The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘We have heard evidence that your wife visited Lutterworth in prison.’

  ‘I heard that. Yes.’ The Captain shook his head sadly.

  ‘In spite of that, what is your present attitude towards your marriage?’

  ‘I’m still prepared to give it another chance.’

  ‘In spite of an attempt that may have been made on your life?’

  ‘Yes. In spite of that.’

  You could almost hear the purr of approval from the Jury as Phillida thanked him and sat down. The Judge added his thanks and then the Captain asked if he might sit during my questions as he had a little heart trouble.

  ‘Of course, Captain Gleason,’ the Welsh judge cooed at him. ‘A glass of water? Usher, bring Captain Gleason a glass of water. Are you sure you feel quite well, Captain Gleason? You just sit there and take it quite easily. You won’t be long, will you, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘Not very long, my Lord. And I’ll try and adopt my best bedside manner.’ I turned to Gleason and started quietly, ‘Captain Gleason. Did my client, Hugo Lutterworth, look after the cars from time to time?’

  ‘He did. Yes.’

  ‘If they needed a service, or some adjustment, used he to do it?’

  ‘He said he didn’t trust garages.’

  ‘The day before, let us use a neutral expression and call it the “accident”, had you told him your estate car wasn’t running very smoothly and asked him to have a look at it?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Can you not?’ I spoke more crisply, with a little vinegar in the honey. ‘Did Mr Lutterworth tell you he’d adjusted the points, or the plugs? Something of that nature?’

  ‘He may have done.’ The answer came after a pause.

  ‘So you may have asked him to look at your car?’

  ‘It’s possible. I haven’t got much of a talent with mechanical objects.’ Captain Gleason smiled at the Judge, who smiled back in a thoroughly understanding manner. Clearly they were both useless when it came to carburettors.

  ‘You weren’t in army transport?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were in the Catering Corps?’

  ‘What about it?’ The witness sounded defensive.

  ‘Nothing at all. I’m sure you were a very gallant caterer. So you never attended to your car yourself?’

  ‘Never.’ The evidence was, happily, quite positive.

  ‘Never even opened the bonnet?’

  ‘Never. I got it filled up at the garage.’

  ‘Hugo Lutterworth did the rest?’

  ‘Did rather too much, on that particular occasion.’ There was an unsettling rattle of sympathetic laughter from the Jury, in which his Lordship was pleased to join. I wiped the smile off his face when I asked, ‘You say that, Captain Gleason. But looking back on it, wouldn’t you agree that my client has done you a simply enormous favour?’

  ‘I have no idea what you mean!’ Gleason appeared startled and looked to the Judge for help.

  ‘Neither have I, Mr Rumpole.’ The Judge seemed all too willing to come to the witness’s aid.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean, Captain! Had you not had a very tempting offer for the Garden Centre site from a chain of immense supermarkets? Might not your greenhouses have become promenades for the purchase of everything from butterscotch to bedsteads …?’

  ‘My Lord, I can’t see how my business affairs can possibly be relevant.’

  ‘Neither can I at the moment. Mrs Erskine-Brown, do you object to the question?’

  ‘No, my Lord. Not at this stage.’

  ‘Thank you, Portia. I’ll be moving out soon,’ I rewarded her with a whisper. ‘Well, Captain Gleason?’

  ‘We have had an offer for the site. Yes,’ he answered with the utmost caution.

  ‘And Mr Lutterworth was determined not to sell?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘Because he believes in flowers and badgers and butterflies and woodland folk. All that sort of thing. But you wanted to sell and make a thumping great profit?’

  ‘I was in favour of the Arcadia Stores offer. Yes.’ The Captain was still being very cautious.

  ‘Captain Gleason. I would like the Court to see the partnership agreement between yourself and my client…’ Driscoll handed copies of the agreement to the Usher, who started distributing them to the Judge, Jury and the witness. ‘Mr Rumpole. How can that possibly be relevant to this charge?’ His Lordship was displeased, and I started to launch into a legal argument which I had prepared with the aid of Mr Driscoll, who knew about partnership agreements. ‘It goes right to the heart of the matter! It is the simple solution to what your Lordship and the Jury may have found an extremely puzzling case.’

