Dock Brief, The (1957)

[bunniefuu]

(folk music)

(vocalizing)

- [Narrator] Written by John Mortimer.

Starring Michael Hordern.

And George Rose.

And Leueen MacGrath with Jeanne Marsh.

Directed by Stuart Burge.

Produced by David Susskind.

♪ Like the birds in the wilderness ♪

♪ Birds in the wilderness ♪

(lively flute music)

(lock rustling)

(metal creaking)

- Is this where you keep Mr. Fowle?

Good, excellent.

Then leave us alone, like a good fellow.

And would you mind closing the door?

These old places, so drafty.

Mr. Fowle.

Where are you Mr. Fowle?

Oh, pray heaven he has not escaped.

(birds chirping)

Good heavens, man, come down!

Come down, Mr. Fowle.

- [Herbert] What's the matter?

(clamoring)

What's the matter?

- I haven't hurt you.

- No, uh, what.

- I was suddenly anxious.

A man in your unfortunate

position, desperate measures.

I couldn't bear to lose you.

(Herbert mumbles)

No, don't stand up.

It's difficult for you

with suspenders or a belt

I can see.

- Yes.

- And no tie, no shoelaces.

I'm so glad they're looking after you.

You must forgive me

if I frightened you just

a little, Mr. Fowle.

But because when I saw you

up there at the window.

- I thought I could get

a glimpse of the green

between the chimneys and that shade.

- [Wilfred] No, no, no, no, come down.

It's not wise to be up there

forever trying to look out.

- Oh.

- There's a drafty,

sweeping wind, treacherous.

I don't want anything like

that to catch you before.

- Before what?

- You're much better sitting

down there quietly in the warm.

You sit down there quietly

and I'll introduce myself.

- I'm tired.

- I'm Morganhall.

- Morganall?

- Wilfred Morganhall, the Barrister.

- Oh, I'm sorry.

- Why?

- Well, barrister, that's very bad.

- Oh, I don't know.

Why is it so bad?

- When a gentleman of your stamp

goes wrong, oh a long fall.

- What can you mean?

- Well it's not so bad

for an individual like me

'cause I only kept a small seed shop.

- Seed shop?

- Mm hmm.

- My poor fellow, we mustn't let

this unfortunate little

case of yours confuse us.

We're going to remain

very calm, very lucid.

- Birdseed, of course.

Individuals down our way keep birds.

Canaries and budgerigars.

The budgies talk.

There's a lot of lonely

people down our way

and they kept 'em for the talk.

- Mr. Fowle, I am a barrister.

- Oh, it's tragic.

- I know the law.

- It's a trap sh**t.

- I'm here to help you.

- We'll help each other.

(chuckles) - Oh I see.

I see where you've been

bewildered, Mr. Fowle.

You think I'm in trouble as well.

- Oh.

- Then I've got good news

for you at last, I'm free.

Oh yes, I can leave here when I like.

- You can?

- The police are my friends.

- They are?

- And I've never felt better in my life.

There now, that's relieved you, hasn't it?

I'm not in any trouble.

- Your family all well?

- I never married.

- Oh, rent paid up?

- A week or two owing, perhaps.

Temporary lull in business.

This case will end all that.

- Which case?

- Yours, your case.

- My?

- Your case.

- Oh, no, that's not important.

- Not?

- No, I don't care about it

to any large extent, I mean,

not as a present advised.

- Mr. Fowle, how could you say that?

- The flavor's all gone out of it.

- But we're only at the beginning.

- I can't believe it's me concern.

- Ah but it is you, Mr. Fowle.

You must never let yourself forget that.

You see, that's why you're here.

- I can't seem to bother with it.

- [Wilfred] Well, can you be so busy?

- Slopping in, slopping out

and peering out at the green

trees, it fills in the day.

- You seem, if I may say so

to have adopted an

unpleasantly selfish attitude.

- Selfish?

- Dog in the manger.

- Non-enthusiastic.

- Well, you're speaking quite

frankly, I will appreciate it.

- I'm sorry Mr. Fowle,

but you made me say it.

There's so much of this about nowadays.

So much ready-made entertainment.

Free billiards, socialized

medicine, television.

There's not the spirit

abroad that there used to be.

- You feel that?

- Anything that I've done

I've always been mustard keen on my work.

Year after year, Fowle,

my window at college

was alight until 2 a.m.

I fed mainly on herrings.

- But bookwork almost entirely.

I'm only assuming that, of course.

- You want to hear some Latin?

- Well, only if you have time.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Wilfred] Do you understand it?

- I'm no scholar.

- No, you most certainly

are not, but I had to be.

Oh yes, we all had to be in my day.

Many examinations.

Rowing men fainting, Indian

students vomiting with fear.

And after the exams, months

of waiting, nerve-wracking.

Then comes the fatal postcard.

- What's it say?

- Satisfied the examiners.

I told the only lady in my life

that in five years time perhaps.

- You'd arrived.

- That's what I thought

when they painted my name

up on my London chambers.

I sat down to fill in the time

until they sent me my

first brief in a real case.

I sat down to do the crossword

puzzle while I waited.

And five years later,

Fowle, what was I doing?

- Oh, well, a little case of high treason.

- I was still doing the crossword puzzle.

- Oh, but better at it?

- Not much, not very much.

As the years passed there come to be clues

that you no longer understand.

