The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  When I went up to Ballard’s room to look for my beloved Ackerman, the door had been left a little open. Standing in the corridor I could hear the voices of those arch-conspirators, Claude Erskine-Brown and Soapy Sam Ballard, QC. I have to confess that I lingered to catch a little of the dialogue.

  ‘Keith from the Lord Chancellor’s office sounded you out about Guthrie Featherstone?’ Erskine-Brown was asking.

  ‘As the fellow who took over his Chambers. He thought I might have a view.’

  ‘And have you? A view, I mean.’

  ‘I told Keith that Guthrie was a perfectly charming chap, of course.’ Soapy Sam was about to damn Guthrie with the faintest of praise.

  ‘Oh, perfectly charming. No doubt about that,’ Claude agreed.

  ‘But as a Judge, perhaps, he lacks judgement.’

  ‘Which is a pretty important quality in a Judge,’ Claude thought.

  ‘Exactly. And perhaps there is some lack of …’

  ‘Gravitas?’

  ‘The very word I used, Claude.’

  ‘There was a bit of lack of gravitas in Chambers, too,’ Claude remembered, ‘when Guthrie took a shine to a temporary typist …’

  ‘So the upshot of my talk with Keith was …’

  ‘What was the upshot?’

  ‘I think we may be seeing a vacancy on the High Court Bench.’ Ballard passed on the sad news with great satisfaction. ‘And old Keith was kind enough to drop a rather interesting hint.’

  ‘Tell me, Sam?’

  ‘He said they might be looking for a replacement from the same stable.’

  ‘Meaning these Chambers in Equity Court?’

  ‘How could it mean anything else?’

  ‘Sam, if you go on the Bench, we should need another silk in Chambers!’ Claude was no doubt licking his lips as he considered the possibilities.

  ‘I don’t see how they could refuse you.’ These two were clearly hand in glove.

  ‘There’s no doubt Guthrie’ll have to go.’ Claude pronounced the death sentence on our absent friend.

  ‘He comes out with such injudicious remarks.’ Soapy Sam put in another drop of poison. ‘He was just like that at Marlborough.’

  ‘Did you tell old Keith that?’ Claude asked and then sat open-mouthed as I burst from my hiding-place with ‘I bet you did!’

  ‘Rumpole!’ Ballard also looked put out. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’

  ‘I’ve been listening to the Grand Conspiracy.’

  ‘You must admit, Featherstone, J, has made the most tremendous boo-boo.’ Claude smiled as though he had never made a boo-boo in his life.

  ‘In the official view,’ Soapy Sam told me, ‘he’s been remarkably stupid.’

  ‘He wasn’t stupid.’ I briefed myself for Guthrie’s defence. ‘As a matter of fact he understood the case extremely well. He came to a wise decision. He might have phrased his judgement more elegantly, if he hadn’t been to Marlborough. And let me tell you something, Ballard. My wife Hilda is about to start a law course at the Open University. She is a woman, as I know to my cost, of grit and determination. I expect to see her Lord Chief Justice of England before you get your bottom within a mile of the High Court Bench!’

  ‘Of course you’re entitled to your opinion.’ Ballard looked tolerant. ‘And you got your fellow off. All I know for certain is that the Lord Chancellor has summoned Guthrie Featherstone to appear before him.’

  The Lord Chancellor of England was a small, fat, untidy man with steel-rimmed spectacles which gave him the schoolboy look which led to his nickname ‘The Owl of the Remove’. He was given to fits of teasing when he would laugh aloud at his own jokes and unpredictable bouts of biting sarcasm during which he would stare at his victims with cold hostility. He had been, for many years, the Captain of the House of Lords croquet team, a game in which his ruthless cunning found full scope. He received Guthrie in his large, comfortably furnished room overlooking the Thames at Westminster, where his long wig was waiting on its stand and his gold-embroidered purse and gown were ready for his procession to the woolsack. Two years after this confrontation, I found myself standing with Guthrie at a Christmas party given in our Chambers to members past and present, and he was so far gone in Brut (not to say Brutal) Pommeroy’s Méthode Champenoise as to give me the bare bones of this historic encounter. I have fleshed them out from my knowledge of both characters and their peculiar habits of speech.

