*Rumpole and the New Year's Resolutions*
by John Mortimer
        
       "Offer her your seat, Rumpole." These were the instructions of my wife Hilda, known to me only as She Who Must Be Obeyed. "Have you forgotten your New Year's Resolution?"
       "It's only New Year's Eve," I complained. We were on a crowded tube train on our way to dinner south of the river with Archie Prosser, a new member of our chambers and a great catch for Hilda as his father was Lord Nowhere Very Important. "The resolutions don't come into force until tomorrow," I told her. I was rather fond of my seat. Seats were in short supply and I had laid claim to mine as soon as we got on at Gloucester Road.
       "You'd better start now and get into practice. Go over and offer that woman your seat."
       The woman in question seemed to be surrounded by as many children as the one who lived in a shoe. There were children, perhaps a dozen or more, scattered about the carriage, laughing, shouting, quarrelling, reluctantly sharing sweets, bombarding her for more, as she hung to a strap. The children were of assorted sexes and colours, mainly, I thought, in the eleven- to thirteen-year-old bracket. And I thought she might have been a schoolteacher taking them to some improving play or concert. But as I approached her I got a whiff of a perfume that seemed, even to my untutored nose, an expensive luxury for a schoolteacher. Other noticeable things about her were a white lock, a straight line like a dove's feather, across black hair. She also, and I thought this unusual, was wearing gloves of a colour to go with her suit.
       "Excuse me." The train had picked up speed and gave a sudden lurch which, although I had my feet planted firmly apart, almost toppled me. I put out a hand and grabbed an arm clothed in soft velvet. The woman was engaged in urgent conversation with a small boy, who while asking her whether they were getting out at the next station seemed to be offering her something, perhaps some sort of present, which she took without any show of reluctance.
       Then she turned to me with an expression of amused concern. "I say," she said, "are you all right?"
       "I'm not doing badly," I reassured her. "But I just wanted to make sure you were all right."
       "Yes. Of course. But shouldn't you sit down?"
       "No, no." I felt the situation sliding out of control. "Shouldn't _you _sit down?" The smile was about to turn into laughter. "But I've come to offer you my seat."
       "Please don't! Why don't you go back and sit on it? Your need is obviously far greater than mine. Anyway, we're all getting out at the Oval."
       It was an embarrassing moment. I knew how Saint George might have felt if, when about to release the beautiful princess, she told him to go home and she was far happier tied up to a tree with the dragon.
       "Your first gentlemanly act, Rumpole." Hilda was unforgiving. "And you couldn't pull it off."
         * * *
New Year's Day dawned bright and frosty over the Gloucester Road. Remembering Hilda's icy disapproval when I turn up late for breakfast, I pulled on the warm dressing gown, ran a comb through what was left of my hair, blew my nose, and presented myself in the kitchen full of apologies.
       "Must've overslept," I told Hilda. "Don't know how it could've happened."
       To my amazement, what I was looking at was a sympathetic smile on the face of She Who Must Be Obeyed. Instead of the sharp wind of a rebuke from my life partner, she was purring, like a cat who has just been handed a saucer full of cream.
       "It's good for you to sleep, Rumpole. You need the rest. You work so hard ... I'm amazed at how you keep going."
       Not half as amazed as I am by this extraordinary change of character, was what I didn't say.
       "Now what would you like for breakfast?"
       "Just a cup of coffee. If you've got one made..."
       I should point out that Hilda, apparently anxious about the Rumpole girth (a fact of nature that has never troubled me in the least), had insisted that I take nothing but a plate of muesli (I dislike the taste of dried cardboard) and carrot juice for breakfast -- a meal which caused me to rush off to the greasy spoon Tastee Bite in Fleet Street for an emergency cholesterol replacement. Now she made a surprising offer.
       "What can I cook you? Bacon? A couple of sausages? Two eggs sunnyside up on a fried slice? We might have some potatoes..."
       "Hilda." By now I was getting anxious. "Are you feeling quite well?"
       "Not altogether well, Rumpole. Hurt. Deeply hurt."
       "I'm sorry."
       "I just had a letter from Dodo Macintosh." The hand with which she lifted the sheet of notepaper from the table was, I thought, trembling. Dodo was one of She's oldest friends, both having survived the tough experience of Saint Elfreda's Boarding School for girls. "You don't think I'm bossy, do you, Rumpole?"
       For once in my long life at the bar, I was stuck for a reply. I could only mutter, "Bossy? Of course not! Perish the thought."
       "Dodo tells me I am."
       "Why ever -- " I gave, I thought, a convincing imitation of a man who has just been told that the world is, contrary to all previously held beliefs, flat -- "should your old friend Dodo Macintosh say such a thing?"
       "I really don't know." Hilda sighed. "I merely wrote and told her I thought her new living room curtains were a horrible mistake, and that she should really find a more interesting subject for the watercolours than Lamorna Cove in the rain. Oh, and I probably reminded her that to go shopping in a T-shirt and jeans, topped with a baseball hat, at her age was simply to invite ridicule."
       "Might you," I hazarded a guess, "have added something about mutton dressed as lamb?"
