The Collected Stories of Rumpole Page 16

  ‘He told me … he was very much in love with Christine.’

  ‘With Miss Hope?’

  ‘Yes. With Christine Hope. That he wanted her to play Amanda.’

  ‘That is … the leading lady? And what was to happen to you?’

  ‘He wanted me to leave the company. To go to London. He never wanted to see me again.’

  ‘What did you say to that?’

  ‘I said I was terribly unhappy about Christine, naturally.’

  ‘Just tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what happened next.’

  ‘He said it didn’t matter what I said. He was going to get rid of me. He opened the drawer of the dressing-table.’

  ‘Was he standing then?’

  ‘I would say, staggering.’

  ‘Yes, and then … ?’

  ‘He took out the … the revolver.’

  ‘This one … ?’

  I handed the gun to the usher, who took it to Maggie. She glanced at it and shuddered.

  ‘I … I think so.’

  ‘What effect did it have on you when you first saw it?’

  ‘I was terrified.’

  ‘Did you know it was there?’

  ‘No. I had no idea.’

  ‘And then … ?’

  ‘Then. He seemed to be getting ready to fire the gun.’

  ‘You mean he pulled back the hammer … ?’

  ‘My Lord …’ Pierce stirred his vast bulk and the Judge was inclined to agree. He said:

  ‘Yes. Please don’t lead, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘I think that’s what he did,’ Maggie continued without assistance. ‘I didn’t look carefully. Naturally I was terrified. He was waving the gun. He didn’t seem to be able to hold it straight. Then there was a terrible explosion. I remember glass, and dust, everywhere.’

  ‘Who fired that shot, Mrs Frere?’

  ‘My husband. I think …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think he was trying to kill me.’ She said it very quietly, but the jury heard, and remembered. She gave it a marked pause and then went on. ‘After that first shot. I saw him getting ready to fire again.’

  ‘Was he pulling … ?’

  ‘Please don’t lead, Mr Rumpole.’ The trouble with the great comedian was that he couldn’t sit still in anyone else’s act.

  ‘He was pulling back … That thing.’ Maggie went on without any help.

  Then I asked the Judge if we could have a demonstration and the usher went up into the witness-box to play the scene with Maggie. At my suggestion he took the revolver.

  ‘We are all quite sure that thing isn’t loaded?’ The Judge sounded nervous.

  ‘Quite sure, my Lord. Of course, we don’t want another fatal accident!’

  ‘Really, my Lord. That was quite improper!’ Pierce rose furiously. ‘My learned friend called it an accident.’

  I apologized profusely, the point having been made. Then Maggie quietly positioned the usher. He raised the gun as she asked him. It was pointed murderously at her. And then Maggie grabbed at the gun in his hand, and forced it back, struggling desperately, against the usher’s chest.

  ‘I was trying to stop him. I got hold of his hand to push the gun away … I pushed it back … I think … I think I must have forced back his finger on the trigger.’ We heard the hammer click, and now Maggie was struggling to hold back her tears. ‘There was another terrible noise … I never meant …’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Usher.’

  The usher went back to the well of the Court. Maggie was calm again when I asked her:

  ‘When Mr Croft came you said you had killed your husband?’

  ‘Yes … I had … By accident.’

  ‘What else did you say?’

  ‘I think I said … What could I do with him? I meant, how could I help him, of course.’

  ‘And you asked Mr Croft to help you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was time for the curtain line.

  ‘Mrs Frere. Did you ever at any time have any intention of killing your husband?’

  ‘Never …! Never …! Never …!’ Now my questions were finished she was crying, her face and shoulders shaking. The Judge leaned forward kindly.

  ‘Don’t distress yourself. Usher, a glass of water?’

  Her cheeks hot with genuine tears, Maggie looked up bravely.

  ‘Thank you, my Lord.’

  ‘Bloody play-acting!’ I heard the cynical Tommy Pierce mutter ungraciously to his junior, Roach.

