John Mortimer - Rumpole On Trial

by Rumpole On Trial(lit)

  Let's look at it, shall we? Is that the terrace of Sackbut Castle?' 'Yes.' 'And is the man in it your father, as he was at the end of the last war?' 'It is my father, yes.' 'Oh, I am so very much obliged. Now there is also a woman with a baby. Is that woman your mother?' 'I... really can't say,' Richard hesitated.

  'You mean you can't remember what your own mother looked like?' Swabey spoke more in sorrow than in anger, but the Jury looked at Richard with distinct disapproval.

  'Not altogether clearly.' 'I suggest to you that it is a family group. Your father, your mother and yourself as a very young child.' 'I suppose that's a possibility,' the witness had to admit.

  'Or a probability? Now. Can you tell the Jury why this old lady had that photograph in her possession when she came visiting Sackbut Castle?' 'How on earth can my client know that?' I was up and fuming again.

  'Then let me suggest an answer to assist Lord Sackbut.' And Swabey made a suggestion which was no help at all to Richard. 'Could it be because she was the lady your father, in a fit of wounded pride, had given out as dead?' 'I object to that!' I furled on, 'Is this an inquest or a lesson in writing pulp fiction? There is not a scrap of evidence...' 'Oh, yes, there is, Mr Rumpole. There is a photograph.

  Now,'you shall have your opportunity to ask questions later.

  Let me just put this final point to you, my Lord.' So I sat down reluctantly and th coroner concluded. 'If this old lady was the Dowager Lady Sackbut, fallen on evil days, she'd hardly be a welcome visitor at the castle, would she? After all that time she'd come, no doubt, with a claim for money.

  Didn't it occur to you, m Lord, that she might be better dead, as your father had wished, so many, many years ago?' His Lordship rejected the suggestion entirely and I took him through it all again ?nd he denied it again. But during the rest of the day I had the strong feeling that the Jury didn't like Lord Sackbut, the mafl who couldn't remember what his mother looked like. In the middle of the afternoon, however, Mr Cursitor, who had been out "f court, came back and whispered in my ear. bs had a piece of news that gave us a hope of restoring the Sackbut name, and putting Dr Swabey in his place for ever. As soon as I heard it, I asked Swabey to adjourn the case until the next morning. He was about to make some trouble over this, until I reminded him that there was a writ of mandamus almost as old as Coroners Courts, by which I could haul him up to the Lord Chief Justice. I might even have been right about the w; anyway we took an early bath and returned the next morning to further good news from Mr Cursitor. I thought it t ght to keep the latest developments from the Sackbut family and' when we were back in court, I passed a note of my further application up to the coroner.

  'Mr Rumpole,' he s? in his most official voice, 'you've asked me to take the evidence of this witness. Mrs...' (v 'Petronelli, sir.' 'Mrs Petronelli. And I have no idea what light she can throw on this dark subjet 'Then let me help you out. She's here now, sir. Let her come in and be sworn.' The door of the courtroom opened and Mr Cursitor appeared.

  Standing aside, he let in a woman, dressed in black.

  She must have been almost seventy but she was still elegant, smiling, with fair hair touched with grey. Mr Pringle led her to the witness-box, where she took the oath quietly. I started my questions before the coroner quite understood what was happening.

  'What was your name, Madam?' I asked, 'before you married Signer Petronelli?' 'It was Lady Sackbut.' 'And your son is?' She looked at my client for the first time and said, 'Richard.' He had lowered his eyes and sat with his arms folded.

  'Mr Rumpole, do I understand that this lady is your client's...?' 'His mother, sir.' 'I still don't know what evidence she can give.' 'Then perhaps it would be better if I carried on. I think the story will become quite clear to everyone.' 'Very well, Mr Rumpole. Carry on for the moment. If you please.' The coroner was suffering from a sudden lack of energy as he saw his carefully built-up case of doubt and suspicion collapsing.

  'It's many years since you saw your son?' I asked the witness.

  'I'm afraid it's a great many years.' 'When Signer Petronelli was alive, I think you lived in Como?' 'Yes. My husband had a hotel there. When he died I decided to sell it and come back to England.' 'To where in England?' 'To London. I live in Southwark.' Then I summoned Pringle, who took the witness the photograph of the dead bag lady.

  'Look at that photograph, will you? Since you have lived there, have you become interested in a charity dealing with homeless people?' i47 'There seem to be so many sleeping in the street in London.

