The Second Rumpole Omnibus

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE SECOND RUMPOLE OMNIBUS

  Sir John Mortimer is a playwright, novelist and former practising barrister. During the war he worked with the Crown Film Unit and published a number of novels, before turning to theatre. He has written many film scripts, and plays for both radio and television, including A Voyage Round My Father, the Rumpole plays, which won him the British Academy Writer of the Year Award, and the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. He has also written Character Parts, which contains interviews with some of the most famous men and women of our time, and an acclaimed autobiography in three volumes, entitled Clinging to the Wreckage, Murderers and Other Friends and The Summer of a Dormouse. His novels include Summer’s Lease, Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained (which have been made into successful television series), Charade, Dunster, Felix in the Underworld and The Sound of Trumpets. Many of his books, including the Rumpole stories, are published by Penguin.

  Sir John lives with his wife and their youngest daughter in what was once his father’s house in the Chilterns. He received a knighthood for his services to the arts in the 1998 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

  JOHN MORTIMER IN PENGUIN

  Fiction

  Dunster Felix in the Underworld

  Like Men Betrayed The Narrowing Stream

  Charade Summer’s Lease

  Paradise Postponed Titmuss Regained

  The Sound of Trumpets

  The Rumpole Series

  The Trials of Rumpole Rumpole for the Defence

  The Best of Rumpole The First Rumpole Omnibus

  The Second Rumpole Omnibus

  The Third Rumpole Omnibus

  Rumpole and the Angel of Death

  Rumpole Rests His Case

  Autobiography

  Clinging to the Wreckage Murderers and Other Friends

  The Summer of a Dormouse

  Interviews

  Character Parts

  John Mortimer

  THE SECOND

  Rumpole

  OMNIBUS

  Rumpole for the Defence

  Rumpole and the Golden Thread

  Rumpole’s Last Case

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  Rumple for the Defence first published by Allen Lane, under the title Regina v. Rumpole 1981

  Published in Penguin Books 1982

  Rumpole and the Golden Thread first published by Penguin Books 1983

  Rumpole’s Last Case first published by Penguin Books 1987

  This collection first published by Viking 1987

  Published in Penguin Books 1988

  27

  Copyright © Advanpress Ltd, 1981, 1983, 1987

  All rights reserved

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-196078-4

  Contents

  Rumpole for the Defence

  Rumpole and the Golden Thread

  Rumpole’s Last Case

  Rumpole

  for the Defence

  Contents

  Rumpole and the Confession of Guilt

  Rumpole and the Gentle Art of Blackmail

  Rumpole and the Dear Departed

  Rumpole and the Rotten Apple

  Rumpole and the Expert Witness

  Rumpole and the Spirit of Christmas

  Rumpole and the Boat People

  Rumpole and the Confession of Guilt

  This morning a postcard, decorated with an American stamp and a fine view of the Florida freeways, put me in mind of the long-distant day when my son Nick first left these shores, leaving his mother and father staring at each other in wild surmise alone in our ‘mansion’ flat in Froxbury Court, Gloucester Road. Nick had finished with Oxford and was about to take up the offer of a postgraduate course at the University of Baltimore, which would lead to his teaching sociology and eventually becoming the head of his department in Miami. Today’s postcard was yet another invitation from our daughter-in-law, Erica, to hang up the wig, burn the Archbold on Criminal Law and retire to join Nick and his wife in the sunshine state, where Senior Citizens loll on beaches and never is heard a discouraging word from the likes of his Honour Judge Bullingham. If the time for such an uprooting were ever to arrive, it had not come yet. I still have enough strength and health to totter to my feet to address the jury. Pommeroy’s claret still keeps me astonishingly regular and I am still more or less profitably engaged on the sort of work which I was doing in that far-off day when my son Nick first set off to seek a newer world and found a swimming bath, an outdoor cooking device, a ‘car port’ for two motors and my daughter-in-law, Erica.

