Rumpole Rests His Case Read Free Page A

paying twenty pounds for a watery cocktail. Unlucky, affluent and important customers might even get sex, carefully recorded by microphones and cameras to produce material which was used for systematic and highly profitable blackmail. The victim in Dicko’s case was an obscure and not much loved Circus Judge; so it was regarded as particularly serious by the prosecuting authority.
    When I mitigated for Dicko, I stressed the lack of direct evidence against him. He was a shadowy figure who kept himself well in the background and was known as a legend rather than a familiar face round Soho. ‘That only shows what a big wheel he was,’ Judge Bullingham, who was unfortunately trying the case, bellowed unsympathetically. In desperation I tried the approach of Christmas on him. ‘Crimes forgiven, sins remitted, mercy triumphant, such was the message of the story that began in Bethlehem,’ I told the Court, at which the Mad Bull snorted that, as far as he could remember, that story ended in a criminal trial and a stiff sentence on at least one thief.
    â€˜I suppose something like this was going to happen sooner or later.’ We were standing in the library, in front of a comforting fire and among leather-bound books, which I strongly suspected had been bought by the yard. The new, like the old, Dicko was soft-eyed, quietly spoken, almost unnaturally calm; the perfect man behind the scenes of a blackmailing operation or a country estate.
    â€˜Not necessarily,’ I told him. ‘It’s just that my wife has so many old school friends and Poppy Longstaff is one of them. Well now, you seem to have done pretty well for yourself. Solid citizens still misconducting themselves round Old Compton Street, are they?’
    â€˜I wouldn’t know. I gave all that up and went into the property business.’
    â€˜Really? Where did you do that? Canada?’
    â€˜I never saw Canada.’ He shook his head. ‘Garwick Prison. Up-and-coming area in the Home Counties. The screws there were ready and willing to do the deals on the outside. I paid them embarrassingly small commissions.’
    â€˜How long were you there?’
    â€˜Four years. By the time I came out I’d got my first million.’
    â€˜Well, then I did you a good turn, losing your case. A bit of luck His Honour Judge Bullingham didn’t believe in the remission of sins.’
    â€˜You think I got what I deserved?’
    I stretched my hands to the fire. I could hear the cocktail chatter from the marble hall of the eighteenth-century manor. ‘Treat every man according to his deserts and who shall escape whipping?’ I quoted Hamlet at him.
    â€˜Then I can trust you, Rumpole? The Lord Chancellor’s going to put me on the local Bench.’
    â€˜The Lord Chancellor lives in a world of his own.’
    â€˜You don’t think I’d do well as a magistrate?’
    â€˜I suppose you’d speak from personal experience of crime. And have some respect for the quality of mercy.’
    â€˜I’ve got no time for that, Rumpole.’ His voice became quieter but harder, the brown eyes lost their softness: that, I thought, was how he must have looked when one of his clip-joint girls was caught with the punters’ cash stuffed in her tights. ‘It’s about time we cracked down on crime. Well now, can I trust you not to go out there and spread the word about the last time we met?’
    â€˜That depends.’
    â€˜On what?’
    â€˜How well you have understood the Christmas message.’
    â€˜Which is?’
    â€˜Perhaps, generosity.’
    â€˜I see. So you want your bung?’
    â€˜Oh, not me, Dicko. I’ve been paid, inadequately, by Legal Aid. But there’s an impoverished church tower in urgent need of resuscitation.’
    â€˜That Eric Longstaff, our Rector - he’s not a patriot!’
    â€˜And are you?’
    â€˜I do a good deal of work locally for the