- [Herbert] So all that training?

- Wasted, the talents rust, you know.

- [Herbert] And the lady?

- Drove an ambulance in the 1914.

A stray piece of shrapnel took her.

I don't care to talk about it.

- [Herbert] Tragic.

- It was.

- Tragic my wife was never

called up for service.

- Oh Fowle, you mustn't talk like that.

Your poor wife.

- Oh, don't let's carry on about me.

- But we must carry on about

you, that's what I'm here for.

- Well you're here to?

- To defend you.

- Can't be done.

- Why ever not?

- [Herbert] I know who k*lled her.

- Who?

- Me.

(chuckles) - Mr. Fowle.

I have all the respect in

the world for your opinions

but we must face this,

you're a man of very little education.

- Agreed, quite frankly.

- You think that you k*lled your wife.

- Oh, it seems so to me.

- Mr. Fowle, Mr. Fowle.

Look at yourself objectively.

In matters of birdseed

I have no doubt you may be infallible.

But on a vital point like this,

might you not be mistaken?

Don't answer.

- Why not sir?

- Before you drop the b*mb of a reply

consider who will be wounded.

Are the innocent to suffer?

I've waited years for this.

- But I was only trying to be honest.

- But you're a criminal, Mr. Fowle.

You've broken through the

narrow fabric of honesty.

You are free to be

kind, human, to do good.

- What I did to her.

- [Wilfred] She's past,

you know, out of your life.

You'll set up new relationships.

You picked out me.

- Picked out?

- Selected.

- Well I didn't know.

- No, Mr. Fowle, you didn't know me.

That's the whole beauty of it.

You came to me under a system of chance

invented like the football pools

to iron out the harsh

inequalities of a world

where you have to deserve success.

You, Mr. Fowle, are my first dock brief.

- Your dock brief?

You couldn't explain, could you?

- Yes, yes of course.

Criminals with no money

and no friends exist.

Luckily you're one of them.

They are entitled to choose any barrister

from among those sitting

in court to defend them.

And the barrister,

however old, gets a brief.

And is remunerated, Mr.

Fowle, on a modest scale.

Busy lawyers, wealthy lawyers,

men with other interests

creep out of court bent double

when a dock brief is chosen.

But we regulars who are not busy, sit on.

I've been a regular for years.

- Yes.

- It's not there to catch, you see.

Even if you want the work,

to wave at the prisoner

or to whistle, or to try and catch his eye

by hoisting any sort of little flag.

- Oh, I didn't know.

- But you can choose the

most advantageous seat.

The seat any criminal

would naturally point at.

It's the seat under the window.

And for 10 years, my

old friend Tuppy Morgan

has bagged that seat,

every morning at 10 a.m.

There he sits, reading Horace

writing his innumerable aunts.

And almost once a year, a

criminal points him out.

So Christopher.

Tuppy stuck like a leech on that seat.

(Herbert chuckles)

But this morning, something,

perhaps a cold, possibly death

kept him indoors, and I had his place.

(chuckling)

And you spotted me, no doubt.

- Spotted you?

- Yes, my glasses polished.

My profile drawn and learned

in front of the great window.

- I never noticed.

- But when they asked

you to chose a lawyer.

- I shut me eyes and pointed.

I've picked out football

teams that way, and horses.

Never did me any good, though,

by any stretch of the imagination.

- So even you, Fowle, didn't choose me.

- Not altogether.

- The law's a haphazard business.

- But that seemed chancy.

- Years of training

and then to be picked

out like a football pool.

- Oh, now I'm sorry I told you.

- Oh nevermind, nevermind.

You hurt me temporarily,

Fowle, I must admit.

But now that's done.

Might have been kinder to

have kept me in darkness.

Now let's get down to business, thank you.

And Fowle?

- Yes.

- Remember that you're

dealing with a fellow man.

A man no longer young.

Remember the hopes I've

pinned on you and try.

- Try.

- Try to spare me more pain.

- [Herbert] I will sir, of course I will.

- Good, good.

Now, let's get our minds in order.

- Get things sorted out, eh?

(Wilfred chuckles)

- Yes, exactly.

Now, this wife of yours.

- Doris.

- Doris, a bitter, unsympathetic woman?

- No, she was always cheerful.

She loved jokes.

- Fowle, do be very careful.

- I will, sir, but if you'd known Doris.

She laughed harder than she worked.

"Thank heaven," she's say.

"For my Old English sense of fun."

- What sort of jokes, Fowle,

did this Doris appreciate?

- All sorts, pictures in the paper.

Jokes on the wireless set.

Laughs from party surprises.

She'd keep 'em from Christmas to Christmas

and trot them out in August.

- [Wilfred] You couldn't share it?

- No, not to that extent, no.

I always missed the funny point.

- [Wilfred] And then you'd quarrel.

- "Don't look so miserable,

it may never happen."

Oh, she said that to me

every night when I came home.

"Where'd you get that

miserable expression from, eh?"

- Yes, I can see it now.

There is a sort of Sunday

evening appearance to you.

- I was quite happy.

But it was always "cat

got your tongue, eh?

"Where's the funeral?

"Oh, look at old fiddle face.

"Let's play a tune on it, shall we?

"Well, it's lucky one of us

here can see the funny side."

Then we had to have tea

with the wireless on

so she could hear more jokes.

