The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  ‘I have already told you, sir. We don’t know Mr Banks.’

  ‘But you do know whoever it was, an officer of your Special Branch, perhaps, who stored the packing cases in Mr Culp’s shop, who told Mr Culp they were medical supplies, and arranged for this man MacRobert, who wanted to buy arms for his Ulster terrorists, to walk into your trap?’

  ‘All I can tell you is that the cases of arms were in the shop and MacRobert called for them.’ The Superintendent sighed, as though my defence were no more than a waste of his precious time.

  ‘Had MacRobert met Mr Banks?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘And the jury will never know because MacRobert has been silenced forever.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Blake saw him in the act of pulling out a weapon. He fired in self-defence.’

  ‘No doubt he did. But it leaves us, doesn’t it, a little short of evidence?’

  We weren’t entirely bereft of evidence, of course. All through my cross-examination I had been aware of a small, solemn, spectacled boy sitting outside the Court with his social worker, longing to help his father. I had hoped to get enough out of the Superintendent to avoid having to put young Matthew through the rigours of the witness-box, but I hadn’t succeeded. Now, Bernard whispered to me, ‘The little lad’s just longing to go in. Are you going to call him?’ The business of being a barrister involves the hard task of making decisions, instantly and on your feet. You may make the right decision, you may often get it wrong. The one luxury not open to you is that of not making up your mind. I stood silent as long as I dared and then committed myself.

  ‘Fortunately,’ I told the Superintendent, ‘I am in a position to call a witness who might be able to tell us a little more about the damned elusive Banks.’

  ‘Oh, please, Mr Rumpole’ – Sam Ballard’s whispered disapproval echoed through the Court – ‘don’t swear, particularly in front of a lady Judge.’

  Dressed in his best brown suit, a white shirt and a red bow tie, in the dock Stanley somehow looked more crumpled and less impressive than ever. He sat slumped like a sack of potatoes; the Court seemed too hot for him and he frequently dabbed his forehead with a folded handkerchief. However, when his son, a more alert figure, stepped into the witness-box and had the nature of the oath gently explained to him by Portia, Stanley pulled himself together. He sat up straight, his eyes shone with pride and he looked like a devoted parent whose son has just stood up to collect the best all-rounder prize at the school Speech Day. His pride only seemed to increase as I led young Matthew through his examination-in-chief.

  ‘Matthew. Do you remember a man coming to ask your father to store some boxes?’

  ‘I was in the shop.’

  ‘You were in the shop when he arrived?’

  ‘Yes. He said he was Mr Banks and I went and fetched Dad from the back. He was mending something.’ The boy answered clearly, without hesitation.

  The jury seemed to like him and I felt encouraged to ask for further details.

  ‘Can you remember what Mr Banks looked like?’

  ‘He had these gold-rimmed glasses. And they were coloured.’

  ‘What was coloured?’

  ‘The glass in them.’

  ‘Did your father talk to Mr Banks?’

  ‘Yes. I went upstairs. To finish my homework.’ Portia was listening carefully and noting down the evidence. Matthew was doing well and his ordeal, I hoped, was almost over. I asked him, ‘Did you see Mr Banks again?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When the policemen arrived for Dad. Mr Banks got out of the police car.’

  I looked at the jury and repeated slowly, ‘Mr Banks got out of the police car. What did he do then?’

  ‘He walked away.’ I smiled at Matthew, who didn’t smile back, but remained standing seriously at attention. ‘Yes. Thank you, Matthew. Oh, just wait there a minute, will you?’ I had to sit down then, and leave him to the mercy of Ballard. I had no particular fear, for Soapy Sam had never been a great cross-examiner. His first question, however, was not badly chosen. ‘Matthew. Are you very fond of your father?’

  ‘We look after each other.’ For the first time Matthew looked, unsmiling, at the dock. His father beamed back at him.

  ‘Oh, yes. I’m sure you do.’ Ballard tried the approach cynical. ‘And you want to help him, don’t you? You want to look after him in this case?’

  ‘I’d like him to come home.’ I was pleased to see Portia give Matthew a small smile before busying herself with her notes.

