Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (11 page)

I heard even more sinister rumours in Pommeroy's Wine Bar, suggesting that death sentences and sex produced the same results with the Lord Chief Justice. I also knew that Theo Jessup made jokes which I thought were in horribly bad taste. When a barrister wanted a short adjournment in a long murder trial to settle a will case, he said the prisoner should be removed from court as he probably didn't want to hear about ‘due execution'. In an after-dinner speech, apparently intending to amuse the audience, he said that he had no trouble ending telephone calls because he was quite used to ‘hanging up'. Whatever fate was in store for Simon, I couldn't bear the thought of him becoming a joke in an after-dinner speech.

As part of my preparation for the case I decided to take a preliminary look at Theobald Jessup. I dropped in to the Court of Criminal Appeal at which he was presiding. What I saw, in the central position, between the two ‘bookends' of lesser judges, was a small, thick-set man with bright beady eyes, a nose that looked as though it might have been flattened in some long-distant football game or boxing bout, and skin the colour of old vellum. From time to time he dipped, as some judges still did in those days, into the scarlet depths of his gown and retrieved a small silver box on which he tapped. He then sniffed a pinch of snuff from the back of his hand. After he had absorbed whatever pleasure this practice brought him, he wiped his nose gently on an ornate silk handkerchief.

They were deciding an appeal against a conviction for murder, but it was the way the Lord Chief Justice began his judgement that I found, strangely enough, encouraging. ‘It's a time-honoured precept of our criminal law,' he had a surprisingly high-pitched voice for a man so greatly feared, ‘that it's far more intolerable and unjust for an innocent man to be convicted than for a guilty man, or indeed woman, to be let off.' After which hopeful start, there was a lengthy pause while the Lord Chief Justice took snuff. ‘Even giving full weight to this cherished precept, I cannot find anything unsafe or unsound in the learned judge's summing up or the jury's verdict in this case.' After he had given his reasons, which appeared well argued, the two ‘bookends' announced that they thoroughly agreed with ‘every word that had fallen from the learned Chief Justice'. The subject of this decision, a small colourless man wearing spectacles, was removed from the dock and taken down the steps to meet his death.

 

‘You never ask me out nowadays, Rumpole.' Daisy Sampson positively purred at me and then uttered a small sigh of regret. We were sitting side by side on a bench in the hallway of the Horseferry Road Magistrates' Court, waiting to do a matrimonial dispute which, because of a long list of drunk drivers and soliciting prostitutes, gave no immediate prospect of being called on for trial. ‘And I've done all I can to give you my briefs in the most flagrant fashion.'

‘Thank you.' The old joke was still around and I ignored it.

‘The Timsons think the sun shines out of your backside, Rumpole. They're decent, hard-working minor criminals. And they should give you lots of jobs. So why don't you ask me out?'

‘Because the last time I did that, you waltzed away from me. With Reggie Proudfoot!'

‘Reggie Proudfoot? Don't talk to me about Reggie Proudfoot! He's not a gent, that Reggie Proudfoot, definitely not a gent.'

As this was the view I took of my fellow barrister, I looked more favourably on Daisy.

‘You know what?'

‘What?'

‘He took me out to dinner. The Regent Palace Hotel. And at the end of quite a top-class meal with wine, he just fumbled. That's all he did!'

‘Fumbled?'

‘Pretended he'd forgotten his wallet. So I had to pay every penny. And do you think he ever paid me back?'

‘I doubt it.'

‘Your doubts, Rumpole, are fully justified. You'd never treat a girl like that, would you?'

‘I'm sure I wouldn't.' I looked at her inviting red lips drawn back from the teeth that had never suffered restraint, the small heart-shaped face and the eyes full of mischief. I made a quick calculation of the fees I'd already received from small jobs plus what I was likely to gain from losing the Timson case, and thought of how much might be saved by more evenings boiling eggs on the gas ring. I decided to make a desperate bid for Daisy. ‘Perhaps you'd like to have dinner with me?' I put down my stake.

‘Perhaps I'd love it. The Regent Palace?'

