Free Rumpole and the Primrose Path by John Mortimer Page B

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? Are you deliberately trying to waste the Court’s time?’ The Bull charged in again, all resolutions cast aside.
    ‘If your Lordship would allow the witness to answer, you might discover.’
    ‘Yes, of course I wore gloves.’ Marcia 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,’ the Bull hurried to agree. ‘Look at the witness, Mr Rumpole. Is she not perfectly turned out? Does not her appearance speak of her fastidious nature? Why should she not wear gloves?’
    ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt they were very useful, weren’t they?’ I did my best to ignore the Bull and speak to the witness as though there were no Judge to support her. ‘For your particular journeys on the Underground. I take it that Trevor Timson, the young man in the dock, was not wearing gloves on this occasion?’
    ‘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. I was holding the fingerprint report which I told the Judge had been agreed by Archie Prosser for the prosecution.
    ‘I can’t see what fingerprints have got to do with this case,’ the Bull rumbled, and I told him that if he listened very carefully he might find out. It was a relief, I somehow felt, to be back to the old days of the corrida, when the Bull had to be handled with courage by an experienced matador. Dealing with a charming Bull had been an unsettling and alarming experience.
    ‘Would it interest you to know that there are none of Trevor Timson’s fingerprints on the wallet,’ I asked Marcia. ‘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.’ She did her best to look bored with my questions.
    ‘Let me tell you a little more about the fingerprints. The owner of the wallet had left his, of course. But there were some other prints, rather small, left by someone with a police record. A young boy, no more than twelve years old, who had a conviction for stealing. Was he one of your Anonymous Urchins? A boy called Chris Hemmings. Did you take him out on one of these trips?’
    ‘I’ve no idea. I can’t remember all their names.’
    ‘Can’t you really? But you remembered to wear gloves. Was that so you would leave no fingerprints on stolen wallets?’
    ‘Mr Rumpole!’ The horns were lowered and the Bull was pawing the ground. ‘In all my years on the Bench I have never heard such an outrageous suggestion. I think you should consider your own position very carefully unless you withdraw it. Are you seriously suggesting that this lady, of unblemished character, who devotes her spare time to taking out 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 that the railway police were going to make a search she got rid of it, in the nearest open bag she saw, 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 selfless philanthropist, the Mrs Fagin of