Ehrengraf for the Defense (5 page)

“So it didn’t bother you to pay Speldron his
thousand a week.”

“Not a bit. I figured to have half the stamps
sold within a couple of months, and the first thing I’d do would be
to repay the fifty thousand dollars principal and close out the
loan. I’d have paid eight or ten thousand dollars in interest, say,
but what’s that compared to a profit of fifty or a hundred thousand
dollars? Speldron was doing me a favor and I appreciated it. Oh, he
was doing himself a favor too, two percent interest per week didn’t
put him in the hardship category, but it was just good business for
both of us, no question about it.”

“You’d dealt with him before?”

“Maybe a dozen times over the years. I’ve
borrowed sums ranging between ten and seventy thousand dollars. I
never heard the interest payments called vigorish before, but I
always paid them promptly. And no one ever threatened to break my
legs. We did business together, Speldron and I. And it always
worked out very well for both of us.”

“The prosecution argued that by killing
Speldron you erased your debt to him. That’s certainly a motive a
jury can understand, Mr. Beale. In a world where men are commonly
killed for the price of a bottle of whiskey, fifty thousand dollars
does seem enough to kill a man over.”

“But I’d be crazy to kill for that sum. I’m
not a pauper. If I was having trouble paying Speldron all I had to
do was sell the stamps.”

“And if you had trouble selling them?”

“Then I could have liquidated other
merchandise from my stock. I could have mortgaged my home. Why, I
could have raised enough on the house to pay off Speldron three
times over. That car they found the gun in, that’s an Antonelli
Scorpion. The car alone is worth more than I owed Speldron.”

“Indeed,” Martin Ehrengraf said. “But this
Walker Murchison. How does he come into the picture?”

“He killed Speldron.”

“How do we know this, Mr. Beale?”

Grantham Beale got to his feet. He’d been
sitting on his iron cot, leaving the cell’s one chair for the
lawyer. Now he stood up, stretched, and walked to the rear of the
cell. For a moment he stood regarding some graffito on the cell
wall. Then he turned and looked at Ehrengraf.

“Speldron and Murchison were partners,” he
said. “I dealt only with Speldron because Murchison steered clear
of unsecured loans. And Murchison had an insurance business in
which Speldron did not participate. Their joint ventures included
real estate, investments, and other activities where large sums of
money moved around quickly with few records kept of exactly what
took place.”

“Shady operations,” Ehrengraf said.

“For the most part. Not always illegal, not
entirely illegal, but, yes, I like your word. Shady.”

“So they were partners, and it is not unheard
of for one to kill one’s partner. To dissolve a partnership by the
most direct means available, as it were. But why this partnership?
Why should Murchison kill Speldron?”

Beale shrugged. “Money,” he suggested. “With
all that cash floating around, you can bet Murchison made out
handsomely on Speldron’s death. I’ll bet he put a lot more than
fifty thousand unrecorded dollars into his pocket.”

“That’s your only reason for suspecting
him?”

Beale shook his head. “The partnership had a
secretary,” he said. “Her name’s Felicia. Young, long dark hair,
flashing dark eyes, a body like a magazine centerfold, and a face
like a Chanel ad. Both of the partners were sleeping with her.”

“Perhaps this was not a source of
enmity.”

“But it was. Murchison’s married to her.”

“Ah.”

“But there’s an important reason why I know
it was Murchison who killed Speldron.” Beale stepped forward, stood
over the seated attorney. “The gun was found in the boot of my
car,” he said. “Wrapped in a filthy towel and stuffed in the spare
tire well. There were no fingerprints on the gun and it wasn’t
registered to me but there it was in my car.”

“The Antonelli Scorpion?”

“Yes. What of it?”

“No matter.”

Beale frowned momentarily, then drew a breath
and plunged onward. “It was put there to frame me,” he said.

“So it would seem.”

“It had to be put there by somebody who knew
I owed Speldron money. Somebody with inside information. The two of
them were partners. I met Murchison any number of times when I went
to the office to pay the interest, or vigorish as you called it.
Why do they call it that?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Murchison knew I owed money. And Murchison
and I never liked each other.”

“Why?”