‘I was thinking more in terms of the Hibernian Hostelry.'

‘Suits me.' Now she looked thoughtful. ‘I've never seen where you live.'

‘Off Southampton Row. I've got a bedsit.'

‘What's it like?'

‘Not too bad. It's got a gas ring and, well, of course, the bed's in the sitting room.'

‘That sounds convenient.' She continued to smile.

‘And my landlady,' I was doing my best to keep her entertained, ‘owns a shop that sells trusses, wooden legs, sex manuals and rubber johnnies.'

‘That sounds
very
convenient!' Daisy said, and by now she was laughing.

On which happy note, we settled on a date for dinner.

 

After an hour of a hearing, our matrimonial was adjourned for another month, during which the couple could live in silent loathing, communicating with little notes left on the cooker or stuck to the parrot's cage, such as ‘Get her down your office to cook your dinner. She seems to do everything else for you' or ‘This bird is far better at conversation than you, you dumb person! I wish I'd married it!'

I was recovering from this weary day in court in Uncle Tom's room, going through, with considerable interest I have to say, the information that can be derived from the direction of bullet wounds. I was lifting a cup of instant coffee, run up for me in the clerk's room, when the door was flung open and Hilda Wystan came bounding in and sank down in a chair used by clients, when we had clients to visit us. She was, of course, the Hilda that was, and not the one introduced by me at the beginning of this chapter. That is to say, she took no exception to my having my feet firmly on the ground and didn't ask me to elevate either of my legs; instead she plumped herself down in our client's chair, blew out her cheeks so that her face assumed the proportions of a rather flushed balloon and said, ‘Aren't you excited, Rumpole?'

Why should I be? Was she suggesting in the blowing out of her cheeks some sort of sensual intent. It was a question I was determined to duck.

‘The Jerold murder business has just been fixed for three weeks' time. I called in at the clerk's room and Albert told me.'

‘Well, he hasn't told me yet.'

‘He likes to keep the good news to himself. I had quite a job squeezing it out of him.'

‘I'm afraid it won't be particularly good news for Simon.'

‘Of course not. Good news for me, though. I'll be there watching you.'

‘And your father.'

‘And watching Daddy, yes, of course. Although he's not always been frightfully keen on my interest in the law.'

‘Has he not?' I remembered, with a pang of guilt, that it was Hilda's interest that had, it seemed, won me the junior brief in this famous murder trial.

‘I did think of becoming a barrister, but Daddy said that Equity Court was not quite ready for a woman.'

‘That's ridiculous!' Apart from his choice of me as his junior, I had so far found it difficult to defend the actions, or rather the inactive side, of Hilda's father. Now I felt a rush of sympathy for his daughter. ‘Of course you should have been a barrister, if that's what you wanted.'

‘Umm!' She looked thoughtful. ‘Albert said there weren't the toilet facilities.'

‘A trivial detail!' I assured her. ‘Those things might have been arranged.'

‘I thought about it, of course. But I decided it would be more sensible to get married.'

‘There are plenty of married women barristers.'

‘Oh, yes. But I thought marriage might be more satisfying than a life in the law. If I found someone who had a promising career, I could help them rise to the top.' There she gave a modest smile. ‘The power behind the throne. You know the sort of thing?'

‘I'm not quite sure I do know.'

‘Well, if it were someone who might even become Head of Chambers, when Daddy goes of course . . .'

‘So who,' for my own peace of mind I felt I needed immediate clarification, ‘are we talking about?'

‘Don't worry your head about that now, Rumpole. You've got an important case starting. That's your foot on the first rung of the ladder, isn't it?'

Daisy was only half an hour late at the Hibernian Hostelry and she arrived in a neat black dress with dark eyeshadow and a determined smile. ‘What a treat! I've been so looking forward to this.' We ordered the food of that period - prawn cocktail, steak and chips, topped off with Black Forest gâteau, washed down by a pink wine called Mateus Rosé, best remembered because people of that time saved the strange, circular bottles to make into side-table lamps. Daisy seemed happy enough and I, remembering how she had welcomed my landlady's convenient bedsit, was looking forward enormously to the after-dinner hour. I had prepared myself by visiting my landlady's shop and, instead of asking, in the old music-hall tradition, for something for the weekend, I bought three rubber johnnies, hoping for their immediate assistance.

