Rumpole and the Primrose Path Read online

  ‘As I say, it is, happily, rare indeed to see a high-ranking police officer occupying that particular seat in an Old Bailey courtroom.’ Here Marston Dawlish raised one of his ham-like hands and waved it in the general direction of the dock.

  ‘A rotten apple.’ The words came in a solemn, doom-laden voice from the Gravestone on the Bench.

  ‘Indeed, your Lordship.’ Marston Dawlish was only too ready to agree.

  ‘We used to say that of police officers who might be less than honest, Members of the Jury.’ The Judge started to explain his doom-laden pronouncement. ‘We used to call them “rotten apples” who might infect the whole barrel if they weren’t rooted out.’

  ‘Ballard!’ This came out as a stentorian whisper at my leader’s back. ‘Aren’t you going to point out that was an appalling thing for the Judge to say?’

  ‘Quiet, Rumpole!’ The Soapy Sam whisper was more controlled. ‘I want to listen to the evidence.’

  ‘We haven’t got to the evidence yet. We haven’t heard a word of evidence, but some sort of judicial decision seems to have come from the Bench. Get up on your hind legs and make a fuss about it!’

  ‘Let me remind you, Rumpole, I’m leading counsel in this case. I make the decisions -’

  ‘Mr Ballard!’ Proceedings had been suspended while Soapy Sam and I discussed tactics. Now the old Gravestone interrupted us. ‘Does your Junior wish to say something?’

  ‘No, my Lord.’ Ballard rose with a somewhat sickly smile. ‘My Junior doesn’t wish to say anything. If an objection has to be made, your Lordship can rely on me to make it.’

  ‘I’m glad of that.’ Graves let loose a small sigh of relief. ‘I thought I saw Mr Rumpole growing restive.’

  ‘I am restive, my Lord.’ As Ballard sat down, I rose up like a black cloud after sunshine. ‘Your Lordship seemed to be inviting the Jury to think of my client as a “rotten apple”, as your Lordship so delicately phrased it, before we have heard a word of evidence against him.’

  ‘Rumpole, sit down.’ Ballard seemed to be in a state of panic.

  ‘I wasn’t referring to your client in particular, Mr Rumpole. I was merely describing unsatisfactory police officers in general.’

  It was, I thought, a remarkably lame excuse. ‘My Lord,’ I told him, ‘there is only one police officer in the dock and he is completely innocent until he’s proved guilty. He could reasonably object to any reference to “rotten apples” before this case has even begun.’

  There was a heavy silence. I had turned to look at my client in the dock and I saw what I took to be a small, shadowy smile of gratitude. Ballard sat immobile, as though waiting for sentence of death to be pronounced against me.

  ‘Members of the Jury,’ Graves turned stiffly in the direction of the twelve honest citizens, ‘you’ve heard what Mr Rumpole has to say and you will no doubt give it what weight you think fit.’ There was a welcoming turn in the direction of the prosecution. ‘Yes, Mr Marston Dawlish. Perhaps you may continue with your opening speech, now Mr Ballard’s Junior has finished addressing the Court.’

  Marston Dawlish finished his opening speech without, I was pleased to notice, any further support from the learned Judge. Doctor Petrus Wakefield was the first witness and he gave, I had to admit, an impressive performance. He was a tall, still, slender man with greying sideburns, slightly hooded eyes and a chin raised to show his handsome profile to the best possible advantage. When he took the oath he held the Bible up high and projected in a way which must have delighted the elderly and hard of hearing in the audience attending the Chivering Mummers. He smiled at the Jury, took care not to speak faster than the movements of the Judge’s pencil, and asked for no special sympathy as a betrayed husband and potential murder victim. If he wasn’t a truthful witness he clearly knew how to play the part.

  An Old Bailey conference room had been reserved for us at lunchtime, so we could discuss strategy and eat sandwiches. Ballard, after having done nothing very much all morning, was tucking into a prawn and mayo when he looked up and met an outraged stare from Commander Durden.

  ‘What the hell was that Judge up to?’

  ‘Gerald Graves?’ Ballard tried to sound casually unconcerned. ‘Bit of an offputting manner, I agree. But he’s sound, very sound. Isn’t he, Rumpole?’