  ‘I’m sure you would. And have you and your father discussed this business of Mr Banks getting out of the police car?’ Ballard asked an apparently innocent question.

  ‘I told Dad what I saw.’

  ‘And did he tell you it was going to be his story that the police had set up this deal, through Mr Banks?’

  ‘He said something like that. Yes.’ It wasn’t exactly the best answer we could have expected.

  ‘So does it come to this? You’d say anything to help your father’s defence?’

  ‘My Lady. That was a completely uncalled for—’ I rose with not entirely simulated rage, anxious to give the boy a little respite.

  ‘Yes, Mr Rumpole,’ Portia agreed and then turned to the young witness. ‘Matthew. Are you sure you saw a man with glasses get out of the police car?’

  I subsided. My interruption had been a mistake. I had changed a poor and unsympathetic cross-examiner for a humane and understanding one who might put our case in far more damage. ‘Yes, I am. Quite sure.’

  ‘Apart from the fact that he had gold-rimmed glasses with tinted lenses, can you be sure it was the same man who came to your father’s shop and said he was Mr Banks?’ Portia probed gently and Ballard got on the bandwagon with a sharp ‘You can’t be sure, can you?’

  ‘Please, Mr Ballard.’ Unhappily, Phillida didn’t let Soapy Sam show himself at his worst. ‘Just think, Matthew,’ she said. ‘There’s absolutely no hurry.’

  There was a long silence then. Matthew was frowning and worried.

  ‘I think it was the same man,’ he said, and my heart sank.

  ‘You think it was.’ The Judge made a perfectly fair note and Ballard’s voice rose triumphantly as he repeated. ‘You think it was! But you can’t be sure.’

  ‘Well … Well, he looked the same. He was the same!’ And then Matthew turned from a carefully controlled, grown-up witness to a child again. He called across to his father in the dock, ‘He was, Dad? Wasn’t he?’

  And Stanley looked at him helplessly, unable to speak. The jury looked embarrassed, fiddled with their papers or stared at their feet. The blushing, confused child in the witness-box stood beyond the reach of all of us until the Judge mercifully released him. ‘I don’t think we should keep Matthew here a moment longer,’ she said. ‘Have either of you gentlemen any further questions?’

  Ballard had done his worst and there was no way in which I could repair the damage. Phillida said, ‘Thank you, Matthew. You can go now.’ And the boy walked down from the witness-box and towards the door of the Court. His social worker rose to follow him. As he got to the dock he looked at his father and said quietly, ‘Did I let you down, Dad?’

  I could hear him, but Stanley couldn’t. All the same his father raised his thumb in a hopeful, encouraging signal as Matthew left us to be taken back into care.

  Henry told me that, whilst we were on our way back from Court, the world-famous film star called at our clerk’s room in search of Phillida. When he was told that she had been sitting as a Judge down at the Old Bailey, he looked somewhat daunted.

  ‘Isn’t she too pretty to be a Judge?’

  ‘I don’t think the Lord Chancellor considered that, sir’ – Henry was at his most dignified – ‘when he made Mrs Erskine-Brown a Recorder.’

  ‘A Judge, ugh!’ Cy seemed to think this new position of Phillida’s was something of a bar to romance. ‘Anyway. Tell her I called by, will you? I’m getti
ng the red-eye back to the Coast tonight. Say, that’s a great gimmick!’ This came as a direct result of seeing Uncle Tom putting in the corner of the room. ‘What a great selling-point for your legal business.’

  On his way downstairs, Cy met Soapy Sam Ballard and engaged him in some conversation which our Head of Chambers later reported to me. It seems that Cy had asked Ballard if he worked with Phillida and, on being told that Sam was Head of our Chambers, said, ‘You run the shop! What a great gimmick you got, having an old guy playing golf in reception.’ When Ballard explained he meant to put an end to it, Cy said, ‘Are you crazy? Wait till I let them know on the Coast. There’s a British lawyers’ office, I’ll tell them, where they keep an old guy to play golf in reception. Kind of traditional. I tell you. You’ll get so much business from American lawyers! They’ll all want to come in here and they won’t believe it!’

  ‘You think Uncle Tom’ll bring us business?’ Ballard was puzzled.