  If she was good in chief Maggie was superb in cross-examination. She answered the questions courteously, shortly, but as if she were genuinely trying to help Tommy clear up any doubt about her innocence that may have lingered in his mind. At the end he lost his nerve and almost shouted at her:

  ‘So according to you, you did nothing wrong?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I did something terribly wrong.’

  ‘Tell us. What?’

  ‘I loved him too much. Otherwise I should have left him. Before he tried to kill me.’

  During Tommy’s final speech there was some coughing from the jury. He tried a joke or two about actors, lost heart and sat down upon reminding the jury that they must not let sympathy for my client affect their judgement.

  ‘I agree entirely with my learned friend,’ I started my speech. ‘Put all sympathy out of your mind. The mere fact that my client clung faithfully to a drunken, adulterous husband, hoping vainly for the love he denied her; the terrible circumstance that she escaped death at his hands only to face the terrible ordeal of a trial for murder; none of these things should influence you in the least …’ and I ended with my well-tried peroration. ‘In an hour or two this case will be over. You will go home and put the kettle on and forget all about this little theatre, and the angry, drunken actor and his wretched infidelities. This case has only been a few days out of your lives. But for the lady I have the honour to represent …’ I pointed to the dock, ‘all her life hangs in the balance. Is that life to be broken and is she to go down in darkness and disgrace, or can she go back into the glowing light of her world, to bring us all joy and entertainment and laughter once again? Ask yourselves that question, members of the jury. And when you ask it, you know there can only be one answer.’

  I sank back into my seat exhausted, pushing back my wig and mopping my brow with a large silk handkerchief. Looking round the Court I saw Derwent. He seemed about to applaud, until he was restrained by Mr Alan Copeland.

  There is nothing I hate more than waiting for a jury to come back. You smoke too much and drink too many cups of coffee, your hands sweat and you can’t do or think of anything else. All you can do is to pay a courtesy visit to the cells to prepare for the worst. Albert Handyside had to go off and do a touch of Dangerous Driving in the Court next door, so I was alone when I went to call on the waiting Maggie.

  She was standing in her cell, totally calm.

  ‘This is the bad part, isn’t it? Like waiting for the notices.’

  I sat down at the table with my notebook, unscrewed my fountain pen.

  ‘I had better think of what to say if they find you guilty of manslaughter. I think I’ve got the facts for mitigation, but I’d just like to get the history clear. You’d started this theatrical company together?’

  ‘It was my money. Every bloody penny of it.’ I looked up in some surprise. The hard, tough note was there in her voice; her face was set in a look which was something like hatred.

  ‘I don’t think we need go into the financial side.’ I tried to stop her but she went on:

  ‘Do you know what that idiotic manager we had then did? He gave G. P. a contract worth fifty per cent of the profits: for an investment of nothing and a talent which stopped short of being able to pour out a drink and say a line at the same time. Anyway I never paid his percentage.’ She smiled then, it was quite humourless. ‘Won’t need to say that, will we?’

  ‘No.’ I said firmly.

  ‘Fifty per cent of ten years’ wo
rk! He reckoned he was owed around twenty thousand pounds. He was going to sue us and bankrupt the company …’

  ‘I don’t think you need to tell me any more.’ I screwed the top back on my fountain pen. Perhaps she had told me too much already.

  ‘So don’t feel too badly, will you? If we’re not a hit.’

  I stood up and pulled out my watch. Suddenly I felt an urgent need to get out of the cell.

  ‘They should be back soon now.’

  ‘It’s all a game to you, isn’t it?’ She sounded unaccountably bitter. ‘All a wonderful game of “let’s pretend”. The costume. The bows. The little jokes. The onion at the end.’

  ‘The onion?’

  ‘An old music-hall expression. For what makes the audience cry. Oh, I was quite prepared to go along with it. To wear the make-up.’

  ‘You didn’t wear any make-up.’

  ‘I know, that was brilliant of you. You’re a marvellous performer, Mr Rumpole. Don’t let anyone tell you different.’

  ‘It’s not a question of performance.’ I couldn’t have that.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t! The jury are now weighing the facts. Doing their best to discover where the truth lies.’ I looked at her. Her face gave nothing away.

