Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (14 page)

‘But I don't want
you
on my defence team, Mr C. H. Wystan. I only want Mr Rumpole.'

‘Mr Barnsley Gough, had you any idea about this?' Wystan seemed to be crying for help.

‘The client did mention it. I told him it was out of the question.'

‘Quite out of the question, for whatever reason . . .' This was Wystan speaking.

‘I'll tell you the reason.' Simon broke into the lawyers' conversation with a new confidence. ‘Because you are not going to do a thing for me. You said you wouldn't ask any questions and, what's more, you didn't, did you, Mr Wystan? You just sat there like a pudding.'

‘A pudding?' My leader couldn't believe his ears and he called on our solicitor for confirmation. ‘Did he say “
pudding
”?'

‘I believe he did,' Barnsley Gough had to admit. ‘The young man's not quite himself, of course.'

‘I am quite myself,' Simon told us all. ‘In fact, I feel much more like myself again. Mr Rumpole wanted you to ask about the magazine, didn't he? I could hear him from the dock. He's got a loud whisper, has Mr Rumpole. “Ask about the magazine,” he was saying. “It's in my notes.” And what did you do, Mr C. H. Wystan? Sat there like a pudding and did nothing for me. Mr Rumpole asked the questions and got a good answer. I never loaded the gun.'

‘“Like a pudding” again.' Wystan turned once more to Barnsley Gough as though he couldn't believe his ears.

‘And then who got the doctor to admit I couldn't have shot Dad in the way they said? Mr Rumpole! When you were away on other business.'

This outburst seemed to have exhausted Simon. He had felt the surge of anger which no doubt overcame him when the ex-RAF officers attacked him for having missed the war. He sat in silence, smoking his Capstan full-strength, which he now held delicately between his fingers. From then on my leader ignored him, only addressing himself to Mr Barnsley Gough. ‘It's clear, isn't it, Mr Gough? Our client has lost faith in his appointed counsel.'

‘I'm afraid that would seem to be the case, Mr Wystan.'

‘And he used unpleasant, insulting language.' The pudding had clearly stuck in my leader's gullet.

‘He is under some strain, of course,' Barnsley Gough was fair enough to say again.

‘Of course he is. We all understand that. But he must realize I can't continue to represent him if he has no confidence in me.'

‘Oh, I'm sure he doesn't want that . . .' Barnsley Gough tried to say, but he was interrupted by Simon.

‘Yes, I do want that. I want it very much indeed.'

‘Then, with that further clear indication of the client's wishes, I shall withdraw from the case. Rumpole, you will no doubt withdraw with me.'

But Simon repeated, ‘I want Mr Rumpole to stay.'

I looked at my leader and I have to admit I felt sorry for him. He had given me my first important job and done nothing worse than adopt a course of masterly inactivity which he thought of as the most tactful way of living through a hopeless case. And yet there were more important things in life than feeling sorry for Hilda's daddy. Simon helped me by repeating his instructions: ‘I want Mr Rumpole to stay and do my case!'

‘Rumpole,' Wystan spoke to me as though he had never heard a word from Simon, ‘when a leading counsel withdraws from a case, his junior naturally withdraws also.'

‘Is there a law about that?' I was doubtful enough to ask.

‘No law. It's just one of the finest traditions of the great profession of the bar.'

Wystan was reluctant to speak of such matters in the presence of a solicitor, so I spoke rapidly, and in a low voice, ‘The finest traditions of our great profession,' I told him, I hoped quietly, ‘may not be so important as saving Simon's life.'

‘If you think that,' Wystan looked as though I had said something deeply shocking, ‘then all I can say is you'd better ask to see the judge.'

 

With his wig off and finishing a fat cigar, the Lord Chief Justice seemed smaller, almost insignificant. He sat in his room, which was decorated with photographs of the prize pigs he reared on his farm on the Berkshire Downs, and listened with half a smile to Wystan's long complaint in which the word ‘pudding' was to be heard and often repeated. He cut short the tale of woe, when it was, I suppose, about three-quarters of the way through. ‘I understand completely, Wystan,' he said. ‘I believe your position has become untenable and you're entitled to withdraw and Mr . . .' there followed the inevitable ‘umm . . . Rumpole.'

