“You don’t think the amount is out of line?”
“I don’t keep my fees in a line, Mr. Crowe.” Ehrengraf’s hand went to the knot of his tie. It was the official tie of the Caedmon Society of Oxford University. Ehrengraf had not attended Oxford and did not belong to the Caedmon Society any more than he belonged to the International Society for the Preservation of Wild Mustangs and Burros, but it was a tie he habitually wore on celebratory occasions. “I set my fees according to an intuitive process,” he went on, “and they are never negotiable. Fifty thousand dollars, sir. Not a penny more, not a penny less. Ah, Mr. Crowe, Mr. Crowe — do you know why Mayhew chose to torment you?”
“I suppose he feels I’ve harmed him.”
“And have you?”
“No, but—”
“Supposition is blunder’s handmaiden, Mr. Crowe. Mayhew made your life miserable because he hated you. I don’t know why he hated you. I don’t believe Mayhew himself knows why he hated you. I think he selected you at random. He needed someone to hate and you were convenient. Ah, Mr. Crowe—” Ehrengraf smiled with his lips “—consider how much damage was done to you by an insane cripple with no reason to do you harm. And then consider, sir, how much more harm could be done you by someone infinitely more ruthless and resourceful than Terence Reginald Mayhew, someone who is neither a lunatic nor a cripple, someone who is supplied with fifty thousand excellent reasons to wish you ill.”
Crowe stared. “That’s a threat,” he said slowly.
“I fear you’ve confused a threat and a caution, Mr. Crowe, though I warrant the distinction’s a thin one. Are you fond of poetry, sir?”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s no criticism, sir. Some people have poetry in their souls and others do not. It’s predetermined, I suspect, like color blindness. I could recommend Thomas Hood, sir, or Christopher Smart, but would you read them? Or profit by them? Fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Crowe, and a check will do nicely.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Certainly not.”
“And I won’t be intimidated.”
“Indeed you won’t,” Ehrengraf agreed. “But do you recall our initial interview, Mr. Crowe? I submit that you would do well to act as if — as if you were afraid of me, as if you were intimidated.”
Ethan Crowe sat quite still for several seconds. A variety of expressions played over his generally unexpressive face. At length he drew a checkbook from the breast pocket of his morosely brown jacket and uncapped a silver fountain pen.
“Payable to?”
“Martin H. Ehrengraf.”
The pen scratched away. Then, idly, “What’s the H. stand for?”
“Herod.”
“The store in England?”
“The king,” said Ehrengraf. “The king in the Bible.”
The Ehrengraf Obligation
William Telliford gave his head a tentative scratch, in part because it itched, in part out of puzzlement. It itched because he had been unable to wash his lank brown hair during the four days he’d thus far spent in jail. He was puzzled because this dapper man before him was proposing to get him out of jail.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “The court appointed an attorney for me. A younger man, I think he said his name was Trabner. You’re not associated with him or anything, are you?”
“Certainly not.”
“Your name is—”
“Martin Ehrengraf.”
“Well, I appreciate your coming to see me, Mr. Ehrengraf, but I’ve already got a lawyer, this Mr. Trabner, and—”
“Are you satisfied with Mr. Trabner?”
Telliford lowered his eyes, focusing his gaze upon the little lawyer’s shoes, a pair of highly polished black wing tips. “I suppose he’s all right,” he said slowly.
“But?”
“But he doesn’t believe I’m innocent. I mean he seems to take it for granted I’m guilty and the best thing I can do is plead guilty to manslaughter or something. He’s talking in terms of making some kind of deal with the district attorney, like it’s a foregone conclusion that I have to go to prison and the only question is how long.”
“Then you’ve answered my question,” Ehrengraf said, a smile flickering on his thin lips. “You’re unsatisfied with your lawyer. The court has appointed him. It remains for you to disappoint him, as it were, and to engage me in his stead. You have the right to do this, you know.”
“But I don’t have the money. Trabner was going to defend me for free, which is about as much as I can afford. I don’t know what kind of fees you charge for something like this but I’ll bet they’re substantial. That suit of yours didn’t come from the Salvation Army.”
Ehrengraf beamed. His suit, charcoal gray flannel with a nipped-in waist, had been made for him by a most exclusive tailor. His shirt was pink, with a button-down collar. His vest was a tattersall check, red and black on a cream background, and his tie showed half-inch stripes of red and charcoal gray. “My fees are on the high side,” he allowed. “To undertake your defense I would ordinarily set a fee of eighty thousand dollars.”
“Eighty dollars would strain my budget,” William Telliford said. “Eighty thousand, well, it might take me ten years to earn that much.”
“But I propose to defend you free of charge, sir.”
William Telliford stared, not least because he could not recall the last time anyone had thought to call him sir. He was, it must be said, a rather unprepossessing young man, tending to slouch and sprawl. His jeans needed patching at the knees. His plaid flannel shirt needed washing and ironing. His chukka boots needed soles and heels, and his socks needed replacement altogether.
“But—”
“But why?”
Telliford nodded.
“Because you are a poet,” said Martin Ehrengraf.
“Poets,” said Ehrengraf, “are the unacknowledged legislators of the universe.”
“That’s beautiful,” Robin Littlefield said. She didn’t know just what to make of this little man but he was certainly impressive. “Could you say that again? I want to remember it.”
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the universe. But don’t credit me with the observation. Shelley said it first.”
“Is she your wife?”
The lawyer’s deeply set dark eyes narrowed perceptibly. “Percy Bysshe Shelley,” he said gently. “Born 1792, died 1822. The poet.”
“Oh.”
“So your young man is one of the world’s unacknowledged legislators. Or you might prefer the lines Arthur O’Shaughnessy wrote. ‘We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams.’ You know the poem?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I like the second stanza,” said Ehrengraf, and tilted his head to one side and quoted it: