The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘Well, I think it’s jolly unfair. Keeping his name a secret.’

  ‘Do you, Fiona?’

  She spoke with a passion which I found unexpected. ‘I mean, those sort of places wouldn’t exist at all, would they, if it weren’t for the Mr Xs?’ She looked at the papers I was clutching. ‘The name’s in your brief, isn’t it? I suppose you know what his name is?’

  ‘He signed his deposition. I know it, yes,’ I admitted.

  ‘So you could tell anybody…?’

  ‘Contempt of Court, Fiona,’ I told her, ‘should be a silent exercise, like meditation.’

  The lift stopped and we got out in the basement. We passed the carefully preserved door of Old Newgate prison, rang for a screw and were finally admitted to the dungeon department of the Central Criminal Court.

  ‘We don’t want his name splashed around the papers, Mr Rumpole. We wouldn’t want that.’ I don’t know what it was about Mrs Lorraine Lee, but she could make the dreary little interview room, with its plastic table and old tin which did for an ashtray, seem somehow cosy and refined. Both of the Lees were looking at me, more in sorrow than in anger. I was taking exercise, walking up and down the confined space as I smoked a small cigar, and Fiona was sitting at the table nonchalantly turning the pages of my brief.

  ‘Damned painful for him to be asked to give his name, in his position,’ Napier Lee agreed with his good lady.

  ‘We abide by the code, you see,’ Mrs Lee said. ‘The unwritten law. All the chaps who come to our house know they can trust us.’

  ‘The “Old Boy Net”!’ I said with some asperity. ‘Look, he’s “sneaked” on you. Why not return the compliment?’

  ‘That’s not how it works, I’m afraid.’ Mr Lee shook his head. ‘Whatever he’s done, we’ve got to do the decent thing.’

  ‘We think the Judge is a perfect gentleman, don’t we, Nappy?’ Mrs Lee amazed me by saying.

  ‘He understands the code, you see,’ her husband agreed.

  ‘He didn’t want the poor fellow’s name mentioned. That would’ve been terribly embarrassing.’

  ‘And it would be terribly embarrassing, Mrs Lorraine Lee, if you and your husband got five years for blackmail!’ I suggested. ‘I mean, you might be as snug as bugs in the Nick, but what’s going to happen to me? I just can’t afford to lose cases, not at this particular point in my career. I’m just about to be elected to high office in my Chambers.’ Then I turned on her and asked, ‘Why just the gas bill?’

  ‘What?’ Lorraine seemed confused.

  ‘Use a lot of gas, did you, at Barnardine Square?’ I pressed my inquiries.

  ‘Not particularly,’ Napier Lee said. ‘The bills used to lie out on the hall table and, well, he offered to pay one or two – out of kindness, really.’

  ‘Just a tremendously decent gesture,’ his wife agreed. ‘It was over and above the call of duty.’

  ‘How did he pay them, exactly?’

  ‘Oh, he used to give us a cheque,’ Mrs Lee told me.

  ‘A cheque!’ I was astonished. ‘In a house of ill repute? Mr X is either very naïve or…’

  ‘Or what?’ Napier Lee was puzzled, as though the point had never occurred to him before.

  ‘I don’t know. And we may never have a chance to find out.’ I stubbed out the cigar end and was preparing to leave them, when Mr Lee uttered a mild rebuke. ‘We don’t like it called a house of ill repute, Mr Rumpole. We call it a friendly house.’

  My usual luncheon, when engaged on a case down the Bailey, consisted of a quickly snatched sandwich and a glass of stout in the pub opposite if I was in a hurry, or a steak pie washed down with vin extremely ordinaire in the same resort. Our visit to the cells had left us so little time, however, that Fiona Allways and I took the lift up to the Bar Mess, the eatery on the top floor. This is a place I habitually avoid. It is always full of barristers telling each other of the brilliant way they dealt with discovery of documents, or the coup they brought off in some hire-purchase claim in Luton. The large room was resonant with the sort of buzz and clatter that usually accompanies school dinners, and there was a marked absence of cheerful atmosphere.

