"Mortimer, John - Rumpole and the Honourable Member" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

John Mortimer - Rumpole and the Honourable Member

From "Rumpole of the Bailey"

'You're giving me a rape?'

My clerk, Albert, had just handed me a brief. He then returned to the complicated business of working out the petty cash account; his desk was covered with slips of paper, a cash box and odd bits of currency. I never inquired into Albert's system of book-keeping, nor did anyone else in Chambers.

'Don't you want it, Mr Rumpole?' I turned to look at Henry, our second clerk. Henry had joined as an office boy, a small tousled figure who scarcely seemed able to read or write. Albert used him mainly to run errands and make instant coffee, and told him he would only be allowed to take a barrister into Court when he'd learnt to shine his shoes and clean his fingernails. Henry had changed over the years. His shoes were now gleaming, he wore a neat pinstriped suit with a waistcoat, and was particularly assiduous in his attentions to Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P., our Head of Chambers. Albert, as head clerk, got ten percent of our earnings, but Henry was on a salary. I had thought for a long time that Henry thought Albert past it, and had his eye on a head clerk's position. I should add, so you can get the complete picture of life in our clerk's room, that our old lady typist had left us and we had a new girl called Dianne who read quite extraordinarily lurid novels when she wasn't typing, spent a great deal of the day titivating in the loo, and joined Henry in looking pityingly at Albert as he struggled to adjust the petty cash.

'You don't ask whether you want a rape,' I told Henry sharply. 'Rape comes uninvited.' I was gathering my post from the mantelpiece and looked at it with disgust. 'Like little brown envelopes from the Inland Revenue.'

'Morning Rumpole." I became aware of the presence of young Erskine-Brown who was standing by the mantelpiece, also watching Albert in his struggle to balance the budget. He was holding some sort of legal document and wearing a shirt with broad stripes, elastic-sided boots and an expression of amused contempt at Albert's business methods. As I have made clear earlier in these reminiscences, I don't like Erskine-Brown. I greeted him civilly, however, and asked him if he'd ever done a rape.

'As you know, Rumpole, I prefer the civil side. I really find crime moderately distasteful.'

At this point Erskine-Brown started to complain to Albert about the typing of the distasteful document, some mortgage or other act of oppression, he was carrying, and Albert said if he was interrupted he'd have to start again on his column of figures. I happened to glance down at the pound notes on Albert's desk and noticed one marked with a small red cross in the corner; but I thought no more of it at the time. I then turned my attention to my brief, which I immediately noticed was a paying one and not Legal Aided. I carried it into my room with increased respect.

The first thing I discovered was that my client was a Labour M.P. named Ken Aspen, The next was that he was accused of no less a crime than the rape of one of his loyal party workers, a girl called Bridget Evans, in his committee room late on the night before the election. I couldn't help feeling pleased, and slightly flattered, that such a case had come my way; the press box at the Bailey was bound to be full and the words of the Rumpole might once again decorate the News of the World. Then I unfolded an election poster and saw the face of Aspen, the workers' friend, a reasonably good-looking man in his early forties, frowning slightly with the concentrated effort of bringing us all a new heaven and a new earth which would still be acceptable to the Gnomes of Zurich. The poster I had was scrawled over and defaced, apparently by the hand of the complainant, Miss Bridget Evans, at the time of the alleged crime.

I lit a small cigar and read on in my instructions, and, as I read, the wonder grew that an Honourable Member, with a wife and family and a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, should put it all at risk for a moment of unwelcomed pleasure on the floor of his committee room by night. I had heard of political suicide, but this was ridiculous, and I believed that any jury would find it incredible too. Of course at that time I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting Mrs Kenneth Aspen.

' So Bumble Whitelock, when they made him Chief Justice of the Seaward Isles, I don't know, some God-forsaken hole, had this man in the dock before him, found guilty of living on immoral earnings, and he was puzzled about the sentence. So he sent a runner down to the Docks where the old Chief Justice was boarding a P. & O. steamer home with the urgent messages "How much do you give a ponce?" Look, I'll do this...'

It was my practice to retire with my old clerk Albert to Pom-meroy"s Wine Bar in Fleet Street at the end of a day's work to strengthen myself with a glass or two of claret before braving the tube and She Who Must Be Obeyed. During such sessions I seek to divert Albert with a joke or two, usually of a legal nature. I was in full swing when one of the girls who works at Pom-meroy's interrupted us with the full glasses of Chateau Fleet Street. Albert had his wallet out and was paying for the treat.

'No, sir. Quite honestly.' I happened to see the note as Albert handed it over. It was marked with a small red cross in the corner.

'All right. My turn next. "So the message was," I returned to my story," How much do you give a ponce? " and the answer came back immediately from the old Chief Justice by very fast rickshaw - "Never more than two and six!" Cheers.'

I don't know why but that story always makes me laugh. Albert was laughing politely also.

'Never more than two and six! You like that one, do you Albert?'

'I've always liked it, sir.'

'It's like a bloody marriage, Albert. We've got to know each other's anecdotes.'

'Perhaps you'd like a divorce, sir. Let young Henry do your clerking for you?'

I looked over to the bar. Erskine-Brown was having a drink with Henry and Dianne, they were drinking Vermouth and Henry seemed to be showing some photographs.

'Henry? We'd sit in here over a Cinzano Bianco, and he'd show me the colour snaps of his holiday in Majorca... No, Albert. We'll rub along for a few more years. Who got me this brief, for instance?'

'The solicitors, sir. They like the cut of your jib.'

I ventured to contradict my old clerk. 'Privately paid rapes don't fall from the sky, like apples in a high wind - however my jib is cut.'

Then Albert told me how the job had been done, proving once again his true value as a clerk. ' I have the odd drink in here, with Mr Myers of your instructing solicitors. Their managing clerk. Remember old Myersy, he grows prize tomatoes ? Likes to be asked about them, sir. If I may suggest it.'