  ‘Or at least deciding if the prosecution has proved its case.’

  Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, she yawned, she moved away from me, as though I bored her.

  ‘Oh, I’m tired. Worn out. With so much acting. I tell you, in the theatre we haven’t got time for all that. We’ve got our livings to get.’

  The woman prison officer came in.

  ‘I think they want you upstairs now. Ready, dear?’

  When Maggie spoke again her voice was low, gentle and wonderfully polite.

  ‘Yes thanks, Elsie. I’m quite ready now.’

  ‘Will your foreman please stand? Mr Foreman. Have you reached a verdict on which you are all agreed?’

  ‘Not guilty, my Lord.’

  Four words that usually set the Rumpole ears tingling with delight and the chest to swell with pleasure. Why was it, that at the end of what was no doubt a remarkable win, a famous victory even, I felt such doubt and depression? I told myself that I was not the judge of fact, that the jury had clearly not been satisfied and that the prosecution had not proved its case. I did the well-known shift of responsibility which is the advocate’s perpetual comfort, but I went out of Court unelated. In the entrance hall I saw Maggie leaving, she didn’t turn back to speak to me and I saw that she was holding the hand of Mr Alan Copeland. Such congratulations as I received came from the diminutive Derwent.

  ‘Triumph. My dear, a total triumph.’

  ‘You told me she was truthful …’ I looked at him.

  ‘I meant her acting. That’s quite truthful. Not to be faulted. That’s all I meant.’

  At which he made his exit and my Learned Friend for the Prosecution came sailing up, beaming with the joy of reconciliation.

  ‘Well. Congratulations, Rumpole. That was a bloody good win!’

  ‘Was it? I hope so.’

  ‘Coming to the Circuit dinner tonight?’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it! We’ve got some pretty decent claret in the mess.’

  If my judgement hadn’t been weakened by exhaustion I would never have agreed to the Circuit dinner which took place, as I feared, in a private room at the Majestic Hotel. All the gang were there, Skelton, J, Pierce, Roach and my one-time leader Jarvis Allen, QC. The food was indifferent, the claret was bad, and when the port was passed an elderly silk whom they called ‘Mr Senior’ in deference to his position as Leader of the Circuit, banged the table with the handle of his knife and addressed young Roach at the other end of the table.

  ‘Mr Junior, in the matter of Rumpole.’

  ‘Mr Senior,’ Roach produced a scribble on a menu. ‘I will read the indictment.’

  I realized then that I had been tricked, ambushed, made to give myself up to the tender mercies of this savage Northerly Circuit. Rumpole was on trial, there was nothing to do but drink all the available port and put up with it.

  ‘Count One,’ Roach read it out. ‘Deserting his learned leader in his hour of need. That is to say on the occasion of his leader having been given the sack. Particulars of Offence …’

  ‘Mr Senior. Have five minutes elapsed?’ Allen asked.

  ‘Five minutes having elapsed since the loyal toast, you may now smoke.’

  Tommy Pierce lit a large cigar. I lit a small one. Mr Junior Roach continued to intone.

  ‘The said Rumpole did add considerably to the seriousness of the offence by proceeding to win in the absence of his learned leader.’

  ‘Mr Junior. Has Rumpole anything to say by way of mitigation?’

  ‘Rumpole.’ Roach took out his watch, clearly there was a time limit in speeches. I rose to express my deepest thoughts, loosened by the gentle action of the port.

  ‘The show had to go on!’

  ‘What? What did Rumpole say?’ Mr Justice Skelton seemed to have some difficulty in hearing.

  ‘Sometimes. I must admit, sometimes … I wonder why.’ I went on, ‘What sort of show is it exactly? Have you considered what we are doing to our clients?’

  ‘Has that port got stuck to the table?’ Allen sounded plaintive and the port moved towards him.

  ‘What are we doing to them?’ I warmed to my work. ‘Seeing they wear ties, and hats, keep their hands out of their pockets, keep their voices up, call the judge “my Lord”. Generally behave like grocers at a funeral. Whoever they may be.’