  ‘I can’t speak for the Jury, of course. But I haven’t found it in the least puzzling.’

  ‘Not puzzling?’ I did my best to sound extremely surprised. ‘An alleged criminal who does everything in the presence of witnesses. A case of attempted murder which is so bungled that the victim suffers nothing but a few minor cuts and bruises? I should have thought that might have caused a certain amount of bewilderment, even to your Lordship.’

  The Judge struggled with his irritation and suppressed it. Then he asked, ‘Why do you say I should look at this document?’

  ‘Because I understand my learned friend has no objection.’ Once again I whispered my bribe to Phillida, ‘I’ll be out of your place by Thursday!’

  ‘My Lord. We wouldn’t wish to shut out any document which might possibly have some relevance.’ She rose, I must say, splendidly to the occasion.

  ‘Look at it, will you?’ I asked the witness before the Judge could draw another breath. ‘The Jury have their copies. “Whereas…” Skip all the waffle. Just look at Paragraph 12. Read it out, will you?’

  ‘ “If either of the said partners shall perform an act which is prejudicial to the interests of the partnership or shall be convicted of a criminal offence…” ’ Gleason started to read as quietly as possible.

  ‘ “Or shall be convicted of a criminal offence,” ’ I gave the Court the sentence at full volume. ‘ “All his rights in the partnership property and income and all other benefits due to him from the said partnership shall revert immediately to the other partner who shall, from the date of the said act or offence, be solely entitled to all the partnership assets.” ’ I lowered the agreement and looked at the witness, smiling. ‘Congratulations. You’ve done extremely well out of this little case, haven’t you, Captain Gleason?’

  ‘I take the greatest exception to that!’ The Captain rose to attention and almost shouted. He seemed to have momentarily recovered his health.

  ‘Do you?’ I hope I sounded mildly surprised. ‘All you had to do was crash your car into the bird baths. Get a few superficial cuts and bruises, and you became solely entitled to the Woodland Folk Garden Centre, which you could then flog to the supermarket and make yourself a fortune.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole. That isn’t all he had to do.’ A remarkable display of judicial bad temper was brewing up on the Bench.

  ‘Oh, I’m grateful to your Lordship.’ I tried to pour oil on the troubled judge. ‘Your Lordship has got my point, of course. There was one other thing you had to do, wasn’t there, Captain Gleason? You had to get the unfortunate Hugo Lutterworth convicted of a crime. But after that little formality – once the Jury came back and found my client guilty of attempted murder – you’d be laughing all your way to your newly bought holiday home on the Costa del Sol.’

  There was a decided change in the atmosphere in Court. The Jury were looking with interest and some suspicion at Captain Gleason. Even the Judge was silent. Mrs Gleason was now looking at her husband, with some anxiety, and my client was beginning to look less blissfully unconcerned.

  ‘I haven’t got a house on the Costa del Sol,’ was the only answer the Captain could manage.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Formentera? No matter. I still congratulate you. You’ve come into a fortune.’

&nbs
p; Captain Gleason looked helplessly down at the partnership agreement. ‘I don’t know how that clause got in there…’

  ‘Let me tell you. My client’s solicitor, Mr Driscoll here, drew up the agreement. He didn’t altogether trust you, did he? I don’t know what it was. Some rumours about how you came to leave the Army? A story about the accounts when you were secretary of a golf club in Surrey? He put that in to protect Mr Lutterworth, and you remembered it when you wanted to get rid of him. Isn’t that the truth Captain Gleason?’

  ‘My Lord. Mr Rumpole is attacking my client’s character!’ Phillida threw self-interest to the winds and objected at last.

  ‘Attack his character?’ I protested. ‘God forbid. I’m sure the Captain is as honest a man as ever perverted the course of justice.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole! Will you please make your suggestion against this witness absolutely clear.’ The Judge was still no Rumpole fan.

  ‘With the greatest of pleasure.’ I turned to the witness. ‘You needed a way to get Lutterworth out of the partnership. I suspect your wife also wanted to get rid of him. They’d had a brief affair, but that was all over, at least so far as she was concerned.’ There was a sound behind me, my client calling out some sort of protest, but I was doing too well to bother about Sir Lancelot’s romantic susceptibilities. ‘And you knew the terms of the partnership agreement. All you had to do was to stage the attempted murder of yourself and make it look as though Mr Lutterworth had done it. So you asked him to look at the points in your car. He’d done that often enough before, hadn’t he, without trying to kill you?’