  I also remember the day Nick left for America because I was then defending a customer called Mr Gladstone in an attempted murder case which depended, in the main, on his own confession of guilt. Mr Gladstone was black. He lived in Brixton, and he was just sixteen years of age. I was reading his brief at breakfast with my wife Hilda (known to me as ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’), and something in the youth and boyishness of Mr Oswald Gladstone put me irresistably in mind of Wordsworth. Picture me then, dressed for battle in black jacket, winged collar and striped trousers, champing toast, and quoting the old sheep of the Lake District.

  ‘ “There was a boy; ye knew him well ye cliffs

  And islands of Winander! – Many a time,

  At evening, when the earliest stars began

  To move along the edges of the hills,

  Rising or setting, would he stand alone.”

  More toast, please, Hilda.

  “Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake;

  And there…

  Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls

  That they might answer him –”

  Refill of coffee, please, Hilda!’

  ‘Rumpole, I do wish you’d stop doing your legal work at breakfast. You’re getting butter all over that brief. Now about Nick, about your son…’

  ‘My client today is a boy, younger than Nick and engaged on rather less harmless pursuits than sociology. A brilliant client! I mean, he only took out a flick-knife and stabbed a young man in a bus queue. Outside Lord’s Cricket Ground. At four o’clock in the afternoon! Well, I mean, if you have to do that sort of thing, at least do it during the hours of darkness and, if possible, not in St John’s Wood Road.’

  ‘Rumpole! I’m trying to have a serious conversation!’ She gave me one of her severest looks.

  ‘Well, I think the fellow who got stabbed took it seriously,’ I told her. ‘He was a total stranger, of course. Just someone my juvenile client felt like stabbing. Absolutely brilliant!’

&nbs
p; ‘When are you going to say goodbye to your son, Rumpole, before he goes away to the other side of the world?’

  There was a sinister charge lurking in Hilda’s remark, but I had enough evidence to rebut her innuendo.

  ‘I’m meeting Nick at twelve,’ I told her complacently. ‘In the Army and Navy Stores. I’ll buy him a top coat for America, then we’ll have a good lunch, steak and kidney pud, I imagine, something of that nature. I’ve got to get back to Chambers for a four-thirty conference, so you give him tea, and then he’s off to the airport!’

  ‘How can you meet Nick at twelve o’clock? You’ll be in the Old Bailey at twelve o’clock.’ She launched into her cross-examination. Again I had my answer ready.

  ‘My case’ll be over in half an hour. It’s just a shortie. The young hopeful will have to plead guilty. Mr Gladstone signed a full confession of guilt to Detective Inspector Arthur, who is a most reliable officer. He grows prize chrysanthemums.’ Hilda was momentarily floored by this answer, but She came back fighting.

  ‘I don’t know why you have to go down to the Old Bailey at all, on Nick’s last day.’

  ‘They say crime doesn’t pay, but it’s a living, you know. That nice breakfast egg of yours is probably a tiny part of the proceeds of an unlawful carnal knowledge.’

  It wasn’t an answer that pleased Hilda, and She came back with a sharp one below the belt.

  ‘You’re an Old Bailey hack, that’s what you are, Rumpole,’ She said. ‘I heard your Head of Chambers, Guthrie Featherstone, say that at the garden party. “Dear old Rumpole,” he said, “is a bit of an Old Bailey hack!” ’

  Hilda, I thought, had gone too far. I’m not exactly a hack. I’ve been at the work for longer than I can remember and, as is generally recognized down at the Old Bailey, there are no flies on Rumpole. After all I cut my teeth on the Penge Bungalow Murders. I could win most of my cases if it weren’t for the clients. Clients have no tact, poor old darlings. No bloody sensitivity! They will waltz into the witness-box and blurt out things which are far better left unblurted. I suppose, when I was young, I used to suffer with my clients. I used to cringe when I heard their sentences and go down to the cells full of anger. Now I never watch their faces when sentence is passed. I hardly listen to the years pronounced and I never look back at the dock.

  These thoughts were occurring to me as I put on the wig and gown, and tied a moderately clean pair of bands round my neck in the robing room. My old friend, George Frobisher, was standing beside me, dressing up for some crime, and we found ourselves chatting about our work for the day.

  ‘My man decided to rob a dance hall on the night of the Police Ball!’ George and I appeared to have no luck with our clients.

  ‘We only get the stupid villains, George.’ I tried to cheer him up.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘The bright ones are all on holiday in Majorca. My little attempted murder’s bound to be a plea, of course.’

  ‘Bates isn’t too bad on a plea.’ George confirmed my own view of my Judge. ‘It’s when you fight he gets so sarcastic.’

  ‘All over in half an hour! I’m meeting my son Nick, you know. He’s off to America.’

  ‘You’re proud of him, aren’t you, Rumpole?’

  ‘Three years doing politics and sociology. Postgraduate? Of course! Nick’s got the brains of the family.’

  ‘You’re proud of that boy, Rumpole!’

  Of course George was perfectly right. I thanked my lucky stars for Nick, and not for the first time I wondered what on earth I’d do if I’d given birth to one of the Oswald Gladstones of this world, a boy who apparently stabbed cricket fans simply because they were there. He even failed as a murderer and would have no doubt to plead guilty to an attempt only. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a satisfactory explanation for Oswald Gladstone. I mean, I believe in Mutual Aid, Universal Tolerance, and the Supreme Individual. At heart, I’ve long suspected I’m an anarchist. Man is born free and is everywhere in chains. But my darling Count Leo Tolstoy, or jolly Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or even that old sweetheart, Prince Peter Kropotkin, would have drawn the line at shoving a flick-knife into a complete stranger, in broad daylight, waiting outside Lords for a number thirteen bus. For a whim!

  I was still troubled by these difficult matters when I met my eager Welsh solicitor, Mr Winter, an ardent reader of New Society and a pillar of the Islington Labour Party, who was accompanied by his articled clerk, Jo (who was in turn accompanied, as always, by a well-thumbed copy of Time Out). We had arranged to fortify ourselves with cups of coffee (scarcely distinguishable from tea) in the canteen at the Old Bailey.

  ‘What surprises me,’ Jo said with deep suspicion, ‘is how the other boys got away – including Ginger Robertson.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise! Everyone got away. Except one little black boy.’ Winter smiled in a meaningful way. ‘Mr Rumpole’ll crucify the police on this one.’

  ‘Crucify them? What for exactly, Mr Winter?’ I asked.

  ‘Racialism. You’ll roast them alive. Like you did in the Penge Bungalow Murders.’

  ‘What was that, Mr Winter?’ Young Jo is surprisingly ignorant of the great moments of legal history.

  ‘Before you were born, Jo. Before ever you were born, Mr Rumpole was crucifying the police!’ Winter told him proudly.

  Poor old Winter! The gullible old sweetheart believes that the customer’s always right. He can’t tell a dodgy car salesman from the unknown political prisoner. It was a sign of Winter’s incorrigible optimism on behalf of his clients that he went on to say, ‘You’ll have a bit of fun with this one, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Fun, Mr Winter? You call standing on your hind legs to plead guilty for a Jamaican teenager who pushes a knife into anyone who crosses his path – fun? What do I say to the Judge? “Do understand, my Lord. He’d just seen the West Indies drop a catch. Can I have a 50p fine, and time to pay?” ’

  ‘Did you say, “plead guilty?” ’ Mr Winter sounded deeply hurt.

  ‘Have you got any other ideas?’ I asked him.

  ‘They pick on these boys.’ Winter gave me his usual speech. ‘That’s what we’ve got to hammer home to the jury. The police victimize them, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘You mean the dear old British bobby has a blind, unreasoning prejudice against boys who stab people in bus queues?’ I asked, purely for information.

