Rumpole and the Angel of Death by John Mortimer Read Free Book Online

to drop it.’
    â€˜Of course you can persuade them, Liz. With your talent for advocacy, I bet you’ve got the Sisterhood eating out of your hand.’
    â€˜I’ll do my best. I can’t promise anything. By the way, it may not be necessary for Crump to attend. I suppose Kate Inglefield may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’
    â€˜Exactly. Claude said “that pupil”. Not “fat pupil”. Try it anyway, if you can’t think of anything better.’
    And so, with the case of the Sisterhood v. Erskine-Brown settled, I was back in the gloomy prison boardroom. When I’d first seen it, members of the caring, custodial and sentencing professions were feasting on sausage-rolls and white wine after A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now it was dressed not for a party but for a trial, and had taken on the appearance of a peculiarly unfriendly Magistrates Court.
    Behind the table at the far end of the room sat the three members of the prisoners’ Board of Visitors who were entitled to try Matthew Gribble. The Chairwoman centre stage was a certain Lady Bullwood, whose hair was piled up in a jet-black mushroom on top of her head and who went in for a good deal of costume jewellery, including a glittering chain round her neck from which her spectacles swung. Her look varied between the starkly judicial and the instantly confused, as when she suddenly lost control of a piece of paper, or forgot which part of her her glasses were tied to.
    Beside her, wearing an expression of universal tolerance and the sort of gentle smile which can, in my experience, precede an unexpectedly stiff sentence, sat the Bishop of Worsfield, who had a high aquiline nose, neatly brushed grey hair and the thinnest strip of a dog-collar.
    The third judge was an elderly schoolboy called Major Oxborrow, who looked as though he couldn’t wait for the whole tedious business to be over, and for the offer of a large gin-and-tonic in the Governor’s quarters. Beside them, in what I understood was a purely advisory capacity, sat my old friend the Governor, Quintus Blake, who looked as if he would rather be anywhere else and deeply regretted the need for these proceedings. He had, I remembered with gratitude, been so anxious to see Matthew Gribble properly defended that he had sent for Horace Rumpole, clearly the best man for the job. There was a clerk at a small table in front of the Visitors, whose job was, I imagined, to keep them informed as to such crumbs of law as were still available in prison. The Prosecution was in the nervous hands of a young Mr Fraplington, a solicitor from some government department. He was a tall, gangling person who looked as though he had shot up in the last six months and his jacket and trousers were too short for him.
    What I didn’t like was the grim squadron of screws who lined the walls as though expecting an outbreak of violence, and the fact that my client was brought in handcuffed and sat between two of the largest, beefiest prison officers available. After Matthew had been charged with committing an assault, obstructing an officer in the course of his duty, and offending against good order and discipline, he pleaded not guilty on my express instructions. Then I rose to my feet. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’
    â€˜Do you wish to address the Court, Mr Rumpole?’ The clerk, a little ferret of a man, was clearly anxious to make his presence felt.
    â€˜I certainly do. Have you forgotten to read out the charges of mass murder, war crimes, rioting, burning down E-wing and inciting to mutiny?’
    The ferret looked puzzled. The Chairwoman sorted hopelessly through her papers and Mr Fraplington for the Prosecution said helpfully, ‘This prisoner is charged with none of those offences.’
    â€˜Then if he is not,’ I asked, with perhaps rather overplayed amazement, ‘why is he brought in here shackled? Why is this room lined with