Ehrengraf for the Defense (4 page)

“But even as she was writing those lines, he
was preparing to put the dynamite in her car.”

Ehrengraf went on explaining and Gort could
only stare at him in wonder. Was it that his own memory could have
departed so utterly from reality? Had the twin shocks of Ginnie’s
death and of his own arrest have caused him to fabricate a whole
set of false memories?

Damn it, he
remembered
buying that
dynamite! He
remembered
wiring it under the hood of her
Pontiac! So how on earth—

The Ehrengraf Presumption, he thought. If
Ehrengraf could presume Gort’s innocence the way he did, why
couldn’t Gort presume his
own
innocence? Why not give
himself the benefit of the doubt?

Because the alternative was terrifying. The
letter, the practice sheets of his signature, the shoes and slacks
and burgundy blazer—

“Mr. Gort? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Gort said.

“You looked pale for a moment. The strain, no
doubt. Will you take a glass of water?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Gort lit a cigarette,
inhaled deeply. “I’m fine,” he said. “I feel good about everything.
You know, not only am I in the clear but ultimately I don’t think
your fee will cost me anything.”

“Oh?”

“Not if that rotter really and truly killed
her. Lattimore can’t profit from a murder he committed. And while
she may have intended to make Grace her beneficiary, her
unfulfilled intent has no legal weight. So her estate becomes the
beneficiary of the insurance policy, and she never did get around
to changing her will, so that means the money will wind up in my
hands. Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Amazing.” The little lawyer rubbed his hands
together briskly. “But you do know what they say about unhatched
chickens, Mr. Gort. Mr. Lattimore hasn’t been convicted of anything
yet.”

“You think he’s got a chance of getting
off?”

“That would depend,” said Martin Ehrengraf,
“on his choice of attorney.”

* * *

This time Ehrengraf’s suit was navy blue with
a barely perceptible stripe in a lighter blue. His shirt, as usual,
was white. His shoes were black loafers—no tassels or braid—and his
tie had a half-inch stripe of royal blue flanked by two narrower
stripes, one of gold and the other of a rather bright green, all on
a navy field. The necktie was that of the Caedmon Society of Oxford
University, an organization of which Mr. Ehrengraf was not a
member. The tie was a souvenir of another case and the lawyer wore
it now and then on especially auspicious occasions.

Such as this visit to the cell of Barry
Pierce Lattimore.

“I’m innocent,” Lattimore said. “But it’s
gotten to the point where I don’t expect anyone to believe me.
There’s so much evidence against me.”

“Circumstantial evidence.”

“Yes, but that’s often enough to hang a man,
isn’t it?” Lattimore winced at the thought. “I loved Ginnie. I
wanted to marry her. I never even thought of killing her.”

“I believe you.”

“You do?”

Ehrengraf nodded solemnly. “Indeed I do,” he
said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I only collect fees when I get
results, Mr. Lattimore. If I can’t get you acquitted of all
charges, then I won’t take a penny for my trouble.”

“That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“My own lawyer thinks I’m crazy to hire you.
He had several criminal lawyers he was prepared to recommend. But I
know a little about you. I know you get results. And since I
am
innocent, I feel I want to be represented by someone with
a vested interest in getting me free.”

“Of course my fees are high, Mr.
Lattimore.”

“Well, there’s a problem. I’m not a rich
man.”

“You’re the beneficiary of a
hundred-thousand-dollar insurance policy.”

“But I can’t collect that money.”

“You can if you’re found innocent.”

“Oh,” Lattimore said. “Oh.”

“And otherwise you’ll owe me nothing.”

“Then I can’t lose, can I?”

“So it would seem,” Ehrengraf said. “Now
shall we begin? It’s quite clear you were framed, Mr. Lattimore.
That blazer and those trousers did not find their way to your
closet of their own accord. Those shoes did not walk in by
themselves. The two letters to Mrs. Gort’s sister, one mailed and
one unmailed, must have part of the scheme. Someone constructed an
elaborate frame-up, Mr. Lattimore, with the object of implicating
first Mr. Gort and then yourself. Now let’s determine who would
have a motive.”

“Gort,” said Lattimore.

“I think not.”