  ‘Anyway, can they prove it? No one identified him.’ Winter, the optimist, turned his attention to the facts.

  ‘That’s true. He was just another boy with a flick-knife. A common sight, apparently, at the St John’s Wood roundabout.’

  ‘Fingerprints were all smeared. There were no bloodstains on his clothing,’ Winter remembered.

  ‘I really wonder why they dragged us out of bed to come here at all,’ I murmured.

  ‘So where’s the prosecution case?’ My instructing solicitor concluded his well-reasoned address.

  ‘Gone! Vanished into thin air, Mr Winter!’ I encouraged him. ‘We’d get our costs against the police, a gold watch donated from the poor box, and have every Inspector in court demoted to the rank of P.C. If it wasn’t for one tiny triviality.’

  ‘What’s that, Mr Rumpole?’ Winter frowned.

  ‘Our brilliant client made a full, frank, free confession to the police – signed and witnessed.’

  ‘A confession to the police!’ Jo repeated with contempt.

  ‘He confessed to Inspector Arthur of E Division, a gentle, fatherly officer with a green finger for chrysanthemums,’ I reminded them both as Mr Winter searched among his papers, and found a much-used photostat.

  ‘Here’s an article that might help from the New Society, Mr Rumpole. It gives you figures on the arrests of black teenagers in one square mile of London. There’s an analysis in depth of racialism in the police. Obviously it’s based on strong feelings of sexual jealousy.’

  At which point Inspector Arthur, a grey-haired and benevolent-looking man in plain clothes, passed with his side-kick Ser
geant Shaw. They were carrying cups of coffee. I wished the Old Bill a cheery goodmorning.

  ‘Nice to see you, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Chrysanths all right, are they?’

  ‘Managed a First at the Division Flower Show, anyway,’ the Inspector said modestly. ‘See you in Court, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘In Court. Yes. What do you want me to do?’ I asked Mr Winter as the officers passed by. ‘Get Arthur to admit he forged the confession in a blue fit of penis envy? That’d give the old sweetie on the bench a fit of the vapours.’ I lit a small cigar and Winter sounded disappointed as he said, ‘Well you know best, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. Winter was still looking through his file hopefully.

  ‘We’ve got one character witness,’ he said. ‘The vicar. A Reverend Eldred Pickersgill. From the Sandringham Road Boys’ Club.’ Winter seemed proud of his coup and I hated to disillusion him.

  ‘The reckless use of an offensive weapon will be far outweighed by some clerk in holy orders who says the lad’s ping-pong shows promise!’ I said unkindly. ‘We must face facts, Mr Winter. Oswald Gladstone’ll have to plead guilty.’

  ‘I thought it might help us, calling a vicar.’

  ‘You, Mr Winter, a founder member of the Islington Humanist Association?’ I looked at him sadly. ‘You fall back on a dog-collar?’

  ‘Wouldn’t the Judge like it?’

  ‘Nothing inflames a sentence so much as an over-eager cleric. That’s my experience. We’d better go down.’ I stood up and the soliciting gentlemen followed me with Mr Winter still protesting weakly. ‘There’s a lot to be said for our client,’ he said.

  ‘Always,’ I agreed, and then Jo reminded me. ‘His mother put him in care when he was four. Can you imagine? Taking a little kid to the Brixton magistrates and handing him over as a menace to society. Can you imagine doing that?’ As a matter of fact I couldn’t.

  It’s part of the life of an Old Bailey hack to spend a good deal of his time down the cells. You walk in past the old door of Newgate, kicked and scarred, through which generations of villains were sent to the gallows or the treadmill. There’s a perpetual smell of cooking down the Old Bailey cells, and the screws are often to be found snatching odd snacks of six-inch-thick jam butty and gallons of tea. When I asked the officer in charge of the gate if Mr Gladstone was at home, he said, ‘I don’t think he’s gone out to lunch with the Lord Mayor.’ He called down the passage, ‘Counsel to see the piccaninny!’