Lawrence Block: The Ehrengraf Defense

“My God.”

“There were other expenses, Mrs. Culhane, but as I pay them myself I don’t honestly think there’s any need for me to recount them to you, do you?”

“My God. Dear God in heaven.”

“Indeed. It would have been better all around, as I said a few moments ago, had you decided to pay my fee without hearing what you’ve just heard. Ignorance in this case would have been, if not bliss, at least a good deal closer to bliss than what you’re undoubtedly feeling at the moment.”

“Clark didn’t kill that girl.”

“Of course he didn’t, Mrs. Culhane. Of course he didn’t. I’m sure some rotter stole his tie and framed him. But that would have been an enormous chore to prove and all a lawyer could have done was persuade a jury that there was room for doubt, and poor Clark would have had a cloud over him all the days of his life. Of course you and I know he’s innocent—”

“He is innocent,” she said. “He is .”

“Of course he is, Mrs. Culhane. The killer was a homicidal maniac striking down young women who reminded him of his mother. Or his sister, or God knows whom. You’ll want to get out your checkbook, Mrs. Culhane, but don’t try to write the check just yet. Your hands are trembling. Just sit there, that’s the ticket, and I’ll get you a glass of water. Everything’s perfectly fine, Mrs. Culhane. That’s what you must remember. Everything’s perfectly fine and everything will continue to be fine. Here you are, a couple of ounces of water in a paper cup, just drink it down, there you are, there you are.”

And when it was time to write out the check her hand did not shake a bit. Pay to the order of Martin H. Ehrengraf, seventy-five thousand dollars, signed Dorothy Rodgers Culhane. Signed with a ball-point pen, no need to blot it, and handed across the desk to the impeccably dressed little man.

“Yes, thank you, thank you very much, my dear lady. And here is your dollar, the retainer you gave me. Go ahead and take it, please.”

She took the dollar.

“Very good. And you probably won’t want to repeat this conversation to anyone. What would be the point?”

“No. No, I won’t say anything.”

“Of course not.”

“Four neckties.”

He looked at her, raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch.

“You said you bought four of the neckties. There were — there were three girls killed.”

“Indeed there were.”

“What happened to the fourth necktie?”

“Why, it must be in my bureau drawer, don’t you suppose? And perhaps they’re all there, Mrs. Culhane. Perhaps all four neckties are in my bureau drawer, still in their original wrappings, and purchasing them was just a waste of time and money on my part. Perhaps that homicidal maniac had neckties of his own and the four in my drawer are just an interesting souvenir and a reminder of what might have been.”

“Oh.”

“And perhaps I’ve just told you a story out of the whole cloth, an interesting turn of phrase since we are speaking of silk neckties. Perhaps I never flew to London at all, never motored to Oxford, never purchased a single necktie of the Caedmon Society. Perhaps that was just something I trumped up on the spur of the moment to coax a fee out of you.”

“But—”

“Ah, my dear lady,” said Ehrengraf, moving to the side of her chair, taking her arm, helping her out of the chair, turning her, steering her toward the door. “We would do well, Mrs. Culhane, to believe that which it most pleases us to believe. I have my fee. You have your son. The police have another line of inquiry to pursue altogether. It would seem we’ve all come out of this well, wouldn’t you say? Put your mind at rest, Mrs. Culhane, dear Mrs. Culhane. There’s the elevator down the hall on your left. If you ever need my services you know where I am and how to reach me. And perhaps recommend me to your friends. But discreetly, dear lady. Discreetly. Discretion is everything in matters of this sort.”

Mrs. Culhane walked very carefully down the hall to the elevator and rang the bell and waited. And she did not look back. Not once.