  ‘Judgeitis, Featherstone,’ I hear the Lord Chancellor saying. ‘It goes with piles as one of the occupational hazards of the judicial profession. Its symptoms are pomposity and self-regard. It shows itself by unnecessary interruptions during the proceedings or giving utterance to private thoughts far, far better left unspoken.’

  ‘I did correct the press report, Lord Chancellor, with reference to the shorthand writer.’ Guthrie tried to sound convincing.

  ‘Oh, I read that.’ The Chancellor was unimpressed. ‘Far better to have left the thing alone. Never give the newspapers a second chance. That’s my advice to you.’

  ‘What’s the cure for judgeitis?’ Guthrie asked anxiously.

  ‘Banishment to a golf club where the sufferer may bore the other members to death with recollections of his old triumphs on the Western Circuit.’

  ‘You mean, a Bill through two Houses of Parliament?’ The Judge stared into the future, dismayed.

  ‘Oh, that’s quite unnecessary!’ The Chancellor laughed mirthlessly. ‘I just get a Judge in this room and say, “Look here, old fellow. You’ve got it badly. Judgeitis. The press is after your blood and quite frankly you’re a profound embarrassment to us all. Go out to Esher, old boy,” I say, “and improve your handicap. I’ll give it out that you’re retiring early for reasons of health.” And then I’ll make a speech defending the independence of the Judiciary against scurrilous and unjustified attacks by the press.’

  Guthrie thought about this for what seemed a silent eternity and then said, ‘I’m not awfully keen on golf.’

  ‘Why not take up croquet?’ The Chancellor seemed anxious to be helpful. ‘It’s a top-hole retirement game. The women of England are against you. I hear they’ve been demonstrating outside the Old Bailey.’

  ‘They were only a few extremists.’

  ‘Featherstone, all women are extremists. You must know that, as a married man.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right, Lord Chancellor.’ Guthrie now felt his position to be hopeless. ‘Retirement! I don’t know how Marigold’s going to take it.’

  The Lord Chancellor still looked like a hanging judge, but he stood up and said in businesslike tones, ‘Perhaps it can be postponed in your case. I’ve talked it over with old Keith.’

  ‘Your right-hand man?’ Guthrie felt a faint hope rising.

  ‘Exactly.’ The Lord Chancellor seemed to be smiling at some private joke. ‘You may have an opportunity some time in the future, in the not-too-distant future, let us hope, to make your peace with the women of England. You may be able to put right what they regard as an injustice to one of their number.’

  ‘You mean, Lord Chancellor, my retirement is off?’ Guthrie could scarcely believe it.

  ‘Perhaps adjourned. Sine die.’

  ‘Indefinitely?’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad you keep up with your Latin.’ The Chancellor patted Guthrie on the shoulder. It was an order to dismiss. ‘So many fellows don’t.’

  So Guthrie had a reprieve and, in the life of Tony Timson also, dramatic events were taking place. April’s friend Chrissie was once married to Shaun Molloy, a well-known safe breaker, but their divorce seemed to have severed her connections with the Molloy clan and Tony Timson had agreed to receive and visit her. It was Chrissie who lived on their estate and had given the party before which April and Tony had struggled in the bath together; but it was at Chrissie’s house, it seemed, that Peanuts Molloy was to be a visitor. So Tony’s friendly feelings had somewhat abated, and when Chrissie rang the chimes on his front door one afternoon when Apr
il was out, he received her with a brusque ‘What you want?’

  ‘I thought you ought to know, Tony. It’s not right.’

  ‘What’s not right?’

  ‘Your April and Peanuts. It’s not right.’

  ‘You’re one to talk, aren’t you, Chrissie? April was going round yours to meet Peanuts at a party.’

  ‘He just keeps on coming to mine. I don’t invite him. Got no time for Peanuts, quite honestly. But him and your April. They’re going out on dates. It’s not right. I thought you ought to know.’

  ‘What you mean, dates?’ As I have said, Tony’s life had not been a bed of roses since his return home, but now he was more than usually troubled.

  ‘He takes her out partying. They’re meeting tonight round the offey in Morrison Avenue. Nine-thirty-time, she told me. Just thought you might like to know, that’s all,’ the kindly Chrissie added.