- [Wilfred] And you're

not a wireless lover.

- No, not to that extent.

I couldn't always see the funny point.

But she'd be bent double over the table

gasping as if her lungs

were full of water.

"Laugh," she'd holler.

"Damn you, what you got

to be so miserable about?"

Then she'd go under, bubbling

like a drowning woman.

- [Wilfred] Made meals difficult.

- Oh, indigestible.

Course even our names was misfortunate.

- [Wilfred] Your names?

- Fowle.

- Oh.

- Going down the aisle she said to me

"Now we're c*ck and hen,

aren't we, old bird?"

And coming away it was

"Now I'm Mrs. Fowle, you'll

have to play fair with me."

Oh she laughed so hard

they couldn't get her straightened

up for the photograph.

- [Wilfred] Fond of puns, I

gather you're trying to say.

- Any sort of joke.

I had a little aviary down

at the bottom of my garden

and as she got funnier, I

spent more time with my birds.

Budgerigars are small parrots.

Circles around their eyes

give them a sad, tired look.

- [Wilfred] You found them sympathetic.

- Um, restful.

- Yes.

- Until one of them spoke out at me.

- Spoke, what words?

- "Don't look so miserable,

it might never happen."

- The bird said that?

- Yeah, she taught it during

the day when I was out at work.

Course it didn't mean to irritate.

- It was wrong of her, of

course, to lead on your bird.

- Yes, but it wasn't the

bird that drove me to it.

It was Bateson.

- Bateson?

- The lodger.

- Bateson, the, another man?

- At long last.

- I see it all, a crime of passion.

An unfaithful wife. (speaking

in foreign language)

Of course you don't understand.

- No.

- We'll get it reduced to

manslaughter right away.

A wronged husband

and there's never a dry

eye in the jury box.

You came in and caught them.

- They was always laughing together.

- Maddening.

- He knew more jokes than she did.

- And stealing her before your eyes.

- That's what I thought.

He was a big man, ex-policeman.

He said he'd been the

scream of the station.

I picked him specially for her.

On the notice I put up in local sweet shop

I wrote "humorous type of lodger wanted."

- Oh, wasn't that rather a risk?

- Oh, slight, perhaps,

but it went all right.

Two days after he came,

he poised a bag of flour

to fall on her in the kitchen.

Then she sewed up the legs of his pajamas.

Oh, they had to hold on to each other

so as not to fall over laughing.

"Oh, look at old fiddle face over there.

"He can never see anything subtle."

- It's galling for you, terribly galling.

- I thought it was going all right.

I spent more time in my birds.

I came home late and I was always careful

to scratch me feet in the

gravel at the front door.

I went to bed early and left

them with the wireless set.

On Sunday morning, I fed the birds

and I suggested he took her tea in bed.

"Laughter," she read out of her horoscope.

"Laughter leads to love,

especially for them born

"under the sign of the Virgin."

- You trusted them and they deceived you.

- They deceived me all right.

And I trusted them to do the right thing.

Especially when I saw

her sitting on his knee

and both of them laughing up their fannies

in my own evening paper.

- Mr. Fowle, I'm not

quite getting the drift

of your evidence.

It's my hope that it won't

prove a shade too involved

for our literal-minded judge.

- When he first put his knee under her

I thought he'd do the decent thing.

I thought I'd have peace

in my little house at last.

The wireless set dead silent.

The end of all that happy laughter.

No sound but the twitter

from the end of the garden

and the squeak of my own

foot on the linoleum.

- You wanted?

- I heard them whispering

together and my hopes raised high.

When I came back he was gone.

- [Wilfred] She didn't.

- She turned him out, said he

was getting overtly familiar.

"Oh, I couldn't have

that," she said, "oh no.

"I may like my laugh

"but thank heaven I'm still

respectable, oh no thank you.

"There's safety in marriage

"so I'm stuck with you old fiddle face.

"Let's play a tune on it, shall we?"

She'd sent him away, my last hope.

- So you.

(Herbert quacks)

- Of course, I realize I did wrong.

- Well, you could have left.

- But who'd have fed the birds?

That thought was uppermost.

(Wilfred sighs)

- So it's not a crime of passion.

- Oh, no, not if you put it like that.

- Mr. Fowle.

I've worked and waited for you.

Now you're the only case I've

got and the most difficult.

- I'm sorry.

- A man could crack his

head against a case like you

and still be far from a solution.

Can't you see how 12 honest hearts

will snap like steel when they learn

that you finished off your wife

because she wouldn't leave you?

- If she had of left me, there

wouldn't have been the need.

- Yes, yes, as I look at you now

I can see that you're

an unsympathetic figure.

- Well, there it is.

- Yes, it will take a

brilliant stroke to save you.

An unexpected move.

Something pulled out of a hat.

I've got it.

- Yeah.

- Something really exciting.

The surprise witness.

- Witness?

- Picture the scene, Mr. Fowle.

The courtroom's silent,

the jury about to sink you.

The prosecution flushed with victory.

Then I arise.

My voice a hoarse whisper,

exhausted by that long trial.

My Lord, if Your Lordship pleases.

- Whatcha saying now?

- Well good heavens, Fowle.

You don't expect me to do

this off the cuff, do you?

Without any sort of rehearsal?

- No.

- Well come along then, cooperate?

Come on.

- On that stool.

- [Wilfred] On the stool.