  ‘You wait till I spread the word. You won’t be able to handle it.’

  In due course we made our final speeches and I sat back, my duty done, to hear her Ladyship sum up. ‘Members of the jury,’ she concluded, ‘the defence case is that this arms sale was staged by the police to trap the man, MacRobert. Mr Rumpole has said that the arms were deposited in the shop by a Mr Banks, who was a police officer in plain clothes, and that Mr Culp was simply told they were medical supplies. He was a quite innocent man, used as bait to trap the terrorist MacRobert. Are you sure that Mr Culp knew what was in those packing cases? They must have been extremely heavy for medical supplies. Do you accept young Matthew’s identification of Mr Banks as the man in the police car? He thinks it was Banks but, you remember, he couldn’t be sure. Members of the jury, the decision on the facts is entirely for you. If there’s a doubt, Mr Culp is entitled to the benefit of that doubt. Now, please, take all the time you need and, when you’re quite ready, come back and tell me what you have decided. Thank you.’

  So the usher swore to conduct the jury to their room and not to communicate with them until they had reached a verdict. As I said to my learned friend Mizz Liz Probert, it had been an utterly fair summing up by a completely unbiased Judge – always a terrible danger to the defence.

  The jury were out for almost three hours and then returned with a unanimous verdict of guilty. Of course, an Old Bailey Hack should take such results as part of the fair wear and tear of legal life. ‘Win a few, lose a few’, should be the attitude. I have never managed to do this, but I still hoped, by an argument which I thought might be extremely sympathetic to our particular Judge, to keep Stanley out of prison.

  Accordingly, when the time came for my speech in mitigation, I aimed straight for our Portia’s maternal instincts. ‘Whoever may be guilty in this case,’ I ended, ‘one person is entirely innocent. Young Matthew Culp has broken no laws, committed no offence. He is a hard-working, decent little boy and his only fault may be that he loves his father and wanted to help him. But if you sentence his father to prison, you send Matthew also. You sentence him to years in council care. You sentence him to years as an orphan, because his mother has long gone out of his life. You sentence him to being cut off from his only family, from the father he needs and who needs him. You sentence this small boy to a lonely life in a crowd of strangers. I ask your Ladyship to consider that and on behalf of Matthew Culp I ask you to say … no prison for this foolish father!’

  Phillida looked somewhat moved. She said quietly, ‘Yes. Thank you, Mr Rumpole. Thank you for all your help.’

  ‘If your Ladyship pleases.’ I sat and then Stanley Culp was told to stand for sentence. The fact that the Judge was an extremely pretty woman in no way softened the awesome nature of the occasion. ‘Culp,’ she began, ‘I have listened most carefully to all your learned Counsel has said, and said most eloquently, on your behalf.’ So far so good. ‘Unhappily, all the crimes we commit, all the mistakes we make, affect our innocent children. I am very conscious of the effect any prison sentence would have on your son, to whom I accept that you are devoted.’ So far so hopeful, but this wasn’t the end. ‘However, I have to protect society. And I have to remember that you were prepared to deal in murderous weapons which might have left orphans in Northern Ireland.’ This was not encouraging, and Portia then concluded, ‘The most lenient sentence I can impose on you is one of four years’ imprisonment. Take him down.’

  Stanley Culp was looking hopelessly round the Court as though searching for his son Matthew before the dock officer touched his arm and removed him from our sight.

  Pommeroy’s was the place to attempt to drown the memory of my failure, and Stanley’s four years. I sat alone at my corner table and there my old pupil, her day of judging done, sought me out. ‘I’m sorry about Culp,’ Portia said.

  ‘Never plead guilty,’ I advised her.

  ‘I was only …’

  ‘Doing your job?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘It is your job, isn’t it, Portia?’ I told her. ‘Deciding what’s going to happen to people. Judging them. Condemning them. Sending them downstairs. Not a very nice job, perhaps. Not as agreeable as cleaning out the drains or holding down a responsible position as a pox doctor’s clerk. Every day I thank heaven I don’t have to do it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I have become a Recorder? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Oh, no. No. Of course you should. Someone’s got to do it. I just thank God it’s not me.’

  ‘You’re lucky.’ She looked at me and I think she meant it.