  ‘One minute,’ said Roach, the timekeeper.

  ‘What do we tell them? Look respectable! Look suitably serious! Swear on the Bible! Say nothing which might upset a jury of lay-preachers, look enormously grateful for the trouble everyone’s taking before they bang you up in the nick! What do we find out about our clients in all these trials, do we ever get a fleeting glimpse of the truth? Do we … ? Or do we put a hat on the truth. And a tie. And a serious expression. To please the jury and my Lord the Judge?’ I looked round the table. ‘Do you ever worry about that at all? Do you ever?’

  ‘Time’s up!’ said Roach, and I sat down heavily.

  ‘All right. Quite all right. The performance is over.’

  Mr Senior swigged down port and proceeded to judgement.

  ‘Rumpole’s mitigation has, of course, merely added to the gravity of the offence. Rumpole, at your age and with your experience at the Bar you should have been proud to get the sack, and your further conduct in winning shows a total disregard for the feelings of an extremely sensitive silk. The least sentence I can pass is a fine of twelve bottles of claret. Have you a chequebook on you?’

  So I had no choice but to pull out a chequebook and start to write. The penalty, apparently, was worth thirty-six quid.

  ‘Members of the Mess will now entertain the company in song,’ Roach announced to a rattle of applause.

  ‘Tommy!’ Allen shouted.

  ‘No. Really …’ The learned prosecutor was modest but was prevailed upon by cries of ‘Come along, Tommy! Let’s have it. “The Road to Mandalay” … etc. etc.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to this,’ said Mr Justice Skelton, who was apparently easily entertained. As I gave my cheque to young Roach, the stout leading Counsel for the Crown rose and started in a light baritone.

  ‘On the Road to Mandalay …

  Where the old Flotilla lay …

  And the dawn came up like thunder

  Out of China ’cross the Bay!’

  Or words to the like effect. I was not really listening. I’d had quite enough of show business.

  Rumpole and the Expert Witness

  Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

  Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

  Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

  And with some sweet oblivious antidote

  Cleanse the stuffed bosom of
that perilous stuff

  Which weighs upon the heart …

  Certainly not young Dr Ned Dacre, the popular GP of Hunter’s Hill, that delightful little dormitory town in Surrey, where nothing is heard but the whirr of the kitchen mixers running up Provençal specialities from the Sunday supplements and the purr of the hi-fis playing baroque music to go with the Buck’s Fizz.

  Ned Dacre lived in a world removed from my usual clients, the Old Bailey villains whose most common disease is a criminal conviction. He had a beautiful wife, two cars, two fair-haired children called Simon and Sara at rather nice schools, an au pair girl, an Old English sheepdog, a swimming pool, a carport and a machine for recording television programmes so that he didn’t have to keep watching television. His father, Dr Henry Dacre, had settled in Hunter’s Hill just after the war and had built up an excellent practice. When his son grew up and qualified he was taken into the partnership, and father and son were the two most popular doctors for many miles around, the inhabitants being almost equally divided as to whether, in times of sickness, they preferred the attentions of ‘Dr Harry’ or ‘Dr Ned’. With all these advantages it seemed that Ned Dacre had all that the heart of man could desire, except that he had an unhappy wife. One night, after they had enjoyed a quiet supper together at home, Dr Ned’s wife Sally became extremely ill. As she appeared to lose consciousness, he heard her say,

  ‘I loved you, Ned … I really did.’

  These were her last words, for although her husband rang the casualty department of the local hospital, and an ambulance was quickly dispatched, the beautiful Mrs Sally Dacre never spoke again, and died before she was taken out of the house.

  I learned, as did the world, about the death of Sally Dacre and its unfortunate consequences from The Times. I was seated at breakfast in the matrimonial home at Froxbury Court in the Gloucester Road, looking forward without a great deal of excitement to a fairly ordinary day practising the law, ingesting Darjeeling tea, toast and Oxford marmalade, when the news item caught my eye and I gave a discreet whistle of surprise. My wife, Hilda, who was reading her correspondence (one letter on mauve paper from an old school friend) wanted her share of the news.