‘I'm going to stay,' I told His Lordship. ‘I mean, our client wants me to do the case.'

‘Then your client's wishes must be respected. How long since you've been called to the bar?'

‘Eighteen months,' was what I had to tell him.

‘Eighteen months! It was fifteen years before I did my first defence in a murder case. The Hastings strangler, if you remember it, Wystan? Of course I made a complete balls-up of it. Merely tightened the noose round the client's neck. I'd better have young Jerold up in court and warn him of the dangers. Thank you for keeping me in the picture, Wystan. No doubt you'll find a more profitable occupation than a murder on Legal Aid. By the way, Winterbourne,' here the judge addressed the prosecutor, who was entitled to be present at the meeting and had nothing much to lose, ‘how long is this trial going to last?'

‘It'll be more weeks, My Lord. We've got all the witnesses from the party and the police evidence. And if the defence call the boy . . .'

‘Two more weeks?' The Lord Chief Justice seemed surprised. ‘Cases were much shorter in my day. Well, I suppose we'll get through it!'

As he left, I was hoping against hope that Simon would live through it as well as the rest of us.

 

Simon was brought up from the cells and, in the absence of the jury, the situation was explained to him with painstaking clarity by the Lord Chief Justice. Simon's leader, a man of huge experience and the highest of reputations, had withdrawn from the case. He, the judge, was surprised beyond belief that Simon Jerold should have caused Mr C. H. Wystan's departure. That left young Mr Umm . . . (He seemed longer than ever searching for my name, as though to emphasize my obscurity and complete absence of reputation around the courts of law.) Ah! (The Lord Chief Justice had found my name, but pronounced it with some difficulty) Mr Rum - yes, Rumpole. A barrister only recently called, who was unknown, as far as he could gather, around the Old Bailey. Usually a junior withdrew from the case with his leader, but this young man had chosen to offer himself as counsel for the defence. It had to be said that he had asked a few questions with reasonable confidence, but he had clearly never before dealt with a case of such importance. Now, would Simon Jerold like an adjournment in order that a barrister of similar standing to Mr Wystan be found who might be prepared to act?

‘No, sir.' Simon spoke clearly and with determination from the dock. ‘I'd like to get on with it. And I want Mr Rumpole to do my case.'

It was an odd moment when Simon, and not the judge, seemed to dominate the proceedings. The judge, without even having taken snuff, blew his nose on the silk handkerchief and then wiped it carefully. After a short period of contemplation, staring at the apparently determined young man in the dock, he gave in. ‘Well, I suppose you're entitled to the counsel of your choice. Have you any objections to Mr Rumpole conducting the case for the defence, Mr Winterbourne?'

The prosecutor rumbled to his feet and, with a knowing smile, said, ‘None whatever, My Lord.'

‘I thought you might say that.' The judge smiled back, but his smile died when he said, ‘Mr Rumpole, you now take over the sole responsibility for this young man's defence.'

As I stood to thank His Lordship, I heard Reggie Proudfoot, in a stage whisper beside me, say how delighted he'd be to see me make a complete pig's breakfast of the job. Then I sat down while the jury were called back into court and my sole responsibility began.

So, that is how I came to do the Penge Bungalow Murders alone and without a leader.

15

‘Why did you have to put that disgusting bit about the Sampson woman in your memoirs, Rumpole?'

Hilda's question alerted me to the danger of a man leaving his memoirs free and open about the matrimonial home. Perhaps I should always write in chambers in future. For the moment, however, I answered her as well as I could. ‘Because it wasn't disgusting. Unhappily, nothing in the least disgusting occurred. I'm trying to tell the truth, Hilda, to be honest about my failures.'

‘Well, you'd better not be a failure next month.'

Her remark puzzled me. ‘I'm not expecting any particularly important trial.'

‘You'll have to be on your best behaviour, Rumpole. Dodo Mackintosh will be here and some of the girls we were at school with. Sandy Butterworth and Emma Glastonbury and the Gage twins and lots more. We've got tickets for
Phantom of the Opera
and then we're coming back here for a slap-up supper.'