  ‘Sound?’ I said. ‘It’s the sound of a distant foghorn on a damp night.’ I didn’t want to depress the Commander, but he was depressed already, and distinctly angry.

  ‘Whatever he sounds like, it seems he found me guilty in the first ten minutes.’

  ‘You mean,’ I couldn’t help reminding the man of his denunciation of defence barristers, ‘you found the Scales of Justice tipped towards the prosecution? I thought you said it was always the other way round.’

  ‘I have to admit,’ and the Commander spoke as though he meant it, ‘I couldn’t help admiring the way you stood up to this Judge, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘That was standing up to the Judge, was it?’ I couldn’t let the man get away with it. ‘Not just another courtroom trick to get the Jury on our side and give the Scales of Justice a crafty shove?’

  ‘I don’t think we should discuss tactics in front of the client, Rumpole.’ Soapy Sam was clearly feeling left out of the conversation. ‘Although, I have to say, I don’t think it was wise to attack the Judge at this stage of the case or indeed at all.’ He’d got the last morsel of prawn and mayo sandwich on his chin and wiped it on a large white handkerchief before setting out to reassure the client. ‘From now on, I shall be personally responsible for what is said in Court. As your leading counsel, I shall do my best to get back on better terms with Graves.’

  ‘You mean,’ the Commander looked distinctly cheated, ‘he’s going to get away with calling me a rotten apple?’

  ‘I mean to concentrate our fire on this man Luxford. He’s got a string of previous convictions.’ Ballard did his best to look dangerous, but it wasn’t a great performance.

  ‘First of all, someone’s got to cross-examine the good Doctor Petrus Wakefield,’ I reminded him.

  ‘I shall be doing that, Rumpole. And I intend to do it very shortly. We don’t want to be seen attacking the man whose wife our client unfortunately—’

  ‘Rogered.’ I was getting tired of Ballard’s circumlocutions.

  ‘Misconducted himself.’ Ballard lowered his voice, and his nose, into a paper cup of coffee. This was clearly part of the case on which Soapy Sam didn’t wish to dwell.

  ‘You’ll have to go into the whole affair,’ I told him. ‘It’s provided the motive for the crime.’

  ‘The alleged victim’s a deceived husband.’ Ballard shook his head. ‘The Jury are going to have a good deal of sympathy for the Doctor.’

  ‘If you ask him the questions I’ve suggested, they may not have all that much sympathy. You got my list, did you?’

  I had given my learned leader ten good points for the cross-examination of Doctor Petrus. I had little faith in his putting them particularly clearly, or with more force and power of attack than he might have used if he’d been asking the Doctor if he’d driven up by way of the M25 or had his holiday yet. All the same, the relevant questions were written down, a recipe for a good cross-examination, and Ballard only had to lob them out across the crowded courtroom.

  ‘I have read your list carefully, Rumpole,’ my leader said, ‘and quite frankly I don’t think there’s anything in it that it would be helpful to ask Doctor Wakefield.’

  ‘It might be very helpful to the prosecution if you don’t ask my questions.’

  ‘I shall simply say “My client deeply regrets his unfortunate conduct with your wife” and sit down.’

  ‘Sit down exhausted?’ I couldn’t help asking. ‘Don’t you want to get at the truth of this case?’

  ‘Truth? My dear Rumpole,’ Ballard was smiling, ‘I didn’t know you were interested in the truth. All these questions,’ he lifted my carefully prepared list and dropped it on the table, ‘seem nothing but a sort
of smoke screen, irrelevant matter to confuse the Jury.’

  ‘You read about my meeting with Knuckles Huckersley in the Black Spot pub?’

  ‘I did, and I regretted the fact that a Member of the Bar would go to such lengths, or shall I say depths, to meet a potential witness.’

  ‘You’re not going to ask the Doctor about his practice in the East End?’

  ‘I think the Jury would find that quite counter-productive. It could look like an attack on his character.’

  ‘So you won’t take the risk?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Ballard’s thoughts strayed back to his lunch. ‘Are those sandwiches bacon and lettuce?’