But we were still spooning prawns out of glass bowls of pink sauce and Daisy was showing a remarkable interest in the Penge Bungalow trial. I told her that I'd been to see the judge in action.

‘The hanging judge?'

‘Oddly enough, there was something about him I found strangely encouraging. I thought we had views in common.'

‘You're not telling me that you're going to start taking snuff, are you, Rumpole?'

‘No, it's not the snuff. That's a disgusting habit. It's the presumption of innocence.'

Daisy Sampson, toying with her glass of Mateus Rosé, gave me an inquisitive look and said, ‘You seem to be doing a lot of preparation for the Jerold case.'

‘Do you think that's at all odd?'

‘Just a bit. When your leader's told you that you won't be called on to say a single word. And he doesn't seem to take much notice of your suggestions.'

I told Daisy that I was trying to find an answer to Wystan's question to me.

‘Oh, yes? And what question was that?' Daisy had both elbows on the table and, cradling her glass in both hands, smiled at me over it.

‘If Simon didn't kill his father and “Tail-End” Charlie, who on earth did?'

‘And do you think you've got any answers?'

‘Not yet. We don't know enough about them. Everyone's convinced that Simon did it. They haven't asked nearly enough questions about the lives of Jerry and Charlie. Did they have any enemies?'

‘Did they?'

‘I don't know yet.'

‘Is that why you were trying to get in touch with the other chap in the bomber - the navigator?'

‘Did I tell you that?'

‘Didn't you? You keep on talking about your great case.'

‘I may have done. Anyway, he's no help. He died when the plane crashed and caught fire.' I was puzzled. I couldn't remember discussing David Galloway with Daisy. ‘By some miracle, Jerry and Charlie escaped from the blazing plane.'

‘So they were lucky?'

‘Perhaps not so lucky. Death got them in the end.'

But we weren't there to discuss our cases. Halfway through the Black Forest gâteau I said, ‘You wanted to see where I live.'

‘Did I?' Daisy looked momentarily confused. ‘Oh, yes, I believe I did.'

‘And you said it would be so convenient having the bed in the sitting room.'

‘Well, it would be, wouldn't it?'

‘Exactly!' I agreed with enthusiasm. ‘So would you like to see it now?'

‘I suppose so.' She sounded doubtful. ‘Is it far?'

‘Not at all. Just off Southampton Row.'

‘I mean, will it take long?'

‘I suppose,' I smiled at her, ‘just as long as we want it to take.'

‘Oh, well then,' she said as I asked the waiter for the bill, which turned out to be unexpectedly steep on account of Daisy's insistence on a couple of gin and Its to precede the Mateus Rosé and a crème de menthe frappé to go after the pudding.

‘I suppose I can manage it if it won't take too long.' It was not the most tender or most encouraging way to start a love affair, but I called a taxi to take us to the convenient bedsit of our choice.

I didn't know how my landlady would react to late-night visitors, so I asked Daisy to be quiet on the stairs. She reacted with exaggerated caution, tiptoeing up in solemn silence. When we got to the top I threw open my door, gave a low bow and said, ‘Welcome to my convenient home.'

I had honestly done my best with it. The electric fire had all bars glowing and it provided a warm welcome. The bed, with fresh sheets, was turned invitingly down. The papers on my desk were neatly arranged. I had done a good deal of dusting and even got a jug of slightly overblown chrysanths on the bedside table. I had considered scattering rose petals, but decided against it for reasons of economy.

‘It's very nice, Rumpole.' Daisy gave it a quick look-around. ‘I'm sure you're very happy here.'

‘Very happy
now
,' I assured her, and planted a quick kiss on her scarlet lips.

She returned it briefly and then withdrew.

‘I've got another Mateus Rosé,' I assured her. ‘It's not exactly cold, but would you like a drink?' I looked at the glowing bars of the fire but, to my amazement, Daisy was consulting her watch.