John Mortimer has not only successfully juggled the roles of barrister and author in his life, but he has also combined them in his brilliant comic stories about Horace Rumpole - all of which are published by Penguin. The Scales of Justice contains one of Rumpole's finest cases and also an extract from the author's autobiography in which he describes how he grew 'into a way of life as a barrister who wrote or, as I wanted to think of it, as a writer who did barristering'.
There was no possibility of my marrying Penelope until she could get divorced, for which we had to supply evidence. We went, at ruinous expense, to several Brighton hotels but, on being questioned later, the staff quite failed to remember us. We went to even more expensive hotels and did our best, by burning holes in the sheets or screaming during the night, to make our visits memorable. We had no success, our appearance and personalities were clearly such that we created no impression. Finally we suggested a private detective. One afternoon we looked from the windows of the cottage we had then rented and saw a respectable-looking person in a bowler hat walking slowly up the front garden. He introduced himself as Mr Gilpin and we showed him up to our bedroom where he was delighted to find male and female clothing scattered.
In my first days at the bar I often saw Mr Gilpin in the Divorce Courts. He greeted me respectfully, but made no reference to his afternoon visit. Many years later he was engaged in an entirely justified action against the police, who had wrongfully and frivolously arrested him when he didn't get out of the way of a Panda car on a zebra crossing. Mr Gilpin needed a character witness for the purpose of these proceedings, and I was glad to be able to say that I had known the 'Private Eye' for many years and always had found him a person of the greatest respectability whose evidence had been, when I had occasion to test it, totally reliable.
Thanks to Mr Gilpin the divorce at last went through. 'August 27th, 1949,' my father dictated for the record. 'John and Penelope's wedding for which we cut all available flowers which Penelope arranged with great effect.' I had fled from the loneliness of my childhood into a large and welcoming family, but I was back where I began, in a flat in the Temple playing with the children in Temple Gardens, and being looked after by my father's clerk.
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Innocent House - P.D. James
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