       "Oh, Rumpole." She looked at me in what I took to be an appealing fashion and I became judicial. "I don't suppose she liked that? I have made a New Year's Resolution." At this point Hilda stood and spoke as though she were swearing an oath of allegiance to some great cause. "I shall never be bossy again."
       She then cooked my fry-up and a great change seemed to have come over the world.
         * * *
The events of that notable New Year didn't only concern the resolutions of the Rumpole family. The spring buds were shooting when I and my faithful instructing solicitor Mr. Bernard sat in the interview room in Brixton prison with Trevor Timson, the young hopeful of that clan of South London villains whose devotion to ordinary decent crime has kept the Rumpoles in bread and butter, not to mention an occasional bottle of Chateau Thames Embankment, over the years. Trevor had been arrested in the following apparently deeply incriminating circumstances.
       It was around six o'clock one evening, the South London tube station was crowded with returning office workers. There had been an outbreak, a rash of pinched wallets, dipped-into handbags, and emptied hip pockets, so the railway police were inconspicuously alert. Two of them were present in the lift when Mr. Hornby, a grey-haired company director who prided himself on his use of public transport, felt a fluttering disturbance in his breast pocket and found his wallet flown away. Being an old-fashioned sort of company director, he called out, "Stop thief!" and the railway detective sergeant in the lift detained the passengers. Trevor Timson was unhesitantly denounced by a witness who said she saw him take the wallet, which was found intact in his half-open shoulder bag. It contained three hundred pounds in crisp twenties.
       "It's no good, Trevor. Not even Mr. Rumpole could argue out of this one. They've got a cast-iron witness." Bonny Bernard, usually cheerfully optimistic, had repeatedly told me that young Trevor's case was hopeless and felt there had been no point in our going to see him, let alone wasting my breath on a hopeless speech for the defence. To me, however, the phrase "cast-iron witness" represented a challenge.
       "This wonderful witness who says she saw you take the money. Can you describe her?"
       "She was a nice-looking lady." I thought Trevor was remarkably generous to a witness who was about to sink him.
       "What sort of age?"
       "I would say about as old as my mum. But better dressed."
       "How old's your mum?"
       "Forty-something. I should know. I forgot her last birthday and got told off about it."
       "Alone, was she? Or someone with her?"
       "Lots of kids."
       "What?"
       "She had a party of kids with her. They were all excited and chattering. Like she was taking them out for a school treat."
       I felt a small tingling of excitement. Surely God, Fate, whoever or whatever is in charge of our chaotic, hit-or-miss existence, couldn't have been so kind to me? I decided to take a bet on an outside chance. "Did you notice anything particular about her? Her clothes? Or her hair, for instance...?"
       "Her hair? Odd you should mention that."
       "How odd? What colour was it?"
       "Black mostly. Quite dark, anyway. But there was a sort of white line. Like a line on a tennis court."
       "A white lock?" By now the tingling had taken over completely. I stubbed out my small cigar in the ashtray provided by the prison authorities and stood up, as though for battle.
       "So it's got to be a plea, Trevor." Bernard was prepared to throw in the towel as cheerfully as possible, but I ventured to disagree. "No, it's not. Never plead guilty. Let that be your New Year's Resolution, Bonny Bernard. We're going to fight it -- and who knows? We might even win."
       Later, as we walked away across the prison yard, Bonny Bernard asked me how on earth I thought we might be able to spring Trevor Timson. I had one word for him. "Fingerprints."
         * * *
"What sort of entertainment did you take these children to?" I asked the prosecution witness.
       "They enjoyed the Science Museum. And the London Eye, of course. I'd take parties to the cinema. If the film was suitable."
       "And what sort of films did you consider suitable? Thrillers? Crime stories?"
       "I wouldn't take them to see films about crime." The witness, who had turned down my offer of a seat, was Fay Endersley, an elegant widow, solemnly and suitably dressed for the trial, the white lock of her jet hair making her out as someone of special importance. She had charmed the normally savage Judge Bullingham, who purred at her like a pussycat as she described her good works among the poorest abandoned inner-city children when she visited council homes and took out deprived children for treats, travelling, invariably, by tube.
       "I'm sure you took them to excellent films." The old Bull was clearly besotted with her. _"The Sound of Music._ I remember that was a particularly charming one."
       "Of course." Mrs. Endersley rewarded the judge with a coy little smile. "There aren't too many films like that about nowadays."
       "Pity you didn't take them to something more exciting. Children like a bit of crime, don't they?" I suggested, much to the judge's irritation.
       "Mr. Rumpole!" the old Bull exploded. "It may be your time is spent dealing with the more sordid side of life, but this good lady" (another beaming smile at the witness) "was trying to show the children a better world."
       "Oh, I don't think you should knock crime, my Lord. After all, we both make our living out of it."
       There was a little stir of laughter from the jury, which caused the Bull to lower his head and charge.
       "That was an outrageous remark, Mr. Rumpole!"
       "I'm sorry. I was under the impression we were both being paid to take part in a criminal trial. With your Lordship's permission, I'd like to continue my cross-examination." And without further apology I turned to the witness. "Mrs. Endersley, did you take different children out on each occasion, or was it the same group?"