Well now, sit down.

Yes, and this towel over

your head to simulate

the dirty gray wig.

Yes, already you look

anonymous and vaguely alarming.

Now Fowle.

- Yes.

- Forget your own personality.

You are a judge of the High

Court, Sir Tommy Banter.

In love with capital

punishment, corporal punishment

and a younger brother,

accomplished at embroidery.

A small, alarmed man.

A man without friends

unexpectedly adored by a

great niece, three-years old.

- Well, I am?

- Him.

- It feels strange.

- My Lord.

I ask Your Lordship's leave

to call the surprise witness.

- Oh certainly.

- What?

- Certainly.

- Good heavens Fowle,

this is like practicing

bullfights with a kitten.

Here's an irregular

application by the defense.

Something that may twist the

trial in the prisoner's favor

and prevent you catching

your evening train home.

- Oh.

- No, blind yourself with

rage and terrible justice.

- No, you can't call the

surprise witness, get on with it.

- Oh My Lord, if Your

Lordship would listen to me.

- No, certainly not,

you've had your chance.

- My Lord, justice must not only be done

but must clearly be seen.

It will be done.

Who knows what my

surprise witness may say.

Perhaps he will say that

the prisoner is guilty

in his black heart, as your lodger thinks.

Although perhaps, members of the jury.

We have trapped an innocent.

If so, are we to deny him the one door

through which he may walk to freedom?

The public outcry would never die down.

- Hear, hear.

(wood rattling)

- [Wilfred] What's that?

- The public outcry.

- Oh good, good, excellent.

Now, towel back on, you're the judge.

- Silence, I'll have those

noisy people put out.

All right, call your

witness but keep it short.

- Now, deathly silence.

- Yeah.

- As the witness walks

through the breathless crowds.

Now.

Let's see the witness.

- Oh.

- Yes, well take the towel off.

- Oh yes.

I swear to tell the truth.

- Yeah, you seem to have a

real feeling for the law.

- The whole truth.

- What a pity you came

to it so late in life.

- And nothing but the truth.

- Now, what is your name?

- Herbert Fowle.

- You're the witness.

- Martin Jones.

- Good, good, excellent.

Now, you know Herbert Fowle.

- Yeah I do.

- [Wilfred] Always found him respectable.

- Yes, a very quiet spoken

man, and clean living.

- Where was he when this crime took place?

- [Herbert] He was.

- Just a moment, My Lord.

Would Your Lordship sharpen

a pencil and note this down?

- You dare say that to him?

- Fearlessness, Mr. Fowle,

the first essential in an advocate.

Is Your Lordship's pencil poised?

- Yes, yes, yes, get on with it.

- Where was he?

- [Herbert] Um, in my house.

- All the evening?

- Yes, playing Whist.

I came for him

and we left leaving Mrs.

Fowle well and happy.

When we returned, she'd been

removed to the County Hospital.

- Panic stows the prosecution benches.

The prosecutor tries a

few fumbling questions

but you stand your ground.

- Oh I do, yes.

- My Lord, I demand that

the prisoner be released.

- Certainly, release the prisoner.

I can't think what all

this fuss has been about.

And have all police officers in court

reduced to the rank of Constable.

(Herbert chuckles)

(Wilfred sighs)

(Wilfred chuckles)

- Well Fowle.

- Yes sir.

- Aren't you going to thank me?

- Well, I don't know what to say.

- Words don't come easily to you, do they?

- No, very hard.

- Well you could just stand and stammer

in a touching sort of way

and offer me that old, gold

watch of your father's.

- Yes, but I.

- Well, I think we've pulled

your chestnut out of the fire.

We must just make sure

that this fellow Jones.

- Yes but.

- Yes, you're a good chap, Fowle,

but don't interrupt my thinking.

- Yes, but we have no Jones.

- What, carried off in the cold spell?

We'll get his statement

in under the Evidence Act.

- He never lived, we made him up.

- Fowle.

- Yes.

- Remarkable thing, but

with no legal training

I believe you put your finger

on a fatal weakness in our defense.

- Yes, I was afraid it might be the case.

- Yes it is the case.

- So, we'd better give in.

- Give in?

We will not give in, when my

life depends on this case.

- Oh, I forgot, then we'll try again.

- Yes, yes, brain, brain, get to work.

Oh, it will come to me, you

know, in an illuminating flash.

Hard, relentless brainwork.

This is the way I go through

crosswords, I never give up.

I've got it, Bateson.

- The lodger?

- Bateson, the lodger, I never liked him.

Under a ruthless

cross-examination, you know,

he might confess that

it was he. (chuckles)

You see the flash.

- Well, you look happier.

- I am, much happier.

And when I begin my

ruthless cross-examination.

- Would you care to try it?

- Mr. Fowle, you and I are learning

to muck in splendidly over this.

- Now Bateson.

- Yes, sir.

- Perhaps you'll be good enough

to take your hands out of your pockets

when you address the court.

- Ah, you see, I'm.

- No, Mr. Fowle, not you

of course. (chuckles)

Now Bateson.

- Yes, sir.

- You were on friendly terms

with the prisoner's wife?

- [Herbert] We had one or two

good, old laughs together.

(Herbert laughs)

- The association was entirely innocent?

- Innocent laughs, jokes without offense.

The funny ad or Christmas card variety.

Jokes that would not

have shamed a postcard.