  We give them meals. Try to find them beds. Even invite them home sometimes.' She looked at the photograph of the dead woman. 'That's Bertha.' 'Bertha?' 'When I first met her she was sleeping at the back of Waterloo station. I let her stay with me one night, when we couldn't find her a bed anywhere else. We began to talk. She told me about her husband, who'd been a builder and gone bankrupt and been sent to prison for some reason. And, I don't know why, I told her about Sackbut Castle and my son.

  I never talked much about it to anyone else. But with Bertha it seemed it wouldn't matter.' 'So she stayed the night in your house. Did she leave the next morning?' 'Yes. I never saw her again.' 'Was anything missing when she left?' 'Well, yes. A photograph I'd shown her when we were talking. I kept it in a desk. Not on display or anything. And when Bertha went, that went with her. I was very angry with her for stealing it.' Pringle handed the witness another photograph, the group on the castle terrace.

  'Is that the photograph you lost?' 'Yes, it is.' 'Who are the people in that group?' 'My first husband, myself and Richard when he was a baby.' 'One final question. Did your son Richard ever hit you over the head with a blunt instrument and push you into a lake?' 'No. No, he never did that to me. Even if he thought I deserved it.' And now the witness was looking at her son, half smiling. He looked up at her.

  After that, even Dr Swabey, for all his ingenuity, couldn't think of much to ask Signora Petronelli. The inquest was virtually over and the verdict inevitable. As soon as it was given, the court rose, the room emptied and Lord Sackbut was left alone in it with the woman who had been dead to him so long. I knew we should get away early and we had packed our bags and taken them to the court. Mr Cursitor's clerk found us a taxi and we drove straight to the station.

  "The Jury in the Sackbut Castle Inquest returned a verdict of accidental death", blah, blah.' We were at breakfast again in the kitchen at home and I was reading The Times and Hilda had her Daily Telegraph.

  'Rumpole,' she sounded worried, 'you said Richard was lying in Court.' 'Oh, yes. Bertha waylaid him in the garden. Told him she had some news for him. Probably asked for money. He sent her away and wouldn't listen. She hung around Welldyke until the evening and then went back to the castle, full of gin and unsteady on her pins. It really was an accident. I don't know, Hilda. Perhaps he had a secret fear that Bertha was his mother. He hadn't seen the real one for thirty years. But recognizing his mother would mean his father was a liar, the father who could do no wrong. So he pretended that he didn't have the faintest idea who she was.' 'That wasn't very nice of him.' 'People aren't always nice, especially if they're Lords. Luckily his real mother reads the Daily Telegraph.' 'Why luckily?' 'Oh, didn't I tell you? I got old Mr Dry-as-Dust Cursitor to put an advertisement in the personal column: riccardino WANTS TO SEE HIS MOTHER. VERY URGENT. PHONE THE solicitors. And the Sackbuts read The Times' The phone on the wall was ringing. I went to answer it as Hilda was saying, 'Poor woman. Poor, poor woman.' The call was from Mizz Liz Probert. She was off to court early and wanted to let me know that the Prosecution was offering no evidence against Walter The Wally Wilkinson.

  The man who really did it, apparently, was the social worker's lover and he had made a confession and there was enough forensic evidence to make it stick. Apparently they were all in a rather complicated emotional situation. That seemed a considerable understatement to me. Before she rang off I offered to buy Mizz Liz a drink in Pommeroy's that evening.

  When I returned to my cooling
tea and toast, I told Hilda another tale of social distinctions. 'You know why The Wally confessed to that triple murder?' I said. 'Snobbery, Hilda.

  Pure snobbery. He thought he'd done in an old dosser called Bronco Billington but he didn't want to be potted for anything so down-market. So he put his hands up to a smart triple murder. That way he'd join the upper crust in chokey and be treated like a Lord by all the screws.' 'Rumpole,' She said thoughtfully, 'I don't think we'll go to Sackbut Castle again.' 'I don't think we'll be asked,' I told her.

  That evening, at a corner table in Pommeroy's, and over a couple of glasses of Chateau Fleet Street, I broached a delicate subject with Mizz Probert. 'Liz, I wanted to tell you that I know all about the Honourable David Luxter, otherwise known as Inchcape.' 'The Hon. David!' Liz spat out the title. 'It's disgusting.' 'Instead of a decent upbringing in a one-parent family in Camden, he was cursed with ex-Lord Chancellor Luxter as a grandad. He was a deprived child.' 'A what Liz sounded puzzled.

