Lawrence Block

The Ehrengraf Appointment

“Dame Fortune is a fickle gypsy,

And always blind, and often tipsy.”

— William Mackworth Praed

Martin Ehrengraf was walking jauntily down the courthouse steps when a taller and bulkier man caught up with him. “Glorious day,” the man said. “Simply a glorious day.”

Ehrengraf nodded. It was indeed a glorious day, the sort of autumn afternoon that made men recall football weekends. Ehrengraf had just been thinking that he’d like a piece of hot apple pie with a slab of sharp cheddar on it. He rarely thought about apple pie and almost never wanted cheese on it, but it was that sort of day.

“I’m Cutliffe,” the man said. “Hudson Cutliffe, of Marquardt, Stoner, and Cutliffe.”

“Ehrengraf,” said Ehrengraf.

“Yes, I know. Oh, believe me, I know.” Cutliffe gave what he doubtless considered a hearty chuckle. “Imagine running into Martin Ehrengraf himself, standing in line for an IDC appointment just like everybody else.”

“Every man is entitled to a proper defense,” Ehrengraf said stiffly. “It’s a guaranteed right in a free society.”

“Yes, to be sure, but—”

“Indigent defendants have attorneys appointed by the court. Our system here calls for attorneys to make themselves available at specified intervals for such appointments, rather than entrust such cases to a public defender.”

“I quite understand,” Cutliffe said. “Why, I was just appointed to an IDC case myself, some luckless chap who stole a satchel full of meat from a supermarket. Choice cuts, too — lamb chops, filet mignon. You just about have to steal them these days, don’t you?”

Ehrengraf, a recent convert to vegetarianism, offered a thin-lipped smile and thought about pie and cheese.

“But Martin Ehrengraf himself,” Cutliffe went on. “One no more thinks of you in this context than one imagines a glamorous Hollywood actress going to the bathroom. Martin Ehrengraf, the dapper and debonair lawyer who hardly ever appears in court. The man who only collects a fee if he wins. Is that really true, by the way? You actually take murder cases on a contingency basis?”

“That’s correct.”

“Extraordinary. I don’t see how you can possibly afford to operate that way.”

“It’s quite simple,” Ehrengraf said.

“Oh?”

His smile was fuller than before. “I always win,” he said. “It’s simplicity itself.”

“And yet you rarely appear in court.”

“Sometimes one can work more effectively behind the scenes.”

“And when your client wins his freedom—”

“I’m paid in full,” Ehrengraf said.

“Your fees are high, I understand.”

“Exceedingly high.”

“And your clients almost always get off.”

“They’re always innocent,” Ehrengraf said. “That does help.”

Hudson Cutliffe laughed richly, as if to suggest that the idea of bringing guilt and innocence into a discussion of legal procedures was amusing. “Well, this will be a switch for you,” he said at length. “You were assigned the Protter case, weren’t you?”

“Mr. Protter is my client, yes.”

“Hardly a typical Ehrengraf case, is it? Man gets drunk, beats his wife to death, passes out, and sleeps it off, then wakes up and sees what he’s done and calls the police. Bit of luck for you, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh?”

“Won’t take up too much of your time. You’ll plead him guilty to manslaughter, get a reduced sentence on grounds of his previous clean record, and then Protter’ll do a year or two in prison while you go about your business.”

“You think that’s the course to pursue, Mr. Cutliffe?”

“It’s what anyone would do.”

“Almost anyone,” said Ehrengraf.

“And there’s no reason to make work for yourself, is there?” Cutliffe winked. “These IDC cases — I don’t know why they pay us at all, as small as the fees are. A hundred and seventy-five dollars isn’t much of an all-inclusive fee for a legal defense, is it? Wouldn’t you say your average fee runs a bit higher than that?”

“Quite a bit higher.”

“But there are compensations. It’s the same hundred and seventy-five dollars whether you plead your client or stand trial, let alone win. A far cry from your usual system, eh, Ehrengraf? You don’t have to win to get paid.”

“I do,” Ehrengraf said.

“How’s that?”

“If I lose the case, I’ll donate the fee to charity.”

“If you lose? But you’ll plead him to manslaughter, won’t you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then what will you do?”

“I’ll plead him innocent.”