       "It changed, of course. But there were some of the children I'd got to know really well."
       "I'm sure there were. And, on the whole, did you find them easy to control? I mean, they did what you told them?"
       "I'm sure they found it very easy to obey _you, _madam." The judge looked as though he'd be delighted to do exactly what Mrs. Endersley told him.
       "If we could come to the facts of this case." I was determined to put an end to this cross-court flirtation. "When you say you saw my client take the wallet, were you wearing gloves?"
       "Mr. Rumpole! What on earth's the relevance of that question?" the Bull charged in again.
       "If your Lordship would allow the witness to answer, you might discover."
       "Yes, of course I wore gloves." Mrs. Endersley looked down on us from the height of the witness box and seemed determined to put an end to our bickering. "I always wear gloves on the tube. It's so terribly dirty."
       "Of course it is. There you are, Mr. Rumpole. You've got your answer!" The Bull was triumphant.
       "Not quite yet, my Lord. Trevor Timson, the young man in the dock. I take it he wasn't wearing gloves on the tube."
       "I hardly think so. I expect the only sort of gloves your client wears are boxing gloves, Mr. Rumpole." Members of the jury laughed obediently at the judge's apology for a joke. I could afford to be patient. After a great deal of delay the prosecution had treated the wallet for fingerprints and I was holding the forensic-science report.
       "Would it interest you to know that there are none of Trevor Timson's fingerprints on the wallet," I told Mrs. Endersley. "And yet you say you saw him take it from Mr. Hornby's jacket?"
       "It was very quick. A matter of seconds."
       "I'm sure it was. And it must have been done by magic. He must have spirited the thing through the air without touching it."
       Now the jury had stopped laughing and were looking at the witness with renewed interest.
       "I don't know how he got it out." The witness did her best to look bored with my questions.
       "On the other hand," I told her. "You were wearing gloves. So if you touched the wallet you would leave no prints."
       "Mr. Rumpole!" The old Bull was clearly deeply shocked. "Are you suggesting that this lady, of unblemished character, who devotes her spare time to taking deprived inner-city children to such places as ... the Science Museum ... actually stole this man's wallet! On the underground!"
       "She didn't steal it, my Lord. One of the children she carefully trained, and no doubt rather inadequately paid, stole it. She received it, though. And when she saw the railway police were going to make a search, she got rid of it, in the nearest open bag she saw near her, which happened to be Trevor Timson's. And then she denounced him as a thief." I thought I'd said quite enough to the judge and turned to that self less philanthropist, the Mrs. Fagin of the Underground. "Is that the truth?"
       "That is absolute nonsense."
       She was looking only a little less composed and her hand grabbed the rail of the witness box as though she had a sudden fear of falling.
       "Let's examine it, shall we. And see whether it's nonsense or not. You took these children out to museums and occasional cinemas. Perhaps gave them tea. Who paid?"
       "I've told you. I paid."
       "So they had no occasion to give you money."
       "None at all."
       "You're saying they didn't have money with them."
       "None at all."
       "So if anyone was to say they'd seen a boy hand you what looked like a couple of tenners that would be untrue?"
       "That would be quite untrue. Yes."
       "That would be quite untrue." The Bull was making a careful note of the answer and I had a bad moment, thinking I would have to go into the witness box and tell the jury what I had seen when, in a single quixotic moment, I had offered Mrs. Fagin Endersley my seat. A small, gap-toothed, grinning boy had handed her a couple of notes which she grasped quickly in a gloved hand.
       It never came to that. Halfway through that morning Archie Prosser, for the prosecution, asked for an adjournment and Trevor was given bail. A couple of children had been caught in an attempted handbag pinching on the Circle Line. They had told the whole story of Mrs. Endersley's tireless work for inner-city youth, and a surprise visit to her flat in Primrose Hill has revealed a large quantity of handbags, wallets, watches, and folding money. The trial of the confident woman, who kept her white lock because she was so sure she'd never be identified, is fixed for next month. I doubt very much whether she'll want me to defend her.
         * * *
"I really don't know whether it's worth making New Year's Resolutions," I told Hilda at breakfast. "You know why Trevor Timson was on the Underground when he got arrested?"
       "No. Why?"
       "He'd made a New Year's Resolution to visit his probation officer, a duty he occasionally skipped. On the other hand..."
       "What's the other hand?"
       "If you hadn't kept me up to a New Year's Resolution to offer my seat to ladies on trains, I'd've never seen those stolen tenners popped into Mrs. Endersley's welcoming gloves."
       "And what about _my _New Year's Resolution?" Hilda looked doubtful. "Now I come to think about it, I'm not sure it was necessary. Dodo Macintosh sometimes talks an awful lot of nonsense."
       "I quite agree."
       "I'm not really bossy, am I?"
       "Perish the thought."
       "Good. I'm glad you said that. And by the way, you've got to stop eating all that fried food for breakfast. You're putting on far too much weight."
       So we were in another year when a fry-up breakfast, once again, would be taken at the Tastee Bite in Fleet Street. All new resolutions would fade into the past, and normal life, for better or for worse, would be resumed.