  'They all are, Mizz Liz. The lot of them. The Lords and Ladies and Marquises of whatnot that figure in Debby's Diary in Coronet magazine. They turn their sons out of the home at a tender age. They put them into the care of some sort of young offenders' secure home like Eton. They lie to them and tell them that their mothers are dead. The dice are loaded against the young of the upper crust.' Then we drank in silence. When she had thought it over, Liz said, 'I suppose they are.' 'What Dave needs is counselling. He needs a supportive figure in a secure one-on-one situation. He needs the confidence-building skills that you alone can bring him.' 'Does he? I suppose he has been discriminated against, really...' 'One of society's outcasts. I'd saw 'I shouldn't have withdrawn my support.' 'Replace it, Liz! Prop the poor fellow up.' She took another gulp of the Ordinary red and came to a sensible conclusion. 'It's a bloody unjust world, Rumpole,' she said.

  'You've been all these years in the law, Liz. And you've only just found that out?' Rumpole own Trial considerable understatement to me. Before she rang off I offered to b buy Mizz Liz a drink in Pommeroy's that evening.

  When I ; returned to my cooling tea and toast, I told Hilda another tal lie of social distinctions. 'You know why The Wally confessed, to that triple murder?' I said. 'Snobbery, Hilda.

  Pure snobbbery. He thought he'd done in an old dosser called Bronco Bil'.llington but he didn't want to be potted for anything so down-rrmarket. So he put his hands up to a smart triple murder. TThat way he'd join the upper crust in chokey and be treated like;e a Lord by all the screws.' 'Rumpoble,' She said thoughtfully, 'I don't think we'll go to Sackbut C astle again.' 'I don't i think we'll be asked,' I told her.

  That ewening, at a corner table in Pommeroy's, and over a couple ofgglasses of Chateau Fleet Street, I broached a delicate subject wirith Mizz Probert. 'Liz, I wanted to tell you that I know all about the Honourable David Luxter, otherwise known as I Inchcape.' 'The Hoon. David!' Liz spat out the title. 'It's disgusting.' 'Instead 1 of a decent upbringing in a one-parent family in Camden, hhe was cursed with ex-Lord Chancellor Luxter as a grandad. I~He was a deprived child.' 'A whaf y Liz sounded puzzled.

  'They abll are, Mizz Liz. The lot of them. The Lords and Ladies andd Marquises of whatnot that figure in Debby's Diary in Coronet t magazine. They turn their sons out of the home at a tender aage. They put them into the care of some sort of young offeenders' secure home like Eton. They lie to them and tell them that their mothers are dead. The dice are loaded against thee young of the upper crust.' Then wve drank in silence. When she had thought it over, Liz said, 'II suppose they are.' 'What IPave needs is counselling. He needs a supportive figure in a secure one-on-one situation. He needs the confidencee-building skills that you alone can bring him.' 'Does hhe? I suppose he has been discriminated against, really...' ' 'One of society's outcasts, I'd say.' 150 Rumpole and the Family Pride 'I shouldn't have withdrawn my support.' 'Replace it, Liz! Prop the poor fellow up.' She took another gulp of the Ordinary red and came to a sensible conclusion. 'It's a bloody unjust world, Rumpole,' she said.

  'You've been all these years in the law, Liz. And you've only just found that out?' i5i However forward-looking we may all pretend to be, humanity is far more interested in its past than the future. Tell a man like Claude Erskine-Brown that the planet earth will be burnt to a cinder around a hundred years after his death and his eyes will glaze over and he'll change the subject to his past triumphs in motoring cases at Acton. Tell him that Mizz Liz Probert, our young radical lawyer, was seen in Pommeroy's Wine Bar a month ago holding hands with someone other than Dave Inchcape, her regular co-habitee, and the fellow will prick up his ears, his nostrils will flare and he will show an endless appetite for further and better particulars. Down at the Bailey we spend days and weeks delving into the past, trying to discover exactly who it was who was seen loitering outside the Eldorado Building Society in Surbiton on the day the Molloys did it over, or what precise form of words Tony Timson used in the police car to indicate he was prepared to accept responsibility for the Streatham Video Centre break-in.