“Innocent?”

“Of course. The man never killed anyone.”

“But—” Cutliffe inclined his head, dropped his voice. “You know the man? You have some special information about the case?”

“I’ve never met him and know only what I’ve read in the newspapers.”

“Then how can you say he’s innocent?”

“He’s my client.”

“So?”

“I do not represent the guilty,” Ehrengraf said. “My clients are innocent, Mr. Cutliffe, and Arnold Protter is a client of mine, and I intend to earn my fee as his attorney, however inadequate that fee may be. I did not seek appointment, Mr. Cutliffe, but that appointment is a sacred trust, sir, and I shall justify that trust. Good day, Mr. Cutliffe.”

“They said they’d said get me a lawyer and it wouldn’t cost me nothing,” Arnold Protter said. “I guess you’re it, huh?”

“Indeed,” said Ehrengraf. He glanced around the sordid little jail cell, then cast an eye on his new client. Arnold Protter was a thickset round-shouldered man in his late thirties with the ample belly of a beer drinker and the red nose of a whiskey drinker. His pudgy face recalled the Pillsbury Dough Boy. His hands, too, were pudgy, and he held them out in front of his red nose and studied them in wonder.

“These were the hands that did it,” he said.

“Nonsense.”

“How’s that?”

“Perhaps you’d better tell me what happened,” Ehrengraf suggested. “The night your wife was killed.”

“It’s hard to remember,” Protter said.

“I’m sure it is.”

“What it was, it was an ordinary kind of a night. Me and Gretch had a beer or two during the afternoon, just passing time while we watched television. Then we ordered up a pizza and had a couple more with it, and then we settled in for the evening and started hitting the boilermakers. You know, a shot and a beer. First thing you know, we’re having this argument.”

“About what?”

Protter got up, paced, glared again at his hands. He lumbered about, Ehrengraf thought, like a caged bear. His chino pants were ragged at the cuffs and his plaid shirt was a tartan no Highlander would recognize. Ehrengraf, in contrast, sparkled in the drab cell like a diamond on a dustheap. His suit was a herringbone tweed the color of a well-smoked briar pipe, and beneath it he wore a suede doeskin vest over a cream broadcloth shirt with French cuffs and a tab collar. His cufflinks were simple gold hexagons, his tie a wool knit in the same brown as his suit. His shoes were shell cordovan loafers, quite simple and elegant and polished to a high sheen.

“The argument,” Ehrengraf prompted.

“Oh, I don’t know how it got started,” Protter said. “One thing led to another, and pretty soon she’s making a federal case over me and this woman who lives one flight down from us.”

“What woman?”

“Her name’s Agnes Mullane. Gretchen’s giving me the business that me and Agnes got something going.”

“And were you having an affair with Agnes Mullane?”

“Naw, ‘course not. Maybe me and Agnes’d pass the time of day on the staircase, and maybe I had some thoughts on the subject, but nothing ever came of it. But she started in on the subject, Gretch did, and to get a little of my own back I started ragging her about this guy lives one flight up from us.”

“And his name is—”

“Gates, Harry Gates.”

“You thought your wife was having an affair with Gates?”

Protter shook his head. “Naw, ‘course not. But he’s an artist, Gates is, and I was accusing her of posing for him, you know. Naked. No clothes on.”

“Nude.”

“Yeah.”

“And did your wife pose for Mr. Gates?”

“You kidding? You never met Gretchen, did you?”

Ehrengraf shook his head.

“Well, Gretch was all right, and the both of us was used to each other, if you know what I mean, but you wouldn’t figure her for somebody who woulda been Miss America if she coulda found her way to Atlantic City. And Gates, what would he need with a model?”

“You said he was an artist.”

“He says he’s an artist,” Protter said, “but you couldn’t prove it by me. What he paints don’t look like nothing. I went up there one time on account of his radio’s cooking at full blast, you know, and I want to ask him to put a lid on it, and he’s up on top of this stepladder dribbling paint on a canvas that he’s got spread out all over the floor. All different colors of paint, and he’s just throwing them down at the canvas like a little kid making a mess.”

“Then he’s an abstract expressionist,” Ehrengraf said.

