Defender of the Innocent: The Casebook of Martin Ehrengraf Read online

  Gort shook his head. “Doesn’t make any difference,” he said. “I just learned this the other day. About the same time I was buying the dynamite, she was changing her beneficiary. The change went through in plenty of time. The whole hundred thousand goes to that rotter Lattimore.”

  “Now that,” said Martin Ehrengraf, “is very interesting.”

  Two weeks and three days later Alvin Gort sat in a surprisingly comfortable straight-backed chair in Martin Ehrengraf’s exceptionally cluttered office. He balanced a checkbook on his knee and carefully made out a check. The fountain pen he used had cost him $65. The lawyer’s services, for which the check he was writing represented payment in full, had cost him considerably more, yet Gort, a good judge of value, thought Ehrengraf’s fee a bargain and the pen overpriced.

  “One hundred thousand dollars,” he said, waving the check in the air to dry its ink. “I’ve put today’s date on it but ask you to hold it until Monday morning before depositing it. I’ve instructed my broker to sell securities and transfer funds to my checking account. I don’t normally maintain a balance sufficient to cover a check of this size.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “I’m glad something is. Because I’m damned if I can understand how you got me off the hook.”

  Ehrengraf allowed himself a smile. “My greatest obstacle was your own mental attitude,” he said. “You honestly believed yourself to be guilty of your wife’s death, didn’t you?”

  “But—”

  “Ah, my dear Mr. Gort. You see, I knew you were innocent. The Ehrengraf Presumption assured me of that. I merely had to look for someone with the right sort of motive, and who should emerge but Mr. Barry Lattimore, your wife’s lover and beneficiary, a man with a need for money and a man whose affair with your wife was reaching crisis proportions.

  “It was clear to me that you were not the sort of man to commit murder in such an obvious fashion. Buying the dynamite openly, signing the purchase order with your own name—my dear Mr. Gort, you would never behave so foolishly! No, you had to have been framed, and clearly Lattimore was the man who had reason to frame you.”

  “And then they found things,” Gort said.

  “Indeed they did, once I was able to tell them where to look. Extraordinary what turned up! You would think Lattimore would have had the sense to get rid of all that, wouldn’t you? But no, a burgundy blazer and a pair of white slacks, a costume identical to your own but tailored to Mr. Lattimore’s frame, hung in the very back of his clothes closet. And in a drawer of his desk the police found half a dozen sheets of paper on which he’d practiced your signature until he was able to do quite a creditable job of writing it. By dressing like you and signing your name to the purchase order, he quite neatly put your neck in the noose.”

  “Incredible.”

  “He even copied your tasseled loafers. The police found a pair in his closet, and of course the man never habitually wore loafers of any sort. Of course he denied ever having seen the shoes before. Or the jacket, or the slacks, and of course he denied having practiced your signature.”

  Gort’s eyes went involuntarily to Ehrengraf’s own shoes. This time the lawyer was wearing black wing tips. His suit was dove gray and somewhat more sedately tailored than the brown one Gort had seen previously. His tie was maroon, his cuff links simple gold hexagons. The precision of Ehrengraf’s dress and carriage contrasted sharply with the disarray of his office.

  “And that letter from your wife to her sister Grace,” Ehrengraf continued. “It turned out to be authentic, as it happens, but it also proved to be open to a second interpretation. The man of whom Virginia was afraid was never named, and a thoughtful reading showed he could as easily have been Lattimore as you. And then of course a second letter to Grace was found among your wife’s effects. She evidently wrote it the night before her death and never had a chance to mail it. It’s positively damning. She tells her sister how she changed the beneficiary of her insurance at Lattimore’s insistence, how your knowledge of the affair was making Lattimore irrational and dangerous, and how she couldn’t avoid the feeling that he planned to kill her. She goes on to say that she intended to change her insurance again, making Grace the beneficiary, and that she would so inform Lattimore in order to remove any financial motive for her murder.

  “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.”r />
  “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 EHRENGRAF

  Experience

  * * *

  “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,” Grantham Beale 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 loca
ted 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.”