  ‘I enjoy the luxury of defending people, protecting them where I can, keeping them out of chokey by the skin of my teeth. I’ve said a good many hard words in my time but “take him down” is an expression I’ve never used.’

  ‘Rumpole!’ She was hurt. ‘Do you imagine I enjoyed it?’

  ‘No, Portia. No, of course not. I never imagined that. You had to do your job and you did it so bloody fairly that my fellow got convicted. He was caught in a trap. Like the rest of us.’

  ‘Cheer up, Rumpole.’ Then she smiled. ‘I’ll buy you a large Pommeroy’s plonk.’

  ‘I am greatly obliged to your Ladyship.’ I drank up. ‘And what about young Tristan? Is he to pay his debt to society?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. He’s going to Bogstead.’ She announced another verdict.

  ‘Your Ladyship passed judgement in favour of my learned friend Mr Claude Erskine-Brown?’ I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Well. Not exactly. As a matter of fact Tristan passed judgement on himself.’

  What had happened, it seemed, was that, saying goodnight to her son, Phillida had been amazed to hear him say that he was eagerly looking forward to Bogstead. ‘But don’t you want to stay with us?’ his mother asked, and Tristan confessed that being in the bosom of his family all the time was a bit of a strain on his nerves as his father was forever listening to operas and his mother always had her nose inside some brief or other. It was difficult to talk to either of them.

  ‘I told him I’d talk to him whenever he wanted, that I’d tell him what I’d been doing, being a Judge, and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘And what did young Tristan say to that?’ I asked her.

  ‘He thought he’d find more to talk about with the chaps at Boggers,’ Phillida said more than a little sadly.

  I went back to Chambers to collect a brief for the next day, and there I met Sam Ballard, who was still unusually excited by his conversation with Cy Stratton, and had decided not to fire Uncle Tom, which made it unnecessary for me to set out for darkest Africa. I bought some flowers for Hilda at the Temple Underground station, and when I got home and presented them to her I noticed our so-called ‘mansion’ flat was strangely silent.

  ‘Boxey’s gone.’ Hilda spoke in a businesslike tone, concealing whatever emotion she may have felt. ‘And what are they for?’

  ‘Oh, to stick in a vase somewhere.’ I restrained myself, with difficulty, from dancing with joy.

>   ‘He must have gone when I was out buying chops for our supper and he didn’t even say goodbye. Why would Boxey do a thing like that?’

  ‘Certainly not running away from the prospect of looking after you, Hilda. Never mind.’ We went into the sitting room and I poured her a large gin and tonic and myself a celebratory Pommeroy’s. ‘He was always such fun as a young man was Boxey,’ Hilda said.

  ‘We look before and after;

  We pine for what is not;

  Our sincerest laughter

  With some pain is fraught,’

  I told her.

  ‘Quite honestly, Rumpole’ – Hilda was becoming daring – ‘did you think Boxey had become a bit of a bore in his old age?’

  ‘Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. I’m not going to Africa, Hilda.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were.’

  ‘I shall never see the elephant and gazelle gathering at the water-hole. I shall never see zebra stampeding in the dawn. I shall get no nearer Africa than Boxey did.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean, Rumpole?’

  ‘All that talk about evening dress to impress the natives. I bet he got that straight out of H. Rider Haggard. And didn’t it occur to you, Hilda? There are absolutely no tigers in Kenya!’

  There was a long silence, and then Hilda said with a rueful smile, ‘Boxey asked me for a thousand pounds to start a smallholding, with battery hens.’

  ‘I don’t believe he’s been further East than Bognor. You didn’t give him anything?’

  ‘Out of the overdraft? Don’t be foolish, Rumpole. So you’re staying here.’

  ‘Soapy Sam Ballard told Uncle Tom to carry on golfing; he thinks it’ll bring us a great deal of business with American lawyers.’ I poured myself another comforting glass. ‘You know, I lost the case against Ballard.’

  ‘I thought so. You’re not so unbearable when you lose.’ She thought the situation over and then said, ‘So we’ll have to get along without Boxey.’

  ‘How on earth shall we manage?’

  ‘As we always do, I suppose. Just you and I together.’