- Um, and to tell these innocent jokes.

Did you have to sit very

close to Mrs. Fowle?

- [Herbert] Well, how do you mean?

- Did you have to sit beneath her?

- [Herbert] I don't understand.

- Did she perch upon your knee?

- Oh!

- What's that?

- Shocked breathing from the jury.

- What, oh, having it's effect, eh?

Bateson, will you kindly

answer my question?

- [Herbert] You're trying to trick me.

- Not trying, Bateson, succeeding.

- Well, she may have rested

on my knee once or twice.

- And you loved her, guiltily.

- [Herbert] I may.

- And wanted to take her away with you.

- [Herbert] I did ask her.

- And when she refused.

- Just a minute.

- Now, now, now, where

is all this leading?

- Your Lordship asks me. (scoffs)

My Lord, it is our case that

it was this man, Bateson

enraged by the refusal

of the prisoner's wife

to go away with him, who struck.

- Oh!

(Wilfred chortles)

- See where we've got to.

- Yes, I do.

- Masterly, I think you'll agree.

- Of course.

- No flaws in this one.

- Well, perhaps not a flaw,

sir, just a little hitch.

- Hitch, hitch?

Go on, break it down.

- Oh no sir, not when you've been so kind.

- Oh, nevermind, all my life

I've stood against the winds

of criticism and neglect.

I'm used to hardship.

Speak on, Mr. Fowle.

- Well, soon as Bateson left my house

he was picked up by a police officer.

He'd lifted an alarm clock off of me

and the remains of a bottle of port.

They booked him in straight away.

- What, you mean there wasn't time?

- Well, hardly.

And two hours afterwards

the lady next door

saw Mrs. Fowle at the washing.

And then I came home.

- Fowle.

- Yes?

- Do you want to help me?

- Well of course I do,

sir, haven't I shown it?

- But you will keep putting

all these difficulties in my way.

- See, I know you'd be upset.

- No, not really.

After all, I am a grown-up,

and even an old man.

At my age, one expects little gratitude.

I'm not bitter, but just a little help

just a very little encouragement.

- Yeah, but you'll win this case, sir.

A brilliant mind like yours.

- Yes, thank heaven it

is a very brilliant mind.

- And all that training.

- Years of it.

Hard, hard training.

- You'll solve it soon.

(Wilfred grumbles)

- Fowle.

- Yes.

- Do you know what I've

heard Tuppy Morgan say?

After all, he's sat here

in court year-in, year-out

waiting for the dock brief himself.

"Wilfred," he's frequently said to me.

"Wilfred, old fellow.

"If they ever do offer you a brief

"attack the medical evidence."

- [Herbert] Ah!

- "Remember the jury's full

of rheumatism and arthritis

"and shocking gastric troubles.

"They love to see a

medical man put through it.

"Always go for a doctor."

- Well, should we try it?

- Shall we?

- I'd enjoy it.

- Doctor, do you tell me

that the lady died of heart failure?

- [Herbert] No.

- Come, Doctor.

Don't fence with me,

her heart was not normal

when you examined her was it?

- She was dead.

- So it has stopped?

- Well.

- So her heart had failed.

- Yes but.

- So she died of heart failure.

And heart failure might have

been brought on by a fit.

I say, a fit of laughter

at a curiously rich joke

on the wireless.

(whistling)

(Herbert claps)

(Wilfred grumbles)

- Thank you Fowle.

It was kind of you, but I

thought a little hollow.

I don't believe my attack on

the doctor was convincing.

- Well, a bit unlikely, but clever.

- Yeah, too clever.

We're not going to win

this on science now.

Science must be thrown away.

As I was asking those questions

I could see that I was

not even convincing you

of your own innocence.

But, you respond to emotion, Fowle.

As I do.

The magic of oratory.

The wonderful power of words.

- Ah, now you're talking.

- And I shall talk.

- Oh, I wish I could hear some of it.

Words as grand as print.

- A golden tongue, a voice like a lyre

to charm you out of hell.

- Now you're commencing to wander away

from all I've understood.

- I was drawing on the riches

of my classical education.

Comforts me on buses.

Waiting in doctor's

surgeries and prison cells.

But I shall speak to the jury simply.

Without classical allusion.

And I shall say, I shall say.

- Yeah.

- I shall say.

- What?

- Had it on the tip of my tongue.

- Oh.

- Oh, I shan't disappoint you.

I shall speak for a day.

Perhaps two days.

- Oh I wish I could hear it.

- And at the end, I shall say.

- Just the final speech.

- The final speech.

- To clinch the argument.

- Yes, the final, irrefutable argument.

- Oh, I wish I could hear it.

- Oh, you shall.

You shall hear it in court.

It will come out in court.

And then, when I sink back into my seat

trembling and wipe the

real tears from my glasses.

- The judge is summing up.

- [Wilfred] What will Tommy say?

- Members of the jury.

- Struggling with emotions.

- Oh yes, yeah.

Members of the jury. (sniffling)

I can not add anything to

what the barrister has said.

(sniffling) Go out and

consider your verdict.

(Wilfred sighs)

- Have they left the box?

- Well, it's only a formality.

- Yes, I see. (chuckling)

I wonder how long they'll be out?

(whistling)

They're out a long time.

- Well, I expect it seems

a long time to you, sir.

The suspense.

- Well I hope they're

not going to disagree.