  My reluctance to mingle freely with the learned friends at the trough was justified by the fact that, when Fiona and I put down our ham salads at the long table, we found ourselves sitting opposite the lugubrious Ballard, who was peeling himself a chocolate biscuit.

  ‘Hello, Ballard,’ I said, making the best of things. ‘Enjoyed the sermon.’

  ‘Did you, Rumpole?’ A shadow of a smile flitted across his face, and was promptly dismissed.

  ‘Haven’t had such a good time since our old school parson gave us three quarters of an hour on hell fire,’ I assured him. ‘Always eat here, do you?’

  ‘Don’t you use the Bar Mess?’ Ballard seemed puzzled.

  ‘As a matter of fact, no. I prefer the pub – you get the chance of rubbing shoulders with a few decent criminals.’

  To my surprise, the Ballard smile returned, and his tone was unexpectedly friendly. ‘Perhaps you’ll take me to your pub sometime. I mean, we should get rather better acquainted,’ he said.

  ‘Should we?’ I could see no pressing reason for this bizarre suggestion.

  ‘Well, we’re going to have to spend a good deal of time together.’

  ‘Why? This case isn’t going to go on for ever, is it? Talking of which…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sam. I might come along to one of those churchgoers’ meetings of yours…’ I, too, was having a go at the friendly approach.

  ‘Really?’ The man seemed gratified.

  ‘I mean, there is a great deal to be said for introducing a little more Christian spirit into the law…’

  ‘I’m so glad you think so.’ Those who had seen St Paul on the road to Damascus no doubt looked a little like Ballard, Q.C., peering at Rumpole.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ I assured him. ‘There is more joy in heaven, as I understand it, old darling, over one sinner that repenteth, and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘That sort of thing, yes,’ Ballard agreed.

  ‘And if two sinners repenteth,’ I was getting nearer to the nub, the heart of this unusual conversation. ‘I mean, repent to the tune of pleading guilty to keeping a disorderly house, wilt thou not drop the blackmail charges, old cock?’

  ‘No.’ All smiles were discontinued. Ballard closed his teeth firmly on his chocolate biscuit.

  ‘Did I hear you aright?’ I said, with a good deal of sorrow.

  ‘I said, “No.” It’s quite impossible.’

  ‘Look here.’ I wrestled patiently for the man’s soul. ‘Is that an entirely Christian attitude? Forgive them their trespasses, unto seventy times seven! Well, there’s only one little count of blackmail.’

  ‘No doubt they may be forgiven eventually. After a suitable period of confinement.’ Ballard masticated unmercifully.

  ‘The Mad Bull is quite capable of giving them five years for blackmail.’ I pointed out the brutal facts of the matter.

  ‘Is that what you call the learned Judge?’ Ballard looked at me severely. ‘I had thought in terms of seven, for blackmail. And the top sentence for keeping a disorderly house is six months. Is that the reasoning behind your appeal to Christian principles, Rumpole?’

  ‘You show a remarkably cynical attitude, for a churchgoer.’ It pained me to find the man so worldly.

  ‘As a churchgoer, I have a duty to protect public decency. I don’t know what your particular morality is.’

  ‘It mainly consists of getting unfortunate sinners out of trouble. You don’t learn about that, apparently, in your scripture lessons.’

  ‘Blessed are the blackmailers, for they shall walk out without a stain on their characters.’ A hint of the smile returned. ‘Is that your version of the Sermon on the Mount, Rumpole?’

  ‘ “Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.” That’s William Blake, not me. And I’ll give you another quotation: “I
come not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.” Matthew 8, verse 13.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Ballard was clearly surprised.

  ‘My old father was a cleric. And I’ll tell you something. He hated Bible classes.’

  A silence fell between us. Ballard was rolling the silver-paper wrapping of his chocolate biscuit between his fingers. ‘It’s a pretty odd sort of story, isn’t it, for blackmail?’ I said.

  ‘It seems a painfully usual one to me.’

  ‘Does it? If you were in a brothel, would you write out a couple of cheques on the NatWest, and sign them with your real name? Particularly if you’re such a shy, retiring violet as your precious witness Mr X.’

  Ballard looked at his watch. ‘The Judge’ll be coming back,’ he said firmly.