“Naw, he’s a painter. I mean, people buy these pictures of his. Not enough to make him rich or he wouldn’t be living in the same dump with me and Gretch, but he makes a living at it. Enough to keep him in beer and pizza and all, but what would he need with a model? Only reason he’d want Gretchen up there is to hold the ladder steady.”

“An abstract expressionist,” said Ehrengraf. “That’s very interesting. He lives directly above you, Mr. Protter?”

“Right upstairs, yeah. That’s why we could hear his radio clear as a bell.”

“Was it playing the night you and your wife drank the boilermakers?”

“We drank boilermakers lots of the time,” Protter said, puzzled. “Oh, you mean the night I killed her.”

“The night she died.”

“Same thing, ain’t it?”

“Not at all,” said Ehrengraf. “But let it go. Was Mr. Gates playing his radio that night?”

Protter scratched his head. “Hard to remember,” he said. “One night’s like another, know what I mean? Yeah, the radio was going that night. I remember now. He was playing country music on it. Usually he plays that rock and roll, and that stuff gives me a headache, but this time it was country music. Country music, it sort of soothes my nerves.” He frowned. “But I never played it on my own radio.”

“Why was that?”

“Gretch hated it. Couldn’t stand it, said the singers all sounded like dogs that ate poisoned meat and was dying of it. Gretch didn’t like any music much. What she liked was the television, and then we’d have Gates with his rock and roll at top volume, and sometimes you’d hear a little country music coming upstairs from Agnes’s radio. She liked country music, but she never played it very loud. With the windows open on a hot day you’d hear it, but otherwise no. Of course what you hear most with the windows open is the Puerto Ricans on the street with their transistor radios.”

Protter went on at some length about Puerto Ricans and transistor radios. When he paused for breath, Ehrengraf straightened up and smiled with his lips. “A pleasure,” he said. “Mr. Protter, I believe in your innocence.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been the victim of an elaborate and diabolical frame-up, sir. But you’re in good hands now. Maintain your silence and put your faith in me. Is there anything you need to make your stay here more comfortable?”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Well, you won’t be here for long. I’ll see to that. Perhaps I can arrange for a radio for you. You could listen to country music.”

“Be real nice,” Protter said. “Soothing is what it is. It soothes my nerves.”

An hour after his interview with his client, Ehrengraf was seated on a scarred wooden bench at a similarly distressed oaken table. The restaurant in which he was dining ran to college pennants and German beer steins suspended from the exposed dark wood beams. Ehrengraf was eating hot apple pie topped with sharp cheddar, and at the side of his plate was a small glass of neat Calvados.

The little lawyer was just preparing to take his first sip of the tangy apple brandy when a familiar voice sounded beside him.

“Ehrengraf,” Hudson Cutliffe boomed out. “Fancy finding you here. Twice in one day, eh?”

Ehrengraf looked up, smiled. “Excellent pie here,” he said.

“Come here all the time,” Cutliffe said. “My home away from home. Never seen you here before, I don’t think.”

“My first time.”

“Pie with cheese. If I ate that I’d put on ten pounds.” Unbidden, the hefty attorney drew back the bench opposite Ehrengraf and seated himself. When a waiter appeared, Cutliffe ordered a slice of prime rib and a spinach salad.

“Watching my weight,” he said. “Protein, that’s the ticket. Got to cut down on the nasty old carbs. Well, Ehrengraf, I suppose you’ve seen your wife-murderer now, haven’t you? Or are you still maintaining he’s no murderer at all?”

“Protter’s an innocent man.”

Cutliffe chuckled. “Commendable attitude, I’m sure, but why don’t you save it for the courtroom? The odd juryman may be impressed by that line of country. I’m not, myself. I’ve always found facts more convincing than attitudes.”

“Indeed,” said Ehrengraf. “Personally, I’ve always noticed the shadow as much as the substance. I suspect it’s a difference of temperament, Mr. Cutliffe. I don’t suppose you’re much of a fan of poetry, are you?”

“Poetry? You mean rhymes and verses and all that?”

“More or less.”

“Schoolboy stuff, eh? Boy stood on the burning deck, that the sort of thing you mean? Had a bellyful of that in school.” He smiled suddenly. “Unless you’re talking about limericks. I like the odd limerick now and then, I must say. Are you much of a hand for limericks?”

