor old Bishop! A politician who had outstayed his welcome. Of course, we’d know exactly what to do with him in England. Too bad there’s no House of Lords in Neranga.’

  ‘There you are, Mr Horace Rumpole.’ I heard a deep and familiar voice behind me and turned to see a small, smiling Chief Justice. Beside him stood a man in bright African costume. The lights of the room reflected in his thick horn-rimmed glasses and made it impossible to see his eyes. I needed no introduction to tell me that I was in the presence of the Prime Minister, Dr Christopher Mabile, my former client’s ‘Dr Death’.

  ‘Congratulations, Mr Rumpole.’ The Prime Minister’s voice was dry, academically precise. ‘I hear you put up a first-rate show. You know the Chief Justice, of course. Your old sparring partner!’

  They both looked at me as though I were a rare specimen who might soon become extinct.

  ‘It has been a pleasure to have a British barrister among us,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘When are you leaving us?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘Such a short visit! You should have stayed longer. Gone up country. We could have shown you some of our old tribal customs.’

  ‘Thank you, Prime Minister,’ I told him. ‘I think I’ve seen them.’

  It was only a week later, at breakfast in Froxbury Court, when I saw in The Times newspaper a photograph of a small part of the road to Nova Lombaro. The picture showed a battered car, riddled with bullets. The door was swinging open, and in the passenger seat was the crumpled, murdered body of David Mazenze, the former leader of the Apu People’s Party, an organization which had now been taken over, so the story under the photograph informed the Times readers, ‘by the deceased’s younger brother, Mr Jonathan Mazenze’. The story ended, ‘No arrest has yet taken place, according to the Attorney-General, Mr Rupert Taboro.’ Neranga, quite clearly, was still a country which believed in the death penalty.

  When I read the story out to Hilda all she said was, ‘Mazenze… Apu… Rupert Taboro… what extraordinary names.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘almost as odd as Rumpole and Dodo Mackintosh.’

  The world news was bad that day. Hilda’s old school friend was still with us, sitting on the other side of the kitchen table, regarding me with pursed lips and an expression of disapproval.

  ‘Wasn’t it good of Dodo to stay on another week,’ Hilda said, ‘so you could see something of her?’

  I gulp
ed my coffee, got up and struggled into my jacket. ‘Well, off to work!’ I said as brightly as possible.

  ‘You will be home early, won’t you, dear? Dodo does like her game of three-handed whist, you know.’

  I was on my way to the door, planning a leisurely aperitif at Pommeroy’s Wine Bar.

  ‘Anyway, where are you going today?’ said She Who Must Be Obeyed.

  ‘I’m going to the Old Bailey,’ I answered her. ‘Samarkand is definitely off.’

  Rumpole and the Old Boy Net

  To call the public school where I spent some of the worst years of my life ‘minor’ would be to flatter it. It was a small, poorly run penal colony on the Norfolk coast where the water habitually froze in the bogs and, on one remarkable occasion, we all believed, turned the glass of Milton, which contained the Headmaster’s teeth, into a solid block of ice. Such education as was on offer had to be wrung out of reluctant masters whose own ambition was to rush from the classroom and huddle round the common room fire. It’s true that Jimmie Jameson, a somewhat primitive type of Scottish Circuit Judge, had been to Linklaters, as, for a short spell when his parents were abroad, had old Keith from the Lord Chancellor’s office. Apart from having once been asked to organize the Old Linklaters at the Bar*, I have never had much to do with my old school acquaintances, and having possessed the Old Linklater tie (I used it to secure a bulky set of books I was taking by train to a case in Chester about thirty years ago and haven’t seen it since) has never helped me in the slightest degree on my way through life. Say ‘I’m an Old Linklater’ to most men of power and influence in this world, and their answer is most likely to be ‘Mine’s a Scotch.’

  It is not so, of course, with the great public schools such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Lawnhurst. Having ‘swung, swung together, with their bodies between their knees’ at school, the ex-pupils of such places are liable to stick to each other for the rest of their natural lives. No sooner have they left school, but they meet up again in the Cabinet, or the House of Lords, or on the Board of the United Metropolitan Bank, or perhaps at an address in Barnardine Square which, as you may or may not know, is not a million miles from Victoria Station.