  The theological debate was over. Ballard left us and Fiona Allways looked at me in evident distress. ‘Five years!’ she said. ‘They’d really get five years?’

  I finished my Bar Mess light ale and gave her my learned opinion. ‘You know what we need in this case? A witness who knows something about Mr X. No one’s going to come rushing to our aid while his name’s kept a deadly secret. There, Fiona old girl, is the rub.’

  The gentleman in the Guards tie gave his damning evidence of blackmail to an attentive jury and an appreciative Bull, and it wasn’t until later in the afternoon that I rose to cross-examine.

  ‘You won’t mind me calling you Mr X?’ I started politely.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t. For how long were you a habitué of this house of ill repute?’

  ‘Really, Mr Rumpole,’ the Judge protested. ‘Does that make the slightest difference?’

  ‘Please answer the question.’ I kept my eye on the witness. ‘Unless my Lord rules against it, on a point of law.’ My Lord didn’t.

  ‘I had been visiting there for about five years.’

  ‘On your way home from directing the nation’s affairs?’ The question had the desired effect on his Lordship, who uttered a loud rebuke. ‘Mr Rumpole!’

  ‘Very well,’ I said in my usual conciliatory fashion. ‘On your way home from work. Before you got lost in the bosom of your family, it was your practice to visit 66 Barnardine Square?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr X answered reluctantly.

  ‘How did you first hear of this place of resort?’

  ‘Hear of it?’ The witness seemed puzzled by the question.

  ‘Yes. Bit of gossip at the Club, was it? Or an advertisement in the Times personal column?’

  There was a welcome little patter of laughter in Court. The Judge didn’t join in. It took some time for Mr X to answer.

  ‘I heard about it from a friend.’

  ‘An old friend? I don’t mean in years, but a friend of long standing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I really can’t imagine what the relevance of these questions is.’ Ballard rose to protest, and the Judge came to his assistance.

  ‘Mr Rumpole. What has this got to do with it?’ he asked wearily.

  ‘My Lord.’ I decided to go into a bit of an aria. ‘I’m fighting this case in the dark, with my hands tied behind my back, against a prosecution witness who has chosen to shelter behind anonymity. I must be allowed to cross-examine him as I think fit. After all, it would greatly add to the costs of this case if it had to be reconsidered… elsewhere.’

  His Honour Judge Bullingham was no fool. He got the clear reference to the Court of Appeal, where his interventions might not look so attractive on the transcript of evidence as they sounded in the flesh. He thought briefly and then came out, in judicial tones, with ‘I think we may allow Mr Rumpole to pursue his line, Mr Ballard.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘It remains to be seen, of course, Mr Rumpole, if these questions will do your clients any good, in the eyes of the jury.’

  So, having registered a sort of minor and equivocal success, I turned back to the witness. ‘Was it a friend you had known from your schooldays, by any chance?’ For that I got a reluctant agreement.

  ‘You had kept up with him?’ I went on.

  ‘No. We met again after an interval of a good many years.’

  ‘Where did you meet?’

  ‘In a public house.’

  ‘In the Victoria area?’ I took a gamble and asked.

  ‘Somewhere near there. Yes.’

  ‘Meet a nice type of girl in that public house, do you?’

  ‘Mr Rumpole!’ The Bull was growing restive again and had to be dealt with.

  ‘My Lord. I withdraw the question. What did your friend tell you?’ I asked the witness.

  ‘He told me that he’d been ill. And that he’d had a bit of bad luck in business. He said he had a house near Victoria Station and his wife and he were starting a business there.’

  ‘A business… in agreeable ladies?’

  We were then treated to a long pause before Mr X said, ‘Yes.’

  So, with a good deal of the preparatory work done, I decided to be daring and ask a question to which I didn’t know the answer – always a considerable risk in cross-examination.

  ‘Did you offer to put a little much-needed capital into this business? I mean, the Court has kept your name a secret because you are so respectable, Mr X. Were you in fact an investor in a bawdy house?’

  The jury looked so interested in the answer that Ballard rose to make an objection. ‘My Lord,’ he said. ‘The witness should be warned.’

