Ehrengraf for the Defense Read Free

wouldn’t do to buy more than one tie in any
one shop. A man prefers not to call attention to himself
unnecessarily. The Caedmon Society necktie, Mrs. Culhane, is not
unattractive. A navy blue field with a half-inch stripe of royal
blue and two narrower flanking stripes, one of gold and the other
of a rather bright green. I don’t care for regimental stripes
myself, Mrs. Culhane, preferring as I do a more subdued style in
neckwear, but the Caedmon tie is a handsome one all the same.”
    “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