“Not really,” said Ehrengraf.

Cutliffe delivered four limericks while Ehrengraf sat with a pained expression on his face. The concerned a mathematician named Paul, the second a young harlot named Dinah, the third a man from Fort Ord, and the fourth an old woman from Truk.

“It’s interesting,” Ehrengraf said at length. “On the surface there’s no similarity whatsoever between the limerick and abstract expressionist painting. They’re not at all alike. And yet they are.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“It’s not important,” Ehrengraf said. The waiter appeared, setting a plateful of rare beef in front of Cutliffe, who at once reached for his knife and fork. Ehrengraf looked at the meat. “You’re going to eat that,” he said.

“Of course. What else would I do with it?”

Ehrengraf took another small sip of the Calvados. Holding the glass aloft, he began an apparently aimless dissertation upon the innocence of his client. “If you were a reader of poetry,” he found himself saying, “and if you did not systematically dull your sensibilities by consuming the flesh of beasts, Mr. Protter’s innocence would be obvious to you.”

“You’re serious about defending him, then. You’re really going to plead him innocent.”

“How could I do otherwise?”

Cutliffe raised an eyebrow while lowering a fork. “You realize you’re letting an idle whim jeopardize a man’s liberty, Ehrengraf. Your Mr. Protter will surely receive a stiffer sentence after he’s been found guilty by a jury, and—”

“But he won’t be found guilty.”

“Are you counting on some technicality to get him off the hook? Because I have a friend in the District Attorney’s office, you know, and I went round there while you were visiting your client. He tells me the state’s case is gilt-edged.”

“The state is welcome to the gilt,” Ehrengraf said grandly. “Mr. Protter has the innocence.”

Cutliffe put down his fork, set his jaw. “Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps you simply do not care. Perhaps, having no true financial stake in Arnold Protter’s fate, you just don’t give a damn what happens to him. Whereas, had you a substantial sum riding on the outcome of the case—”

“Oh, dear,” said Ehrengraf. “You’re not by any chance proposing a wager?”

Miss Agnes Mullane had had a permanent recently, and her copper-colored hair looked as though she’d stuck her big toe in an electric socket. She had a freckled face, a pug nose, and a body that would send whole shifts of construction workers plummeting from their scaffolds. She wore a hostess outfit of a silky green fabric, and her walk, Ehrengraf noted, was decidedly slinky.

“So terrible about the Protters,” she said. “They were good neighbors, although I never became terribly close with either of them. She kept to herself, for the most part, but he always had a smile and a cheerful word for me when I would run into him on the stairs. Of course I’ve always gotten on better with men than with women, Mr. Ehrengraf, though I’m sure I couldn’t tell you why.”

“Indeed,” said Ehrengraf.

“You’ll have some more tea, Mr. Ehrengraf?”

“If I may.”

She leaned forward, displaying an alluring portion of herself to Ehrengraf as she filled his cup from a Dresden teapot. Then she set the pot down and straightened up with a sigh.

“Poor Mrs. Protter,” she said. ‘‘Death is so final.”

“Given the present state of medical science.”

“And poor Mr. Protter. Will he have to spend many years in prison, Mr. Ehrengraf?”

“Not with a proper defense. Tell me, Miss Mullane. Mrs. Protter accused her husband of having an affair with you. I wonder why she should have brought such an accusation.”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Of course you’re a very attractive woman—”

“Do you really think so, Mr. Ehrengraf?”

“—and you live by yourself, and tongues will wag.”

“I’m a respectable woman, Mr. Ehrengraf.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“And I would never have an affair with anyone who lived here in this building. Discretion, Mr. Ehrengraf, is very important to me.”

“I sensed that, Miss Mullane.” The little lawyer got to his feet, walked to the window. The afternoon was warm, and the strains of Latin music drifted up through the open window from the street below.

“Transistor radios,” Agnes Mullane said. “They carry them everywhere.”

“So they do. When Mrs. Protter made that accusation, Miss Mullane, her husband denied it.”

“Why, I should hope so!”

“And he in turn accused her of carrying on with Mr. Gates. Have I said something funny, Miss Mullane?”

Agnes Mullane managed to control her laughter. “Mr. Gates is an artist,” she said.