“Who else? He had a reason to kill her. And
he hated me, so who would have more reason to—”

“Mr. Lattimore, I’m afraid that’s not a
possibility. You see, Mr. Gort was a client of mine.”

“Oh. Yes, I forgot.”

“And I’m personally convinced of his
innocence.”

“I see.”

“Just as I’m convinced of yours.”

“I see.”

“Now who else would have a motive? Was Mrs.
Gort emotionally involved with anyone else? Did she have another
lover? Had she had any other lovers before you came into the
picture? And how about Mr. Gort? A former mistress who might have
had a grudge against both him and his wife? Hmmm?” Ehrengraf
smoothed the ends of his mustache. “Or perhaps, just perhaps, there
was an elaborate plot hatched by
Mrs
. Gort.”

“Ginnie?”

“It’s not impossible. I’m afraid I must
reject the possibility of suicide. It’s tempting but in this
instance I fear it just won’t wash. But let’s suppose, let’s merely
suppose, that Mrs. Gort decided to murder her husband and implicate
you.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I’ve no idea. But suppose she did, and
suppose she intended to get her husband to drive her car and
arranged the dynamite accordingly, and then when she left the house
so hurriedly she forgot what she’d done, and of course the moment
she turned the key in the ignition it all came back to her in a
rather dramatic way.”

“But I can’t believe—”

“Oh, Mr. Lattimore,” Ehrengraf said gently,
“we believe what it pleases us to believe, don’t you agree? The
important thing is to recognize that you are innocent and to act on
that recognition.”

“But how can you be absolutely certain of my
innocence?”

Martin Ehrengraf permitted himself a smile.
“Mr. Lattimore,” he said, “let me tell you about a principle of
mine. I call it the Ehrengraf Presumption.”

The End

“
He who doubts from what he sees

Will ne’er believe, do what you please.

If the Sun and Moon should doubt,

They’d immediately go out.”

—
William Blake

“Innocence,” said Martin Ehrengraf. “There’s
the problem in a nutshell.”

“Innocence is a problem?”

The little lawyer glanced around the prison
cell, then turned to regard his client. “Precisely,” he said. “If
you weren’t innocent you wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, really?” Grantham Beale smiled, and
while it was worthy of inclusion in a toothpaste commercial, it was
the first smile he’d managed since his conviction on first-degree
murder charges just two weeks and four days earlier. “Then you’re
saying that innocent men go to prison while guilty men walk free.
Is that what you’re saying?”

“It happens that way more than you might care
to believe,” Ehrengraf said softly. “But no, it is not what I am
saying.”

“Oh?”

“I am not contrasting innocence and guilt,
Mr. Beale. I know you are innocent of murder. That is almost beside
the point. All clients of Martin Ehrengraf are innocent of the
crimes with which they are charged, and this innocence always
emerges in due course. Indeed, this is more than a presumption on
my part. It is the manner in which I make my living. I set high
fees, Mr. Beale, but I collect them only when my innocent clients
emerge with their innocence a matter of public record. If my client
goes to prison I collect nothing whatsoever, not even whatever
expenses I incur on his behalf. So my clients are always innocent,
Mr. Beale, just as you are innocent, in the sense that they are not
guilty.”

“Then why is my innocence a problem?”

“Ah,
your
innocence.” Martin Ehrengraf
smoothed the ends of his neatly trimmed mustache. His thin lips
drew back in a smile, but the smile did not reach his deeply set
dark eyes. He was, Grantham Beale noted, a superbly well-dressed
little man, almost a dandy. He wore a Dartmouth green blazer with
pearl buttons over a cream shirt with a tab collar. His slacks were
flannel, modishly cuffed and pleated and the identical color of the
shirt. His silk tie was a darker green than his jacket and sported
a design in silver and bronze thread below the knot, a lion
battling a unicorn. His cuff links matched his pearl blazer
buttons. On his aristocratically small feet he wore highly polished
seamless cordovan loafers, unadorned with tassels or braid, quite
simple and quite elegant. Almost a dandy, Beale thought, but from
what he’d heard the man had the skills to carry it off. He wasn’t
all front. He was said to get results.