  ‘I rather imagine corned beef and chutney.’ Mr Crozier, our instructing solicitor from Chivering, made a rare contribution to the discussion.

  There was silence then. Ballard chewed his last sandwich in silence. No doubt I had broken every rule and shown a lamentable lack of faith in my learned leader, but I had to make the situation clear to our client, the copper who had shown his complete lack of faith in defending counsel.

  ‘Well, Commander,’ I said, ‘you’ve got a barrister who’s going to keep the scales tipped in what you said was the right direction.’

  ‘Towards justice?’ Bob Durden was trying to stick to his old convictions as a drowning man might to a straw.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Towards a conviction. If it’s the conviction of an innocent man, well, I suppose that’s just bad luck and part of the system as you’d like it to work.’

  There was a silence then, in the lunchtime conference room. Ballard was at ease in his position as the leader. No doubt I was being a nuisance, and breaking most of the rules, but he seemed to feel that he was still in charge and could demolish the corned beef and chutney in apparently contented silence. Mr Crozier looked embarrassed and the Commander was seriously anxious as he burst out, ‘Are you saying, Mr Rumpole, that the questions you want asked could get me off?’

  ‘At least leave you in with a chance.’ I was prepared to promise him that.

  ‘And Mr Ballard doesn’t want to ask them?’

  ‘I’ve told you. They’ll only turn the Judge against us,’ Ballard mumbled past the corned beef.

  ‘And why do you want to ask them, Mr Rumpole?’ The Commander was puzzled.

  ‘Oh, I’m just one of those legal hacks you disapprove of,’ I told him. ‘I want you to walk out of Court laughing. I know that makes me a very dubious sort of lawyer, the kind you really hate, don’t you, Commander Durden?’

  In the silence that followed, our client looked round the room uncertainly. Then he made up his mind and barked out an order. ‘I want Mr Rumpole’s questions asked.’

  ‘I told you,’ Ballard put down his half-eaten sandwich, ‘I’m in charge of this case and I don’t intend to make any attack on the reputable Doctor whose wife you apparently seduced.’

  ‘All right.’ In spite of Ballard’s assertion of his authority it was the Commander who was in charge. ‘Then Mr Rumpole is going to have to ask the questions for you.’

  I was sorry for Soapy Sam then, and I felt, I have to confess, a pang of guilt. He had behaved according to his fairly hopeless principles and could do no more. He rose to his feet, left his half-eaten sandwich to curl up on its plate, and spoke to his friend Mr Crozier who looked deeply embarrassed.

  ‘Under the circumstances,’ Ballard said, ‘I must withdraw. My advice has not been taken and I must go. I can’t say I expect a happy result for you, Commander, but I wish you well. I suppose you’re not coming with me, Rumpole?’

  As I say, I felt for the man, but I couldn’t leave with him. Commander Durden had put his whole life in the hands of the sort of Old Bailey hack he had told the world could never be trusted not to pull a fast one.

  ‘Doctor Wakefield, you’re suggesting in this case that my client, Commander Durden, instigated a plan to kill you?’

  ‘He did that, yes.’

  ‘It wasn’t a very successful plan, was it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’re still here, aren’t you? Alive and kicking.’

  This got me a little stir of laughter from the Jury and a doom-laden warning from his Lordship.

  ‘Mr Rumpole, for reasons which we need not go into here, your learned leader hasn’t felt able to continue in this case.’

  ‘Your Lordship is saying that he will be greatly missed?’

  ‘I am saying no such thing. What I am saying is that I hope this defence will be conducted according to the high standard we have come to expect from Mr Ballard. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Perfectly clear, my Lord. I’ll do my best.’ Here I was looking at the Jury. I didn’t exactly wink, but I hoped they were prepared to join me in the anti-Graves society. ‘Of course I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘Well, do your best, Mr Rumpole.’ The old Gravestone half closed his eyes as though expecting to be shocked by my next question. I didn’t disappoint him.

  ‘Doctor Wakefield, were you bitterly angry when you discovered that your wife had been sleeping with Commander Durden?’

  ‘Mr Rumpole!’ The Graves eyes opened again, but with no friendly expression. ‘I’m sure the Jury will assume that Doctor Wakefield had the normal feelings of a betrayed husband.’