“A painter, I’m told. Would that canvas be one of his?”

“I m afraid not. He paints abstracts. I prefer representational art myself, as you can see.”

“And country music.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. You’re sure Mr. Gates was not having an affair with Mrs. Protter?”

“Positive.” Her brow clouded for an instant, then cleared completely. “No,” she said, “Harry Gates would never have been involved with her. But what’s the point, Mr. Ehrengraf? Are you trying to establish a defense of justifiable homicide? The unwritten law and all that?”

“Not exactly.”

“Because I really don’t think it would work, do you?”

“No,” said Ehrengraf, “I don’t suppose it would.”

Miss Mullane leaned forward again, not to pour tea but with a similar effect. “It’s so noble of you,” she said, “donating your time for poor Mr. Protter.”

“The court appointed me, Miss Mullane.”

“Yes, but surely not all appointed attorneys work so hard on these cases, do they?”

“Perhaps not.”

“That’s what I thought.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “Nobility is an attractive quality in a man,” she said thoughtfully. “And I’ve always admired men who dress well, and who bear themselves elegantly.”

Ehrengraf smiled. He was wearing a pale blue cashmere sport jacket over a Wedgwood blue shirt. His tie matched his jacket, with an intricate below-the-knot design in gold thread.

“A lovely jacket,” Miss Mullane purred. She reached over, laid a hand on sleeve. “Cashmere,” she said. “I love the feel of cashmere.”

“Thank you.”

“And gray flannel slacks. What a fine fabric. Come with me, Mr. Ehrengraf. I’ll show you where to hang your things.”

In the bedroom Miss Mullane paused to switch on the radio. Loretta Lynn was singing something about having been born a coal miner’s daughter.

“My one weakness,” Miss Mullane said, “or should I say one of my two weaknesses, along with a weakness for well-dressed men of noble character. I hope you don’t mind country music, Mr. Ehrengraf?”

“Not at all,” said Ehrengraf. “I find it soothing.”

Several days later, when Arnold Protter was released from jail, Ehrengraf was there to meet him. “I want to shake your hand,” he told him, extending his own. “You’re a free man now, Mr. Protter. I only regret I played no greater part in securing your freedom.”

Protter pumped the lawyer’s hand enthusiastically. “Hey, listen,” he said, “you’re ace-high with me, Mr. Ehrengraf. You believed in me when nobody else did, including me myself. I’m just now trying to take all of this in. I tell you, I never would have dreamed Agnes Mullane killed my wife.”

“It’s something neither of us suspected, Mr. Protter.”

“It’s the craziest thing I ever heard of. Let me see if I got the drift of it straight. My Gretchen was carrying on with Gates after all. I thought it was just a way to get in a dig at her, accusing her of carrying on with him, but actually it was happening all the time.”

“So it would seem.”

“And that’s why she got so steamed when I brought it up.” Protter nodded, wrapped up in thought. “Anyway, Gates also had something going with Agnes Mullane. You know something, Mr. Ehrengraf? He musta been nuts. Why would anybody who was getting next to Agnes want to bother with Gretchen?”

“Artists perceive the world differently from the rest of us, Mr. Protter.”

“If that’s a polite way of saying he was cockeyed, I sure gotta go with you on that. So here he’s getting it on with the both of them, and Agnes finds out and she’s jealous. How do you figure she found out?”

“It’s always possible Gates told her,” Ehrengraf suggested. “Or perhaps she heard you accusing your wife of infidelity. You and Gretchen had both been drinking, and your argument may have been a loud one.”

“Could be. A few boilermakers and I tend to raise my voice.”

“Most people do. Or perhaps Miss Mullane saw some of Gates’s sketches of your wife. I understand there were several found in his apartment. He may have been an abstract expressionist, but he seems to have been capable of realistic sketches of nudes. Of course he’s denied they were his work, but he’d be likely to say that, wouldn’t he?”

“I guess so,” Protter said. “Naked pictures of Gretchen, gee, you never know, do you?”