  So it happened that at 9.30 that night, when Ruby was presiding over an empty off-licence in Morrison Avenue, Tony Timson entered it and stood apparently surveying the tempting bottles on display but really waiting to confront the errant April and Peanuts Molloy. He heard a door bang in some private area behind Ruby’s counter and then the strip lights stopped humming and the off-licence was plunged into darkness. It was not a silent darkness, however; it was filled with the sound of footsteps, scuffling and heavy blows.

  Not long afterwards a police car with a wailing siren was screaming towards Morrison Avenue; it was wonderful with what rapidity the Old Bill was summoned whenever Tony Timson was in trouble. When Detective Inspector Brush and his sergeant got into the off-licence, their torches illuminated a scene of violence. Two bodies were on the floor. Ruby was lying by the counter, unconscious, and Tony was lying beside some shelves, nearer to the door, with a wound in his forehead. The Sergeant’s torch beam showed a heavy cosh lying by his right hand and pound notes scattered around him. ‘Can’t you leave the women alone, boy?’ the Detective Inspector said as Tony Timson slowly opened his eyes.

  So another Timson brief came to Rumpole, and Mr Justice Featherstone got a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the Lord Chancellor and the women of Islington.

  Like two knights of old approaching each other for combat, briefs at the ready, helmeted with wigs and armoured with gowns, the young black-haired Sir Hearthrug and the cunning old Sir Horace, with his faithful page Mizz Liz in attendance, met outside Number 1 Court at the Old Bailey and threw down their challenges.

  ‘Nemesis,’ said Hearthrug.

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’ I asked him.

  ‘Timson’s for it now.’

  ‘Let’s hope justice will be done,’ I said piously.

  ‘Guthrie’s not going to make the same mistake twice.’

  ‘Mr Justice Featherstone’s a wise and upright Judge,’ I told him, ‘even if his foot does get into his mouth occasionally.’

  ‘He’s a judge with the Lord Chancellor’s beady eye upon him, Rumpole.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that this case was going to be decided by the Lord Chancellor.’

  ‘By him and the women of England.’ Hearthstoke smiled at Mizz Probert in what I hoped she found a revolting manner. ‘Ask your learned junior.’

  ‘Save your breath for Court, Hearthrug. You may need it.’ So we moved on, but as we went my learned junior disappointed me by saying, ‘I don’t think Tony Timson should get away with it again.’ ‘Happily, that’s not for you to decide,’ I told her. ‘We can leave that to the good sense of the jury.’

  However, the jury, when we saw them assembled, were not a particularly cheering lot. For a start, the women outnumbered the men by eight to four and the women in question looked large and severe. I was at once reminded of the mothers’ meetings that once gathered round the guillotine and I seemed to hear, as Hearthstoke opened the prosecution case, the ghostly click of knitting needles.

  His opening speech was delivered with a good deal of ferocity and he paused now and again to flash a white-toothed smile at Miss Lorraine Frinton, who sat once more, looking puzzled, in front of her shorthand notebook.

  ‘Members of the jury,’ Hearthrug intoned with great solemnity. ‘Even in these days, when we are constantly sickened by crimes of violence, this is a particularly horrible and distressing event. An attack with this dangerous weapon’ – here he picked up the cosh, Exhibit 1, and waved it at the jury – ‘upon a weak and defenceless woman.’

  ‘Did you say a woman, Mr Hearthstoke?’ Up spoke the anxious figure of the Red Judge upon the Bench. I cannot believe that pure chance had selected Guthrie Featherstone to preside over Tony Timson’s second trial.

  Our Judge clearly meant to redeem himself and appear, from the outset, as the dedicated protector of that sex which is sometimes called the weaker by those who have not the good fortune to be married to She Who Must Be Obeyed.

  ‘I’m afraid so, my Lord,’ Hearthstoke said, more in anger than in sorrow.

  ‘This man Timson attacked a woman!’ Guthrie gave the jury the benefit of his full outrage. I had to put some sort of a stop to this so I rose to say, ‘That, my Lord, is something the jury has to decide.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole,’ Guthrie told me, ‘I am fully aware of that. All I can say about this case is that should the jury convict, I take an extremely serious view of any sort of attack on a woman.’

  ‘If they were bathing it wouldn’t matter,’ I muttered to Liz as I subsided.

  ‘I didn’t hear that, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Not a laughing matter, my Lord,’ I corrected myself rapidly.

  ‘Certainly not. Please proceed, Mr Hearthstoke.’ And here his Lordship whispered to his clerk Wilfred, ‘I’m not having old Rumpole twist me round his little finger in this case.’