  ‘I told you he’d done it before, yes.’ Captain Gleason was swaying slightly and his speech was less clear.

  ‘Mr Rumpole. Aren’t you forgetting something?’ It was his Lordship’s last stand on behalf of the witness.

  ‘Am I, my Lord? Remind me.’

  ‘Someone cut this gentleman’s brake cables.’

  ‘Of course. You did that, Captain Gleason, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes? And risk killing myself…’ The Captain was trying to laugh; it was a somewhat grisly sound.

  ‘Not much of a risk, was it? A short run down the drive and a crash into the statuary. No real risk – for a driver who knew exactly what had happened to his brakes?’

  There was a long silence, but answer came there none. At last Captain Gleason swayed and fell crumpled at the side of the witness box. Amanda cried out and ran to kneel beside him: Queen Guinevere was showing her unaccountable love for the crotchety and dishonest old King Arnold. The Court Clerk and a police officer were opening Gleason’s collar.

  ‘We’ll adjourn now.’ The Judge decided to leave the field of battle. Mr Driscoll, a kindly fellow, was looking across at the fallen witness. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘Oh, I think the Captain will survive,’ I reassured him. ‘He’s survived most things.’

  After that cross-examination the case was downhill all the way. Further investigation revealed Captain Gleason’s prints on the brake cables. He was an incompetent crook, but then the ones with any talent rarely come our way. Hugo Lutterworth would clearly never forgive me for my revelations, but he agreed to give evidence and was finally acquitted. There was still one other matter which I had to bring to a successful conclusion.

  Claude Erskine-Brown, no doubt driven by a longing to clear Rumpole from his domestic hearth, did his work well. At the Lawyers As Christians meeting, he saw Ballard was suitably plied with sherry; indeed after the first two or three, Soapy Sam appeared to be cooperating with enthusiasm. When they finally emerged into the Temple car park, the Bollard walk was not altogether steady, nor his speech entirely clear. I have done my best to reconstruct their dialogue from what Claude told me later, but it seems to have gone somewhat as follows.

  ‘The thing about the Bishop of Sidcup,’ Ballard spoke with resonant emphasis, ‘is that he knows exactly where he stands.’ Already our Head of Chambers was fumbling for his car keys, preparing to motor home.

  ‘Yes. But do you?’ Claude asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Know where you stand? A bit unsteadily, if you ask my opinion. I mean’ – he looked suspiciously at Ballard’s sleek black Granada – ‘you’re not going to drive that thing, are you?’

  ‘Of course I am. Back to Waltham Cross.’

  ‘How many sherries did you have, Ballard?’

  ‘Three. No more than three, Erskine-Brown.’

  ‘Half a dozen at least. Way over the limit! I mean, do get in and drive! But if you ever want to be a judge…’

  ‘What?’ A Bollard nerve had been touched. Of course he wanted to be a judge.

  ‘Drunk driving! The Lord Chancellor’s going to cross you off his list of possibles. And in front of the Waltham Cross Magistrates, fellow in Arbuthnot’s Chambers was telling me, it’s automatic prison on a breathalyzer, a month inside! “Stamp out this menace!” You know the sort of thing you get from a bench of teetotallers.’

  ‘But I’ve missed the eleven fifteen’ – Ballard looked at his watch – ‘I don’t think there’s another. Erskine-Brown, what am I going to do?’

  ‘It’s entirely up to you. Waltham Cross, eh? I’m afraid it’s not on my route…’ Erskine-Brown moved towards his own motor. ‘Good-night, Ballard.’

  Fate, for once, was on my side. Ballard consulted his wallet and found he had forgotten to go to the Bank and had indeed left his cheque book at home. He called out to Claude for a loan to pay a minicab, but my trusty ally had switched on his engine and was roaring out of the car park. Ballard put his car keys in his pocket and walked sadly off in the general direction of Chambers.