- Oh, I don't see how they can.

Here, they're coming back.

- Members of the jury, have

you considered your verdict?

- [Herbert] We have.

- Do you find the prisoner

guilty or not guilty?

- [Herbert] Not guilty.

(Wilfred shouting)

- Hooray, hooray, hooray! (laughing)

- Now, now, now, now, now,

no more monkeying about

or I'll have the court cleared. (laughing)

- So I'm surrounded, mobbed.

Tuppy Morgan rings my hand

and says it was a good

thing that he left the seat.

The judge sends me a

letter of congratulation.

The journalists all dart off

to their little telephones.

And what now?

Of course they'd make you a judge

only I suppose you're too busy.

Queues of solicitors on my stairs.

My old clerk writes on my next brief

1,000 guineas to divorce a duchess.

Questions of new clothes.

Laying down the port.

Oh, Mr. Fowle, change in life

that you have brought me.

- It'll be your greatest day.

- Yes, Mr. Fowle.

(metal clanging)

My greatest day, what's this, what?

Oh no, I said we weren't

to be interrupted.

Oh, it's drafty in here.

No, shut the door again,

do it, there's a good chap.

- I think, you know, they

want us for the trial.

- Huh?

(melancholy woodwind music)

(Wilfred grumbles)

- Oh.

- Hmm?

(upbeat woodwind music)

(melancholy woodwind music)

(metal creaking)

- You say he's with the

Governor at the moment?

Then I'll wait for him.

Poor soul, how's he taken it?

Ah, of course, you're not

allowed to answer questions.

Regulations, I suppose.

One must obey the regulations.

Well, I'll just sit down

and wait for Mr. Fowle.

(whistling)

If it please you My Lord, I must urge you.

I should have said, if

it please you My Lord.

Members of the.

You know, I should have said

members of the jury, is there one of you

who does not crave for

peace, crave for peace?

The silence of an undisturbed life.

The dignity of an existence

without dependents.

Without jokes.

Have you never been tempted?

I should have said

members of the jury, you

and I are men of the world.

If Your Lordship would

kindly not interrupt

my speech to the jury, I'm obliged.

Members of the jury, before

I was so rudely interrupted.

No, I should have said.

Look at the prisoner, members of the jury.

Has he ever hurt you?

Done you the slightest harm?

Is he not indeed the mildest of men?

He merely took it upon himself to regulate

his domestic affairs.

An Englishman's home is his castle.

Is there one of you, members of the jury

who feels a primitive urge to be revenged

on this gentle bird fancier?

Now, I see that I'm

affecting your emotions

members of the jury.

But let us consider the

weight of the evidence.

I might have said that.

I might have said, I

might have said something.

- I was hoping you'd find

time to drop in, sir.

(Wilfred sniffling)

Oh, you're upset.

- No, no my dear chap.

I'm not at all upset.

- The result of the trial's upset you.

- I feel a little dashed,

a little out of sorts.

- It was disappointing for you.

- Oh, a touch of disappointment.

There'll be other cases.

There may be other cases.

- But you had set such

high hopes on this one.

- But there it is.

- Well, it doesn't do

to expect too much of a particular thing.

- You're right there.

- Year after year, I look forward keenly

to the Feathered Friends

Fanciers Annual Dinner.

- Your yearly treat.

- Exactly, yeah.

All I had in the enjoyment line.

I used to build high hopes on it.

June the 13th, I'd think

now there's an evening to look forward to.

- Something to live for.

- In a way, but.

You know, when it came,

it was never up to it.

Your collar was too tight

or the food was inadequate

or someone had a nasty row

with the fancier in the chair

so on June the 14th I

always said to myself

thank heaven for a nice night at home.

- It came and went, and

your life didn't change.

- No, quite frankly.

- No and my life hasn't

changed after this case.

- Oh don't say that, sir.

- Tuppy Morgan's back in his

old seat under the window.

The judge never congratulated me.

Nobody's rung up to offer me a brief.

I thought my old clerk

looked coldly at me.

There was a titter in the luncheon room

when I ordered my usual roll

and tomato soup. (sniveling)

- Yes, but you see sir, I'm.

- You're not left in a

very favorable position.

- Oh, it doesn't matter about me, sir.

After all, I never had no education.

- So many years before I

could master the Roman law

relating to the ownership of chariots.

- [Herbert] Wasted, you think?

- I feel so.

- But without that rich background

would an individual have

been able to sway the court

as you did?

- Sway?

- The court.

- Did I do that?

- Oh, it struck me you did.

- Indeed.

- Well, I owe it all to you to where I am.

- I'm afraid, near the end.

- No, just commencing.

- I lost, Mr. Fowle.

You may not be aware of it.

It may not have been

hammered home to you yet.

But your case is lost.

- But there are ways and ways of losing.

- Oh, that's true, of course.

- Oh, I noticed your

artfulness right from the start

when the policeman was giving evidence.

You pulled that red

handkerchief out of your pocket

slowly and deliberately

like a conjuring trick.

- And blew.

- A sad, terrible trumpet.

- Unnerved him, I thought.

- Oh, he was no good after that.

No court would ask him

an questions after that.

- And then when they called that doctor.

- You were right not to bother with him.

- Tactics, you see.

We decided not to trouble with science.

- Yes, so we had, yes.

And Bateson.