  ‘I quite agree, my Lord. But the evidence might be more valuable if it came from the witness and not from your Lordship.’ Before Graves could utter again, I launched another question at the good Doctor. ‘Did you consider divorce?’

  ‘I thought about it, but Judy and I decided to try to keep the marriage together for the sake of the children.’

  ‘An admirable decision, if I may say so.’ And I decided to say so before the doleful Graves could stir himself to congratulate the witness. ‘You’ve produced the letter you found in your wife’s handbag. By the way, do you make a practice of searching your wife’s bag?’

  ‘Only after I’d become suspicious. I’d heard rumours.’

  ‘I see. So you found this letter, in which the Commander said they might be happier if you vanished from the face of the earth. Did you take that as a threat to kill you?’

  ‘When I heard about the plot, yes.’

  ‘When you heard about it from Luxford?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But not at the time you found the letter?’

  ‘It occurred to me it might be a threat, but I didn’t believe that Bob Durden would actually do anything.’

  ‘You didn’t believe that?’

  ‘No. But I thought he meant he wanted me dead.’

  ‘And it made you angry?’

  ‘Very angry.’

  ‘So I suppose you went straight round to the Commander’s office, or his house, and confronted him with it.’

  ‘No, I didn’t do that.’

  ‘You didn’t do that?’ I was looking at the Jury now, in considerable surprise, with a slight frown and raised eyebrows, an expression which I saw reflected in some of their faces.

  ‘May I ask why you didn’t confront my client with his outrageous letter?’

  ‘I didn’t want to add to the scandal. Judy and I were going to try to make a life together.’

  ‘That answer,’ the sepulchral Graves’ voice was now almost silky, ‘does you great credit, if I may say so, Doctor Wakefield.’

  ‘What may not do you quite so much credit, Doctor,’ I tried to put my case as politely as possible, ‘is the revenge you decided to take on your wife’s lover. This letter,’ I had it in my hand now and held it up for the Jury to see, ‘gave you the idea. The ingenious revenge you planned would cause Bob Durden, and not you, to vanish. Isn’t that the truth of the matter?’

  ‘Are you suggesting, Mr Rumpole,’ the Judge over-acted his astonishment, ‘that we’ve all got this case the wrong way round and that it was Doctor Wakefield who was planning to murder your client?’

  ‘Not murder him, my Lord. However angry the Doctor was, however deep his sense of humiliation, he stopp
ed short of murder. No. What he planned for Mr Durden was a fate almost worse than death for a senior police officer. He planned to put him exactly where he is now, in the Old Bailey dock, faced with a most serious charge and with the prospect of a long term of confinement in prison.’

  It was one of those rare moments in Court of absolute silence. The clerk sitting below the Judge stopped whispering into his telephone, no one came in or went out, opened a law book or sorted out their papers. The Jury looked startled at a new and extraordinary idea, everyone seemed to hold their breath, and I felt as though I had just dumped my money on an outside chance and the roulette wheel had started to spin.

  ‘I really haven’t the least idea what you mean.’ Doctor Petrus Wakefield, in the witness box, looked amused rather than shaken, cheerfully tolerant at a barrister’s desperate efforts to save his client, and perfectly capable of dealing with any question I might have the wit to ask.

  Graves swooped to support the Doctor. ‘Mr Rumpole, I presume you’re going to explain that extraordinary suggestion.’

  ‘Your Lordship’s presumption is absolutely correct. I would invite your Lordship to listen carefully while I put my case to the witness. Doctor Wakefield,’ I went on before Graves could summon his voice back from the depths, ‘your case is that you learnt of the alleged plot to kill you when Luxford called to warn you. We haven’t yet heard from Mr Luxford, but that’s your story.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘Luxford warned you because he was grateful for the way you’d treated his mother?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘But you’d known Len Luxford, the Silencer as he was affectionately known by the regulars in the Black Spot in Bethnal Green, long before that, hadn’t you?’

  Doctor Wakefield took time to think. He must have thought of what the Silencer might say when he came to give evidence and he took a gamble on the truth. ‘I had come across him. Yes.’