  But when it comes to the future it's usually dismissed in a brief sentence like, 'You will go to prison for five years.' By and large, as I say, the future is a closed book which few people care to open. The exception to this rule was a client of mine, a somewhat odd bird called Roderick ArengoSmythe, whose eyes were firmly fixed on the time ahead. The future was a subject on which he claimed to have a good deal of inside information, derived from his acquaintances among dead people.

  Arengo-Smythe didn't burst into my life in the way some clients do, as the result of a robbery or sudden death. His approach was more circumspect, as, I suppose, might be expected of a man who spent such a lot of time whispering to the defunct. I got my first whiff of Arengo-Smythe in an oblique manner when I went into the clerk's room and discovered Soapy Sam Ballard, Q.c., the man who, by the workings of blind fate, became the Head of our Chambers, cancelling the arrangements for some much-needed repairs and refurbishments to our downstairs loo set for 14 December of that year.

  'We've had all this trouble arranging the builders, sir. Why does it have to be put off?' Henry, our clerk, protested.

  Considering the downstairs loo now resembles nothing so much as the black hole of Calcutta in a poor state of repair, I supported Henry's objection, 'Why not get on with it?' 'Not', Soapy Sam Ballard was adamant, 'on the i4th of December. I can't take the responsibility for that.' 'What on earth's wrong with the i4th of December? Is it the Ides of March or something?' 'Many a true word, Rumpole, is spoken in jest.' 'Please, Ballard. Don't babble. Just give us some idea of what you're talking about.' 'No time to explain. I've got a V.A.T. fraud starting before Mr Justice Graves. 'And,' he added darkly as he departed, 'Why don't you ask your wife?' After the fleeting thought, by no means new, that our Head of Chambers no longer had control of his marbles, I forgot our strange conversation. That evening Hilda and I sat on either side of the glowing gas-fire in Gloucester Road. I was defending Ronnie 'Rabbits' Timson at the time (so called because of his vegetarian diet and his addiction to green salad) on matters arising out of the affray in the Needle Arms, Stockwell. We were half-way through the trial, I had got a number of witnesses to contradict themselves on the question of identity and earned a few good laughs at the expense of the police officers' notebooks. Should I rest my case, or should I put Rabbits into the witness-box the next day to deny the charges?

  'What's the matter, Rumpole? Wool-gathering?' She Who Must Be Obeyed demanded my attention.

  'No. No, of course not. The problem is, if I call Rabbits Timson to give evidence tomorrow he'll probably convict himself out of his own mouth, and if I don't the Jury'11 think he's guilty anyway.' 'Don't you know what sort of a witness the Rabbits person is going to make?' 'Not exactly. I can't see into the future.' 'Well then, you should ring Marguerite Ballard.' 'Mrs Soapy Sam', the Head of our Chambers has taken it into his head to marry the ex-Matron down at the Bailey 'has she got some sort of crystal ball?' 'Not that. She's got a little man wh
o can tell her about the future.' She said it as though Mrs Ballard had rather a clever dressmaker round the corner. 'He's a fellow called ArengoSmythe.

  It seems she goes to him for readings.' 'The works of Dickens?' 'No. The future. And she's taken Sam to him once or twice.' 'Why? Is Ballard particularly interested in the future?' 'Of course. Since old Tubby Mathias dropped off the twig' , Hilda always called Her Majesty's judges by their more or less affectionate nicknames, 'Sam's been hoping for a job on the High Court Bench.' 'So he's been going to a soothsayer to discover if the Lord Chancellor's going to reward his complete lack of forensic skill with a scarlet and ermine dressing-gown?' 'Something like that.' Hilda looked disapproving, as well she might.

  'And does Arengo-Smythe tell him when he's going to get his bottom on the High Court Bench?' 'Marguerite didn't tell me that. But she did tell me that Sam was terribly worried about something else he said.' 'What was that?' 'That there was a great black cloud over the i4th of December.' And, as she said that, a small part of the future jigsaw fell into place. 'One of the best-known facts about the world is that it is exceedingly small. So it came as no particular surprise to me to be told by Henry that my old friend Mr Bernard, the faithful solicitor who goes out into the highways and byways and brings me back criminal work to enrich our lives in Gloucester Road, was coming with a new client, a certain Roderick Arengo-Smythe, who was about to face trial at the Old Bailey. So I was to be privileged to meet Sam Ballard's soothsayer.