- Yeah, no, I must be

wary of your flattery.

I think I might have asked Bateson.

- No, it wouldn't have made

a farthing's difference.

One glance told him he was a demon.

- Yes, he stood there so

big and red with his no tie

and dirty collar.

- Yes.

- I rose up to question him

and suddenly it seemed to me

there was no reason for us to converse.

- No, no.

- What had he and I in common? (scoffed)

I remembered what you

told me about his jokes.

His familiarity with your wife.

- Yes.

- I turned from him in disgust. (chortles)

I think that jury gets the reason

for my silence with friend Bateson.

- [Herbert] Yeah, I think they did.

- But when it came to the speech.

- [Herbert] Oh, the finest stroke of all.

- I can't agree, you no

longer carry me with you.

- Spoken from the heart.

- Yes, I'm sure Fowle, but not dare I say

altogether justified.

We can't pretend, can we,

that the speech was a success.

- We won the day.

- I beg you to be under no illusions.

They found you guilty.

- Oh yes, I was forgetting.

But it was a masterly speech.

- No, I can't be hoodwinked.

I stood up, Mr. Fowle, and it

was the moment I'd waited for.

Ambition had driven me to it.

The moment I was alone with what I wanted.

Everyone turned to me, 12

blank faces in the jury box

eager to have that grumpy

look wiped off them.

The judge was silent.

The prosecutor courteously

pretended to be asleep.

I only had to open my

mouth and pour words out.

And what stopped me?

- What?

- Fear, that's what's been suggested.

That's what the clerks

tittered to the waitresses

in the luncheon room.

Old Wilf Morganhall was in a funk.

- More shame on them.

- But it wasn't so.

Nor did my mind go blank.

When I stood up I knew exactly

what I was going to say.

- [Herbert] Then why?

- Not say it, you were going to ask.

- Well it had struck me.

- It must have, Fowle.

It must have struck many people.

You'll forgive a reminiscence.

- Glad of one.

- The lady that I happened

to mention yesterday.

I don't of course often speak of her.

- She, who in the 1914

w*r. (Herbert spritzes)

- Exactly.

- Hmm.

- I lost her long before that.

For years, you know Mr. Fowle,

this particular lady and I

met at tea parties, tennis and so on.

And then, one evening,

I walked home with her.

We stood upon Vauxhall Bridge.

It was a warm summer night

and the silence fell.

It was the moment I should have spoken.

The obvious moment.

But something came over me.

It wasn't fear or shyness then.

But (sighs) a tremendous exhaustion.

I was tired out with the long wait.

And when the opportunity came

all I could think of was sleep.

- Oh it's a relief.

- Yes, to go home alone and undress.

Knock out your pipe, clean your teeth

and not to bother with failure or success.

- So, yesterday.

- I'd lived through that

moment so many times.

It happened every day in my

mind, daydreaming, you know.

Buses and doctor's surgeries.

When it came, I was tired of it.

The exhaustion came over me,

I wanted it to be all over.

I wanted to alone in my

room, in the darkness

with a soft pillow around my ears.

So I failed.

- [Herbert] Oh don't say that.

- Being too tired to

make my daydream public.

It's a nice day, summer's coming.

I think I shall retire from the bar.

- [Herbert] Oh don't say that, sir.

What, after all that rigorous training?

- Well it is, I think I shall retire.

- Come on sir, cheer up.

There'll be other cases, other days.

Now let's take this thing very calmly.

Look, let's be very lucid.

- Other cases, I'm getting on you know.

And Tuppy Morgan's back in

his old seat under the window.

I doubt if the dock brief

will come around again.

- There'll be other things.

- What can there be?

Unless.

- Yes?

- There would be another brief

if I advised you to appeal.

- Well now there, misfortunately I.

- Ah it was a different

atmosphere up there

in the appeal court, Fowle.

It's far from the rough and

tumble, question and answer

swear on the Bible and lie your way out.

It's quiet up there, pure law of course.

- Yes sir but you see.

- Yes.

I think I'm cut out for

the Court of Appeal.

- Uh, Mr. Morganhall.

- A big, quiet court in

the early summer afternoon.

Piles of books.

And when you put one down, the

dust and powdered lead arises

and makes the usher sneeze.

And the clock ticks.

Three old judges in scarlet

take snuff with trembling hands.

- Yes, you see sir.

- You'll sit in the dark and

not understand a legal word.

And I'll give them all my law.

And get you off on a technicality.

- Yes sir, but.

- Now, if I may remind

Your Lordship, Sir Prickle

against the Haverford West

Justices ex parte anger

reported in 96 of Moore's

Ecclesiastical at page 1,003.

Have Your Lordship the report?

Lord Bradwell, a Chief Justice, says.

At the foot of the page.

"The guilty intention is

a deep foundation stone

"in the wall of our jurisprudence."

Now it be that Prickle

did run the bailiff

through with his poniard

believing him to be a stray cat or dog.

Then there might be raised

the plea of autrefois mistake.

But contra.

If he took him to be his neighbor's cat

then, as my brother

Breadwinkle has well said

in Lord Roachan Anderson

there might fall out

a constructive larceny

and (speaking in foreign language).

Oh, Mr. Fowle.

I have some of these fine cases by heart.

- It's far above me, I'm

afraid you're going now.

- Oh yes, of course I am.