  ‘Very wise, if I may say so, my Lord,’ Wilfred whispered back as he sat beside the Judge, sharpening his pencils.

  ‘Members of the jury,’ an encouraged Hearthstoke proceeded. ‘Mrs Ruby Churchill, the innocent victim, works in an off-licence near the man Timson’s home. Later we shall look at a plan of the premises. The prosecution does not allege that Timson carried out this robbery alone. He no doubt had an accomplice who entered by an open window at the back of the shop and turned out the lights. Then, we say, under cover of darkness, Timson coshed the unfortunate Mrs Churchill, whose evidence you will hear. The accomplice escaped with most of the money from the till. Timson, happily for justice, slipped and struck his head on the corner of the shelves. He was found in a half-stunned condition, with the cosh and some of the money. When arrested by Detective Inspector Brush he said, “You got me this time, then.” You may think that a clear admission of guilt.’ And now Hearthstoke was into his peroration. ‘Too long, members of the jury,’ he said, ‘have women suffered in our Courts. Too long have men seemed licensed to attack them. Your verdict in this case will be awaited eagerly and hopefully by the women of England.’

  I looked at Mizz Liz Probert and I was grieved to note that she was receiving this hypocritical balderdash with starry-eyed attention. During the mercifully short period when the egregious Hearthrug had been a member of our Chambers in Equity Court, I remembered, Mizz Liz had developed an inexplicably soft spot for the fellow. I was pained to see that the spot remained as soft as ever.

  Even as we sat in Number 1 Court, the Islington women were on duty in the street outside bearing placards with the legend JUSTICE FOR WOMEN. Claude Erskine-Brown and Soapy Sam Ballard passed these demonstrators and smiled with some satisfaction. ‘Guthrie’s in the soup again, Ballard,’ Claude told his new friend. ‘They’re taking to the streets!’

  Ruby Churchill, large, motherly and clearly anxious to tell the truth, was the sort of witness it’s almost impossible to cross-examine effectively. When she had told her story to Hearthstoke, I rose and felt the silent hostility of both Judge and jury.

  ‘Before you saw him in your shop on the night of this attack,’ I asked her, ‘did you know my client, Mr Timson?’

  ‘I knew him.
He lives round the corner.’

  ‘And you knew his wife, April Timson?’

  ‘I know her. Yes.’

  ‘She’s been in your shop?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’

  ‘With her husband?’

  ‘Sometimes with him. Sometimes without.’

  ‘Sometimes without? How interesting.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole. Have you many more questions for this unfortunate lady?’ Guthrie seemed to have been converted to the view that female witnesses shouldn’t be subjected to cross-examination.

  ‘Just a few, my Lord.’

  ‘Please. Mrs Churchill,’ his Lordship gushed at Ruby. ‘Do take a seat. Make yourself comfortable. I’m sure we all admire the plucky way in which you are giving your evidence. As a woman.’

  ‘And as a woman,’ I made bold to ask, after Ruby had been offered all the comforts of the witness-box, ‘did you know that Tony Timson had been accused of trying to drown his wife in the bath? And that he was tried and bound over?’

  ‘My Lord. How can that possibly be relevant?’ Hearthrug arose, considerably narked.

  ‘I was about to ask the same question.’ Guthrie sided with the prosecution. ‘I have no idea what Mr Rumpole is driving at!’

  ‘Oh, I thought your Lordship might remember the case,’ I said casually. ‘There was some newspaper comment about it at the time.’

  ‘Was there really?’ Guthrie affected ignorance. ‘Of course, in a busy life one can’t hope to read every little paragraph about one’s cases that finds its way into the newspapers.’

  ‘This found its way slap across the front page, my Lord.’

  ‘Did it really? Do you remember that, Mr Hearthstoke?’

  ‘I think I remember some rather ill-informed comment, my Lord.’ Hearthstoke was not above buttering up the Bench.

  ‘Ill-informed. Yes. No doubt it was. One has so many cases before one …’ As Guthrie tried to forget the past, I hastily drew the witness back into the proceedings. ‘Perhaps your memory is better than his Lordship’s?’ I suggested to Ruby. ‘You remember the case, don’t you, Mrs Churchill?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember it.’ Ruby had no doubt.