  And there I found him the next morning. In fact I took him up a cup of tea as he awoke shivering slightly under an overcoat on a sofa in a corner of his room.

  ‘Morning, Bollard,’ I greeted him. ‘Been sleeping rough?’ I sat down on a chair which also contained his trousers. ‘Kipping on the couch reserved for the clientele? What do you think this place is, the Sally Ann? I mean, what would the chaps think if they knew you were using our Chambers as a common boardinghouse?’ Ballard sat up, took the teacup and raised it to his lips. Then he said, ‘You’re not going to tell them?’

  ‘It’s my clear and definite professional duty to do so.’ I can be remorseless on occasions. ‘This is not living accommodation; you’re in breach of the terms of our lease. What happened, old darling? Mrs Bollard had enough of you?

  ‘There is no Mrs Ballard.’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose there is.’

  Silence reigned while Ballard took another sip of tea. ‘Rumpole,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Don’t overdo it.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking’ – he sounded judicial – ‘it might be better if we approached the question of smoking in Chambers on a purely voluntary basis.’

  ‘Well, now you’re talking.’

  ‘I mean, you were able to point out to me the provisions of the Magna Carta!’

  ‘And the European Convention on Human Rights.’

  ‘What’s that got to say about it?’ He frowned.

  ‘No citizen shall be persecuted on the grounds of race, creed or colour or because he lights up occasionally.’

  ‘Oh well. You may be right. So, having given the matter my mature consideration…’

  ‘And I’m sure no consideration could be more mature than yours…’

  ‘We needn’t put smoking on the Agenda for our next meeting. In view of that, it may not be necessary for you to mention the question of any person…’

  ‘Dossing down in Chambers?’

  ‘Exactly! I’m sure we understand each other.’

  I got up and moved to the door. ‘Of course. That’s what I admire about you, Bollard. You’re absolutely firm on your principles. I hear the Bishop of Sidcup was a most tremendous hit.’

  So I left him, still sipping thoughtfully. All that day I pondered on the simple observation by She Who Must Be Obeyed, which had put me on to
the truth of R. v. Lutterworth. In the evening, believing that Dianne, our tireless typist, had really no further use for the geranium I had brought her from the Woodland Folk Garden Centre, I took it home to Froxbury Court, where I found Hilda comfortably ensconced and listening to The Archers.

  ‘We won the case, you know,’ I told her, after a pause, during which She looked not at all overjoyed by my return.

  ‘So you should have.’

  ‘I said we won it. You gave me the idea. I mean, you found the bull point. The way the girl looked at him.’

  ‘I’m not Daddy’s daughter for nothing! Daddy had forty-five years at the Bar.’

  ‘Dear old C. H. Wystan. Knew nothing about bloodstains, but let that pass.’

  ‘Daddy knew a good deal about human nature.’

  ‘Yes. Well. All the same, I’ve got to give you the credit for our victory.’

  ‘What are you doing here, Rumpole?’ She looked at me doubtfully.

  ‘Doing here? I came to give you a geranium. Hope you like it.’ It was then I presented the plant. I can’t say it was received with undiminished rapture.

  ‘It looks as though it’s seen better days.’

  ‘Well. It happens to all of us. Anyway. I live here, don’t I?’

  ‘Do you? I haven’t noticed you living here lately.’

  ‘I expect you’ve been busy. Sweeping under beds. Listening to everyday stories of country folk. That’s what I’ve been doing too, come to think of it.’

  ‘Well, you can’t just come and go as you please.’

  ‘Do you think I’m running a hotel?’ I suggested a thought for her speech.

  ‘How did you know I was going to say that?’

  ‘Most people do. Let me pour you a G and T. Celebrate your great victory in Court. Not every day you win a case, Hilda.’ I found the bottles and mixed a drink for her, taking the liberty of opening a bottle of Pommeroy’s Ordinary for myself.

  ‘Daddy once won a case,’ Hilda said thoughtfully, as she raised her glass.

  ‘Extraordinary!’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Well, that was nothing out of the ordinary.’

  ‘When C. H. Wystan, when Daddy was a young man at the Bar, he did a dock brief. He defended a pickpocket for nothing. Fellow who was accused of stealing a watch…’