“
Your
innocence,” Ehrengraf said
again. “Your innocence is not merely the innocence that is the
opposite of guilt. It is the innocence that is the opposite of
experience. Do you know Blake, Mr. Beale?”

“Blake?”

“William Blake, the poet. You wouldn’t know
him personally, of course. He’s been dead for over a century. He
wrote two books of poems early in his career,
Songs of
Innocence
and
Songs of Experience
. Each poem in the one
book had a counterpart in the other.

“
Tyger, tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

“Perhaps that poem is familiar to you, Mr.
Beale.”

“I think I studied it in school.”

“It’s not unlikely. Well, you don’t need a
poetry lesson from me, sir, not in these depressing surroundings.
Let me move a little more directly to the point. Innocence versus
experience, Mr. Beale. You found yourself accused of a murder, sir,
and you knew only that you had not committed it. And, being
innocent not only of the murder itself but in Blake’s sense of the
word, you simply engaged a competent attorney and assumed matters
would work themselves out in short order. We live in an enlightened
democracy, Mr. Beale, and we grow up knowing that courts exist to
free the innocent and the guilty, that no one gets away with
murder.”

“And that’s all nonsense, eh?” Grantham Beale
smiled his second smile since hearing the jury’s verdict. If
nothing else, he thought, the spiffy little lawyer improved a man’s
spirits.

“I wouldn’t call it nonsense,” Ehrengraf
said. “But after all is said and done, you’re in prison and the
real murderer is not.”

“Walker Murchison.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The real murderer,” said. “I’m in prison and
Walker Gladstone Murchison is free.”

“Precisely. Because it is not enough to be
guiltless, Mr. Beale. One must also be able to convince a jury of
one’s guiltlessness. In short, had you been less innocent and more
experienced, you could have taken steps early on to assure you
would not find yourself in your present condition right now.”

“And what could I have done?”

“What you
have
done, at long last,”
said Martin Ehrengraf. “You could have called me immediately.”

* * *

“Albert Speldron,” Ehrengraf said. “The
murder victim, shot three times in the heart at close range. The
murder weapon was an unregistered handgun, a thirty-eight-caliber
revolver. It was subsequently located in the spare tire well of
your automobile.”

“It wasn’t my gun. I never saw it in my life
until the police showed it to me.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Ehrengraf said
soothingly. “To continue. Albert Speldron was a loan shark. Not,
however, the sort of gruff-voiced thug who lends ten or twenty
dollars at a time to longshoremen and factory hands and breaks
their legs with a baseball bat if they’re late paying the vig.”

“Paying the what?”

“Ah, sweet innocence,” Ehrengraf said. “The
vig. Short for vigorish. It’s a term used by the criminal element
to describe the ongoing interest payments which a debtor must make
to maintain his status.”

“I never heard the term,” Beale said, “but I
paid it well enough. I paid Speldron a thousand dollars a week and
that didn’t touch the principal.”

“And you had borrowed how much?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

“The jury apparently considered that a
satisfactory motive for murder.”

“Well, that’s crazy,” said. “Why on earth
would I want to kill Speldron? I didn’t hate the man. He’d done me
a service by lending me that money. I had a chance to buy a
valuable stamp collection. That’s my business, I buy and sell
stamps, and I had an opportunity to get hold of an extraordinary
collection, mostly U.S. and British Empire but a really exceptional
lot of early German States as well, and there were also—well,
before I get carried away, are you interested in stamps at
all?”

“Only when I’ve a letter to mail.”

“Oh. Well, this was a fine collection, let me
say that much and leave it at that. The seller had to have all cash
and the transaction had to go unrecorded. Taxes, you
understand.”

“Indeed I do. The system of taxation makes
criminals of us all.”

“I don’t really think of it as criminal,”
Beale said.

“Few people do. But go on, sir.”

“What more is there to say? I had to raise
fifty thousand dollars on the quiet to close the deal on this fine
lot of stamps. By dealing with Speldron, I was able to borrow the
money without filling out a lot of forms or giving him anything but
my word. I was quite confident I would triple my money by the time
I broke up the collection and sold it in job lots to a variety of
dealers and collectors. I’ll probably take in a total of fifty
thousand out of the U.S. issues alone, and I know a buyer who will
salivate when he gets a look at the German States issues.”