  ‘I do know my job, Mr Ballard.’ For the first time, Bullingham sounded a little testy with the prosecution. Then he turned to the witness and said, ‘I should warn you that you are not bound to answer any question that might incriminate you. Now, do you wish to answer Mr Rumpole’s question or would you prefer not to?’

  There was a long pause during which perhaps Mr X’s whole life flashed before his eyes, in slow motion. At long last he said, in the nicest possible way, ‘I would prefer not to, my Lord.’

  I looked hard at the jury, raised an eyebrow or two, and repeated, ‘You would prefer not to?’ As no answer came from the witness-box I tried another question. ‘Can you answer this. How long ago was the meeting in the public house in Victoria?’

  ‘About five years ago.’ Mr X appeared to be back in answering mood.

  ‘And was the public house the Barnardine Arms?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And was the old school friend in question by any chance Mr Napier Lee, the male defendant in this case?’ He had only to say, ‘No,’ politely, and I would have had to sit down with egg all over my silly face. However, my luck stayed in, and Mr X gave us a very quiet, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Speak up, Mr X,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, my Lord, it was. Mr Napier Lee.’

  For some obscure reason, best known to Himself, God seemed to be on my side that day.

  ‘So you met Mr Lee some five years ago,’ I continued the cross-examination. ‘And his wife, Mrs Lorraine Lee?’

  ‘I met her shortly afterwards.’

  ‘When you started to patronize their business?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So ever since he was an inky school boy in the fourth form at Lawnhurst, Mr Napier Lee has known exactly who you were.’

  ‘We met in Lower Five actually.’

  ‘In Lower Five. Oh yes. I stand corrected. So he has had at least five years to blackmail you, if he wanted to.’

  Mr X gave a puzzled look at the jury, but they looked as if they saw the point perfectly well. Then he answered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘And neither he nor his wife made any suggestion of this sort until six months ago?’

  ‘That is right,’ Mr X admitted.

  ‘When you were asked to pay a couple of trivial little gas and electricity bills.’ I opened my brief then, not a thing I find I have to do too often, and fished out copies of the documents in question. ‘Bills for £45 and £37.53.’ Mr X agreed. He seemed to have something of a head for figures.

  ‘And you paid these bills for the Lees b
y cheque?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why on earth…?’ My eyebrows went up again, and I turned to the jury.

  ‘Because, as I have told you, Mr Rumpole, they threatened to tell my employers about my visits to their… house unless I did so.’

  ‘I don’t mean that.’ I showed a little well-calculated impatience. ‘I mean why pay by cheque?’

  ‘I… I don’t know exactly…’ Mr X faltered. The point seemed not to have occurred to him.

  ‘Did you ever pay by cheque when you visited this house on any other occasion?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Always in cash?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ I agreed. ‘Because you didn’t want to leave a record of your name in connection with the Lees’ “business”.’ I paused as meaningfully as I could, and then asked, ‘But on the occasion of this alleged blackmail you did want to leave a record?’

  ‘I told you… I don’t know why I paid them by cheque.’ Mr X was looking to Ballard for help. None was immediately forthcoming.

  ‘Was it because you wanted evidence on which to base this unfounded allegation of blackmail against my clients?’ I suggested.

  ‘No!’ Mr X protested vehemently, and then added, weakly, ‘I suppose I just didn’t think about it.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr X!’ I gave the jury a last meaningful look and then sat down with the feeling of a job well done. His Lordship leant forward and, in a quiet and reassuring tone of voice, did his best to repair the damage.

  ‘Mr X. I suppose you paid the… “girls” at this establishment in cash?’ Bullingham’s smile said, ‘We’re all men of the world here, now aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. I did,’ Mr X answered, encouraged.

  ‘Did it strike you as a different matter when you were paying the Gas Board and the Electricity Board?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’ The witness took the hint gratefully.

  ‘You saw no particular harm in paying those two great authorities by cheque?’ Bullingham suggested gently.

  ‘No harm at all, my Lord.’ Mr X was clearly feeling better.

  ‘Very well, we’ll rise now.’ The Judge smiled at the jury, conscious of a job pretty well done. ‘Shall we say, 10.30 tomorrow morning?’