‘You mean Dodo Mackintosh will be staying?' I was somewhat daunted by the prospect.

‘She likes you, Rumpole. She does her best to help. Don't you remember, she makes cheesy bits for your chambers' parties?'

‘Which was the one who said it was such a pity I never got made a circus judge?'

‘Circuit judge, Rumpole. Heather Gage said she was sorry your face didn't fit with the powers that be.'

‘Thank God for that. I don't have a face for the circus.'

‘The Gage twins' father was a circuit judge, so of course he knows all about it.'

‘And I bet he never, at my tender age, stood up to do a double murder without a leader at the Old Bailey.'

‘He lives in Wimbledon.'

‘That's exactly what I mean. So all your school friends will be coming back here after an evening at the theatre?'

‘The whole jolly crowd of them.'

‘I can only hope,' I was remembering another after-theatre party, ‘that no one gets shot.'

 

‘Now we can really talk.' My first day alone in court hadn't presented too many problems. Simon's statement to the police was put in and read. We had the evidence of finding the pistol in the dustbin. The Lord Chief wanted to rise early: it was a Friday and he said, with apparent generosity, we could have the afternoon off ‘so Mr Rumpole could prepare himself to take over the defence'. In reality, I suspected, he was longing to visit his prize pigs. The ex-officers who had made up the theatre party were to be called next week. This was just as well, because I had to put our defence to them and I hadn't as yet any idea of what our defence could be. I knew that if I went back to my chambers, I should find C. H. Wystan skulking in his tent, no doubt determined to banish me from Equity Court for ever, so I took the opportunity of another meeting in the interview room down below and hoped for help from Simon. Barnsley Gough had remembered an important meeting of his local Masons' lodge, so Bonny Bernard was left with me in sole charge of the case.

‘You were a schoolboy when the war broke out. Old enough to remember . . .'

‘Oh, yes. Quite old enough.'

‘Your father joined up early?'

‘Very early. He was excited about it. Enthusiastic. I remember he was so pleased with himself when he was made a pilot officer. He said he got through his training first class. He was so proud, the first time he came home on leave in the full uniform.'

Simon had changed. His words, held back in the gloomy conferences with Hilda's daddy, seemed unblocked and came tumbling out of him. He had, I suppose, achieved a legal triumph and changed barristers in midstream. The terrifying fact was that I felt sure that he thought, with me in charge, he was set fair for an acquittal. Little did he know that, on that Friday afternoon, the Rumpole head was quite empty of ideas. Had I made an enemy of C. H. Wystan and invited my exit from Equity Court just in order to achieve the ghastly result Hilda's daddy could have arrived at with no trouble at all? I did my best to dismiss such unhelpful thoughts from my mind and concentrated on listening to Simon.

‘And were you proud of him?'

‘Of course I was! A schoolboy with a pilot officer, a man with wings on his uniform, for a father. Of course. I used to boast at school about him.'

‘In the early years of the war, during the Blitz, you were living in a London suburb?'

‘I know. It was exciting, wasn't it? Skies lit up with fires. Streets full of broken glass. And Mum and I used to go down the shelter with our gas masks and listen to Gracie Fields singing on the portable.'

‘“Walter! Walter! Lead me to the altar. It's either the workhouse or you.”' In the memory of those old days, I burst into song, perhaps unexpectedly, as the door opened and one of the screws, still chewing a sandwich, said, ‘You all right, Mr Rumpole?'

‘Perfectly all right, thank you. I'm afraid I sang rather too loudly.'

‘Don't worry, sir. We don't get much singing of any sort. Not down here.' And so the friendly screw left us.

‘And your mother?' I gave Simon my full attention.

‘Oh, she was proud too. I'm sure she loved Dad. Particularly in uniform.'

I remembered my uniform as a member of the ground staff. It hadn't won me many conquests, apart from the brief but memorable love affair with WAAF Bobby O'Keefe. But back to business. ‘The chaps at the party after the Palladium, were they friends of your father's in the early days?'

‘Charlie of course. And Peter Benson.'