“You never do,” Ehrengraf agreed. “In any event, Miss Mullane had a key to your apartment. One was found among her effects. Perhaps it was Gates’s key, perhaps Gretchen had given it to him and Agnes Mullane stole it. She let herself into your apartment, found you and your wife unconscious, and pounded your wife on the head with an empty beer bottle. Your wife was alive when Miss Mullane entered your apartment, Mr. Protter, and dead when she left it.”

“So I didn’t kill her after all.”

“Indeed you did not.” Ehrengraf smiled for a moment. Then his face turned grave. “Agnes Mullane was not cut out for murder,” he said. “At heart she was a gentle soul. I realized that at once when I spoke with her.”

“You went and talked to Agnes?”

The little lawyer nodded. “I suspect my interview with her may have driven her over the edge,” he said. “Perhaps she sensed that I was suspicious of her. She wrote out a letter to the police, detailing what she had done. Then she must have gone upstairs to Mr. Gates’s apartment, because she managed to secure a twenty-five caliber automatic pistol registered to him. She returned to her own apartment, put the weapon to her chest, and shot herself in the heart.”

“She had some chest, too.”

Ehrengraf did not comment.

“I’ll tell you,” Protter said, “the whole thing’s a little too complicated for a simple guy like me to take it all in all at once. I can see why it was open and shut as far as the cops were concerned. There’s me and the wife drinking, and there’s me and the wife fighting, and the next thing you know she’s dead and I’m sleeping it off. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be doing time for killing her.”

“I played a part,” Ehrengraf said modestly. “But it’s Agnes Mullane’s conscience that saved you from prison.”

“Poor Agnes.”

“A tortured, tormented woman, Mr. Protter.”

“I don’t know about that,” Protter said. “But she had some body on her, I’ll say that for her.” He drew a breath. “What about you, Mr. Ehrengraf? You did a real job for me. I wish I could pay you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I guess the court pays you something, huh?”

“There’s a set fee of a hundred and seventy-five dollars,” Ehrengraf said, “but I don’t know that I’m eligible to receive it in this instance because of the disposition of the case. The argument may be raised that I didn’t really perform any actions on your behalf, that charges were simply dropped.”

“You mean you’ll get gypped out of your fee? That’s a hell of a note, Mr. Ehrengraf.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” said Ehrengraf. “It’s not important in the overall scheme of things.”

Ehrengraf, his blue pinstripe suit setting off his Caedmon Society striped necktie, sipped daintily at a Calvados. It was Indian Summer this afternoon, far too balmy for hot apple pie with cheddar cheese. He was eating instead a piece of cold apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream, and had discovered that Calvados went every bit as nicely with that dish.

Across from him, Hudson Cutliffe sat with a plate of lamb stew. When Cutliffe had ordered the dish, Ehrengraf had refrained from commenting on the barbarity of slaughtering lambs and stewing them. He had decided to ignore the contents of Cutliffe’s plate. Whatever he’d ordered, Ehrengraf intended that the man eat crow today.

“You,” said Cutliffe, “are the most astonishingly fortunate lawyer who ever passed the bar.”

“‘Dame Fortune is a fickle gypsy, And always blind, and often tipsy,’” Ehrengraf quoted. “Winthrop Mackworth Praed, born eighteen-oh-two, died eighteen thirty-nine. But you don’t care for poetry, do you? Perhaps you’d prefer the elder Pliny’s observation upon the eruption of Vesuvius. He said that Fortune favors the brave.”

“A cliché, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it was rather less a cliché when Pliny said it,” Ehrengraf said gently. “But that’s beside the point. My client was innocent, just as I told you—”

“How on earth could you have known it?”

“I didn’t have to know it. I presumed it, Mr. Cutliffe, as I always presume my clients to be innocent, and as in time they are invariably proven to be. And, because you were so incautious as to insist upon a wager—”

“Insist!”

“It was indeed your suggestion,” Ehrengraf said. “I did not seek you out, Mr. Cutliffe. I did not seat myself unbidden at your table.”

“You came to this restaurant,” Cutliffe said darkly. “You deliberately baited me, goaded me. You—”

“Oh, come now,” Ehrengraf said. “You make me sound like what priests would call an occasion of sin or lawyers an attractive nuisance. I came here for apple pie with cheese, Mr. Cutliffe, and you proposed a wager. Now my client has been released and all charges dropped, and I believe you owe me money.”

