Ehrengraf for the Defense by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page A

occasions, moments of personal
triumph.
    “Murchison left careful instructions,” he
went on. “He would call the lawyer every Thursday, merely repeating
the alias he had used. If ever a Thursday passed without a call,
and if there was no call on Friday either, the lawyer was to open
the letter and follow its instructions. For four Thursdays in a row
the lawyer received a phone call, presumably from Murchison.”
    “Presumably,” Beale said heavily.
    “Indeed. On the Tuesday following the fourth
Thursday, Murchison’s car went off a cliff and he was killed
instantly. The lawyer read of Walker Murchison’s death but had no
idea that was his client’s true identity. Then Thursday came and
went without a call, and when there was no telephone call Friday
either, why, the dutiful attorney opened the letter and went
forthwith to the police.” Ehrengraf spread his hands, smiled
broadly. “The rest,” he said, “you know as well as I.”
    “Great Scott,” Beale said.
    “Now if you honestly feel I’ve done nothing
to earn my money—”
    “I’ll have to liquidate some stock,” Beale
said. “It won’t be a problem and there shouldn’t be much time
involved. I’ll bring a check to your office in a week. Say ten days
at the outside. Unless you’d prefer cash?”
    “A check will be fine, Mr. Beale. So long as
it’s a good check.” And he smiled with his lips to show he was
joking.
    The smile gave Beale a chill.
    * * *
    A week later Grantham Beale remembered that
smile when he passed a check across Martin Ehrengraf’s heroically
disorganized desk. “A good check,” he said. “I’d never give you a
bad check, Mr. Ehrengraf. You typed that letter, you made all those
phone calls, you forged Murchison’s false name to the money order,
and then when the opportunity presented itself you sent his car
hurtling off the cliff with him in it.”
    “One believes what one wishes,” Ehrengraf
said quietly.
    “I’ve been thinking about all of this all
week long. Murchison framed me for a murder he committed, then paid
for the crime himself and liberated me in the process without
knowing what he was doing. ‘The cut worm forgives the plow.’”
    “Indeed.”
    “Meaning that the end justifies the
means.”
    “Is that what Blake meant by that line? I’ve
long wondered.”
    “The end justifies the means. I’m innocent,
and now I’m free, and Murchison’s guilty, and now he’s dead, and
you’ve got the money, but that’s all right, because I made out fine
on those stamps, and of course I don’t have to repay Speldron, poor
man, because death did cancel that particular debt, and—”
    “Mr. Beale.”
    “Yes?”
    “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but
I fear I must. You are more of an innocent than you realize. You’ve
paid me handsomely for my services, as indeed we agreed that you
would, and I think perhaps I’ll offer you a lagniappe in the form
of some experience to offset your colossal innocence. I’ll begin
with some advice. Do not, under any circumstances, resume your
affair with Felicia Murchison.”
    Beale stared.
    “You should have told me that was why you and
Murchison didn’t get along,” Ehrengraf said gently. “I was forced
to discover it for myself. No matter. More to the point, one should
not share a pillow with a woman who has so little regard for one as
to frame one for murder. Mrs. Murchison—”
    “Felicia framed me?”
    “Of course, Mr. Beale. Mrs. Murchison had
nothing against you. It was sufficient that she had nothing for
you. She murdered Mr. Speldron, you see, for reasons which need
hardly concern us. Then having done so she needed someone to be
cast as the murderer.
    “Her husband could hardly have told the
police about your purported argument with Speldron. He wasn’t
around at the time. He didn’t know the two of you had met, and if
he went out on a limb and told them, and then you had an alibi for
the time in question, why, he’d wind up looking silly,