“We just didn’t get along. The reason’s not
important. And there’s more, I’m not just grasping at straws. It
was Murchison who suggested I might have killed Speldron. A lot of
men owed Speldron money and there were probably several of them who
were in much stickier shape financially than I, but Murchison told
the police I’d had a loud and bitter argument with Speldron two
days before he was killed!”

“And had you?”

“No! Why, I never in my life argued with
Speldron.”

“Interesting.” The little lawyer raised his
hand to his mustache, smoothing its tips delicately. His nails were
manicured, Grantham Beale noted, and was there colorless nail
polish on them? No, he observed, there was not. The little man
might be something of a dandy but he was evidently not a fop.

“Did you indeed meet with Mr. Speldron on the
day in question?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I did. I made the
interest payment and we exchanged pleasantries. There was nothing
anyone could have mistaken for an argument.”

“Ah.”

“And even if there had been, Murchison
wouldn’t have known about it. He wasn’t even in the office.”

“Still more interesting,” Ehrengraf said
thoughtfully.

“It certainly is. But how can you possibly
prove that he murdered his partner and framed me for it? You can’t
trap him into confessing, can you?”

“Murderers do confess.”

“Not Murchison. You could try tracing the gun
to him, I suppose, but the police tried to link it to me and found
they couldn’t trace it at all. I just don’t see—”

“Mr. Beale.”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Beale. Here,
take this chair, I’m sure it’s more comfortable than the edge of
the bed. I’ll stand for a moment. Mr. Beale, do you have a
dollar?”

“They don’t let us have money here.”

“Then take this. It’s a dollar which I’m
lending to you.” The lawyer’s dark eyes glinted. “No interest, Mr.
Beale. A personal loan, not a business transaction. Now, sir,
please give me the dollar which I’ve just lent to you.”

“Give it to you?”

“That’s right. Thank you. You have retained
me, Mr. Beale, to look after your interests. The day you are
released from this prison you will owe me a fee of ninety thousand
dollars. The fee will be all inclusive. Any expenses will be mine
to bear. Should I fail to secure your release you will owe me
nothing.”

“But—”

“Is that agreeable, sir?”

“But what are you going to do? Engage
detectives? File an appeal? Try to get the case reopened?”

“When a man engages to save your life, Mr.
Beale, do you require that he first outline his plans for you?”

“No, but—”

“Ninety thousand dollars. Payable if I
succeed. Are the terms agreeable?”

“Yes, but—”

“Mr. Beale, when next we meet you will owe me
ninety thousand dollars plus whatever emotional gratitude comes
naturally to you. Until then, sir, you owe me one dollar.” The thin
lips curled in a shadowy smile. ‘The cut worm forgives the plow,’
Mr. Beale. William Blake,
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
.
‘The cut worm forgives the plow.’ You might think about that, sir,
until we meet again.”

* * *

The second meeting of Martin Ehrengraf and
Grantham Beale took place five weeks and four days later. On this
occasion the little lawyer wore a navy two-button suit with a
subtle vertical stripe. His shoes were highly polished black wing
tips, his shirt a pale blue broadcloth with contrasting white
collar and cuffs. His necktie bore a half-inch wide stripe of royal
blue flanked by two narrower strips, one gold and the other a
rather bright green, all on a navy field.

And this time Ehrengraf’s client was also
rather nicely turned out, although his tweed jacket and flannels
were hardly a match for the lawyer’s suit. But Beale’s dress was a
great improvement over the shapeless gray prison garb he had worn
previously, just as his office, a room filled with jumbled books
and boxes, a desk covered with books and albums and stamps in and
out of glassine envelopes, two worn leather chairs, and a matching
sagging sofa—just as all of this comfortable disarray was a vast
improvement over the prison cell which had been the site of their
earlier meeting.

Beale, seated behind his desk, gazed
thoughtfully at Ehrengraf, who stood ramrod straight, one hand on
the desk top, the other at his side. “Ninety thousand dollars,”
Beale said levelly. “You must admit that’s a bit rich, Mr.
Ehrengraf.”

“We agreed on the price.”

“No argument. We did agree, and I’m a firm
believer in the sanctity of verbal agreements. But it was my
understanding that your fee would be payable if my liberty came
about as a result of your efforts.”

“You are free today.”

“I am indeed, and I’ll be free tomorrow, but
I can’t see how it was any of your doing.”