“It’s not as if you got him off. Fate got him off.”

Ehrengraf rolled his eyes. “Oh, please, Mr. Cutliffe,” he said. “I’ve had clients take that stance, you know, and they change their minds in the end. My agreement with them has always been that my fee is due and payable upon their release, whether the case comes to court or not, whether or not I have played any evident part in their salvation. I specified precisely those terms when we arranged our little wager.”

“Of course gambling debts are not legally collectible in this state.”

“Of course they are not, Mr. Cutliffe. Yours is purely a debt of honor, an attribute which you may or may not be said to possess in accordance with your willingness to write out a check. But I trust you are an honorable man, Mr. Cutliffe.”

Their eyes met. After a long moment Cutliffe drew a checkbook from his pocket. “I feel I’ve been manipulated in some devious fashion,” he said, “but at the same time I can’t gloss over the fact that I owe you money.” He opened the checkbook, uncapped a pen, and filled out the check quickly, signing it with a flourish. Ehrengraf smiled narrowly, placing the check in his own wallet without noting the amount. It was, let it be said, an impressive amount.

“An astonishing case,” Cutliffe said, “even if you yourself had the smallest of parts in it. This morning’s news was the most remarkable thing of all.”

“Oh?”

“I’m referring to Gates’s confession, of course.”

“Gates’s confession?”

“You haven’t heard? Oh, this is rich. Harry Gates is in jail. He went to the police and confessed to murdering Gretchen Protter.”

“Gates murdered Gretchen Protter?”

“No question about it. It seems he shot her, used the very same small-caliber automatic pistol that the Mullane woman stole and used to kill herself. He was having an affair with both the women, just as Agnes Mullane said in her suicide note. He heard Protter accuse his wife of infidelity and was afraid Agnes Mullane would find out he’d been carrying on with Gretchen Protter. So he went down there looking to clear the air, and he had the gun along for protection, and — are you sure you didn’t know about this?”

“Keep talking,” Ehrengraf urged.

“Well, he found the two of them out cold. At first he thought Gretchen was dead but he saw she was breathing, and he took a raw potato the refrigerator and used it as a silencer, and he shot Gretchen in the heart. They never found the bullet during postmortem examination because they weren’t looking for it, just assumed massive skull injuries had caused her death. But after he confessed they looked, and there was the bullet right where he said it should be, and Gates is in jail charged with her murder.”

“Why on earth did he confess?”

“He was in love with Agnes Mullane,” Cutliffe said. “That’s why he killed Gretchen. Then Agnes Mullane killed herself, taking the blame for a crime Gates committed, and he cracked wide open. Figures her death was some sort of divine retribution, and he has to clear things by paying the price for the Protter woman’s death. The D.A. thinks perhaps he killed them both, faked Agnes Mullane’s confession note, and then couldn’t win the battle with his own conscience. He insists he didn’t, of course, as he insists he didn’t draw nude sketches of either of the women, but it seems there’s some question now about the validity of Agnes Mullane’s suicide note, so it may well turn out that Gates killed her, too. Because if Gates killed Gretchen, why would Agnes have committed suicide?”

“I’m sure there are any number of possible explanations,” Ehrengraf said, his fingers worrying the tips of his trimmed mustache. “Any number of explanations. Do you know the epitaph Andrew Marvell wrote for a lady?

“To say — she lived a virgin chaste

In this age loose and all unlaced;

Nor was, when vice is so allowed,

Of virtue or ashamed or proud;

That her soul was on Heaven so bent,

No minute but it came and went;

That, ready her last debt to pay,

She summed her life every day;

Modest as morn, as mid-day bright,

Gentle as evening, cool as night:

—‘Tis true; but all too weakly said;

‘Twas more significant, she’s dead.

“She’s dead, Mr. Cutliffe, and we may leave her to heaven, as another poet has said. My client was innocent. That’s the only truly relevant point. My client was innocent.”

“As you somehow knew all along.”

“As I knew all along, yes. Yes, indeed, as I knew all along.” Ehrengraf’s fingers drummed the tabletop. “Perhaps you could get our waiter’s eye,” he suggested. “I think I might enjoy another glass of Calvados.”

Content

Lawrence Block
The Ehrengraf Appointment