These cases always bore the prisoner

until they're upheld or overruled

and he goes out dead or

alive at the end of it all.

No, thank heavens I kept my books.

I shall open them up and I shall say.

I shall say.

- It's no good.

- What's no good?

- It's no good appealing.

- No good?

- No good at all.

- Mr. Fowle, I've worked hard for you.

- Truly nice sir.

- And I intend

to go on working.

- It's a great comfort.

- In the course of our close

and may I say it, yes,

our happy collaboration

on this little crime of yours

I've become almost fond of you.

- Oh, thank you sir.

- But first I have to admit

I was somewhat put off

by your furtive and repulsive appearance.

But as we worked on this case together

an affection sprang up.

- Mutual.

- You seem to me to have

a real desire to help.

And if I may say so, an

instinctive taste for the law.

- Well a man can't go through

this sort of thing, sir,

without getting legal interest.

- Quite so, but just at the beginning

I did notice some flaws

in you as a client.

- Flaws?

- Yes, you may not care to admit it

but let's be honest.

After all, we don't want

to look on the dreary side

but you may not be with us for very long.

- Yes sir, but that's what

I'm trying to tell you.

- No, no, don't interrupt the speech.

Not until we've cleared

this out of the way.

Now didn't you, just at the beginning

put some unnecessary

difficulties before us.

- Did I?

- Oh yes.

I well remember, before I got

a bit of keenness into you

that you seemed about to admit your guilt.

- Oh!

- Just a little obstinate, wasn't it?

- Well I daresay.

- And now!

After I spent 50 years getting

the law at my fingertips

I hear you mutter "no appeal."

- No appeal.

- Mr. Fowle.

- Look, sir.

Yesterday you asked me to spare you pain.

This is gonna be very hard for me.

As you say, we've worked together

and I've had the pleasure

of watching the ticking over

of a legal mind.

Now, if you'd like to

call any afternoon, sir

I'd like to return the complement

by showing you my birds.

- Not in this world, you must

realize, unless we appeal.

- You see, this morning

I saw the Governor.

- You had some complaint?

- Well, I don't want to boast

but as a matter of fact, he sent for me.

- Hm, you went in fear and.

- Trembling, yes sir.

(Wilfred grumbling)

But he turned out to be

a very gentlemanly sort of individual.

Ex-Army, I should think.

He had all the ornaments of a gentleman.

His wife and children in a tinted photo

in a frame on his desk

and a handsome picture of a

prize pig over the mantelpiece.

Healthy, red face and a

strong smell of scented soap.

- Yes, row to the point.

- Well, I'm telling you, sir.

Well, Fowle, he says.

Sit down, I'm just finishing this letter.

So I sat down and looked

out of his windows.

Oh, great big windows

in the Governor's office

sir, and the view.

- Fowle, if this anecdote has any point

be a good chap and reach it.

- Yes, I will sir, where was I?

- Admiring the view as usual.

- Oh, panoramic it was.

And "Well, Fowle," he

says, finishing his letter

and lighting up one of them

flat-type Egyptian cigarettes.

"Well, Fowle," he says.

- Yes, yes, yes, Fowle.

It's not necessary

to reproduce every word

of the conversation.

Just give us the meat,

the gist, you understand?

Leave out the trimmings.

- The trimmings they weren't, sir.

He put it quite bluntly.

- Yes, but what did he put?

- "Well, Fowle," he said,

"this may surprise you

"but the Home Office has been

on the telephone about you."

That's a government department, isn't it?

- Yes, yes, yes, well, what?

- Well it seems in his words

that they do come

through from time to time

only on business, of

course, on that telephone.

Well he admitted he

was as shocked as I was

but the truth of the matter is a reprieve.

(Wilfred gasps)

- [Herbert] Yeah, it's all over, I'm free.

It seems that trial was no good at all.

- Oh God, why?

- Oh, no particular reason.

- There must be a reason.

Nothing passes in the

law without a reason.

- [Herbert] Do you

really want to hear this?

- Certainly.

- Well, he may have been joking.

There was a twinkle

most likely in his eye.

- [Wilfred] But he said.

- He said the barrister they chose for me

was no good, no good at all.

An old crock, in his words.

That he never said a word in my defense

and so my case never got to the jury.

That it was ever so null and void

but that I'd better be careful in future.

But don't you see, sir.

Look, if I'd had a clever

barrister who made speeches

I'd be dead as mutton.

Your artfulness saved me.

The damn tactics, they

paid off, I'm alive.

- Yes, there is that.

- And so are you.

- We both are.

- I'm free.

- To go back to your birds.

I suppose.

- Yes, Mr. Morganhall.

- It's unlikely that you'll marry again.

- Mm, unlikely.

- But, still, you have the

clear appearance of a criminal.

I suppose it's not impossible

that you might commit some other

rather more trivial offense.

- Well a man can't live

without committing some

trivial offense almost daily.

- So we may meet again.

You may need my services.

- Constantly.

- So the future may not be so black.

- The sun's shining.

- Can we go?

- I think the door's

been open for some time.

Oh, after you, Mr. Morganhall.

- No.

- Oh, yes, yes.

A gentleman of your

education should go first.

- No, I think you should lead the way.

And as your legal advisor, I will follow

at a discreet distance, to

iron out such little tangles

as you may hope to leave in your wake.

Let's go.

(Herbert chuckles)

(cheerful whistling)