“Ah,” Ehrengraf said. His face bore an
expression of infinite disappointment, a disappointment felt not so
much with this particular client as with the entire human race.
“You feel I did nothing for you.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Perhaps you were taking
steps to file an appeal. Perhaps you engaged detectives or did some
detective work of your own. Perhaps in due course you would have
found a way to get me out of prison, but in the meantime the
unexpected happened and your services turned out to be
unnecessary.”

“The unexpected happened?”

“Well, who could have possibly anticipated
it?” Beale shook his head in wonder. “Just think of it. Murchison
went and got an attack of conscience. The bounder didn’t have
enough of a conscience to step forward and admit what he’d done,
but he got to wondering what would happen if he died suddenly and I
had to go on serving a life sentence for a crime he had committed.
He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his liberty while he lived
but he wanted to be able to make amends if and when he died.”

“Yes.”

“So he prepared a letter,” Beale went on.
“Typed out a long letter explaining just why he had wanted his
partner dead and how the unregistered gun had actually belonged to
Speldron in the first place, and how he’d shot him and wrapped the
gun in a towel and planted it in my car. Then he’d made up a story
about my having had a fight with Albert Speldron, and of course
that got the police looking in my direction, and the next thing I
knew I was in jail. I saw the letter Murchison wrote. The police
let me look at it. He went into complete detail.”

“Considerate of him.”

“And then he did the usual thing. Gave the
letter to a lawyer with instructions that it be kept in his safe
and opened only in the event of his death.” Beale found a pair of
stamp tongs in the clutter atop his desk, used them to lift a
stamp, frowned at it for a moment, then set it down and looked
directly at Martin Ehrengraf. “Do you suppose he had a premonition?
For God’s sake, Murchison was a young man, his health was good, and
why should he anticipate dying? Maybe he did have a
premonition.”

“I doubt it.”

“Then it’s certainly a remarkable
coincidence. A matter of weeks after turning this letter over to a
lawyer, Murchison lost control of his car on a curve. Smashed right
through the guard rail, plunged a couple of hundred feet, exploded
on impact. I don’t suppose the man knew what had happened to
him.”

“I suspect you’re right.”

“He was always a safe driver,” Beale mused.
“Perhaps he’d been drinking.”

“Perhaps.”

“And if he hadn’t been decent enough to write
that letter, I might be spending the rest of my life behind
bars.”

“How fortunate for you things turned out as
they did.”

“Exactly,” Beale said. “And so, although I
truly appreciate what you’ve done on my behalf, whatever that may
be, and although I don’t doubt you could have secured my liberty in
due course, although I’m sure I don’t know how you might have
managed it, nevertheless as far as your fee is concerned—”

“Mr. Beale.”

“Yes?”

“Do you really believe that a detestable
troll like W. G. Murchison would take pains to arrange for your
liberty in the event of his death?”

“Well, perhaps I misjudged the man.
Perhaps—”

“Murchison hated you, Mr. Beale. If he found
he was dying his one source of satisfaction would have been the
knowledge that you were in prison for a crime you hadn’t committed.
I told you that you were an innocent, Mr. Beale, and a few weeks in
prison has not dented or dulled your innocence. You actually think
Murchison wrote that note.”

‘You mean he didn’t?”

“It was typed upon a machine in his office,”
the lawyer said. “His own stationery was used, and the signature at
the bottom is one many an expert would swear is Murchison’s
own.”

“But he didn’t write it?”

“Of course not.” Martin Ehrengraf’s hands
hovered in the air before him. They might have been poised over an
invisible typewriter or they might merely be looming as the talons
of a bird of prey.

Grantham Beale stared at the little lawyer’s
hands in fascination. “You typed that letter,” he said.

Ehrengraf shrugged.

“You—but Murchison left it with a
lawyer!”

“The lawyer was not one Murchison had used in
the past. Murchison evidently selected a stranger from the Yellow
Pages, as far as one can determine, and made contact with him over
the telephone, explaining what he wanted the man to do for him. He
then mailed the letter along with a postal money order to cover the
attorney’s fee and a covering note confirming the telephone
conversation. It seems he did not use his own name in his
discussions with his lawyer, and he signed an alias to his covering
note and to the money order as well. The signature he wrote,
though, does seem to be in his own handwriting.”