“And they brought you here and put you in a cell.”
“Yes. I was quite astonished. I couldn’t imagine why they would do such a thing, and then it developed that Mrs. Keppner had sworn she saw me shoot Howard.”
Ehrengraf was respectfully silent for a moment. Then he said, “It seems they found some corroboration for Mrs. Keppner’s story.”
“What do you mean?”
“The gun,” Ehrengraf said. “A .32-caliber revolver. I believe it was registered to you, was it not?”
“It was my gun.”
“How did Mr. Bierstadt happen to have it?”
“I brought it to him.”
“At his request?”
“Yes. When we spoke on the telephone, he specifically asked me to bring the gun. He said something about wanting to protect himself from burglars. I never thought he would shoot himself.”
“But he did.”
“He must have done. He was upset about Leona. Perhaps he felt guilty, or that there was no way to avoid hurting her.”
“Wasn’t there a paraffin test?” Ehrengraf mused. “As I recall, there were no nitrite particles found in Mr. Bierstadt’s hand, which would seem to indicate he had not fired a gun recently.”
“I don’t really understand those tests,” Evelyn Throop said. “But I’m told they’re not absolutely conclusive.”
“And the police gave you a test as well,” Ehrengraf went on. “Didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And found nitrite particles in your right hand.”
“Of course,” Evelyn Throop said. “I’d fired the gun that evening before I took it along to Howard’s house. I hadn’t used it in the longest time, since I first practiced with it at a pistol range, so I cleaned it and to make sure it was in good operating condition I test-fired it before I went to Howard’s.”
“At a pistol range?”
“That wouldn’t have been convenient. I just stopped at a deserted spot along a country road and fired a few shots.”
“I see.”
“I told the police all of this, of course.”
“Of course. Before they gave you the paraffin test?”
“After the test, as it happens. The incident had quite slipped my mind in the excitement of the moment, but they gave me the test and said it was evident I’d fired a gun, and at that point I recalled having stopped the car and firing off a couple of rounds before continuing on to Howard’s.”
“Where you gave Mr. Bierstadt the gun.”
“Yes.”
“Whereupon he in due course took it off into another room and fired three shots into his heart,” Ehrengraf murmured. “Your Mr. Bierstadt would look to be one of the most determined suicides in human memory.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“But I do believe you,” he said. “Which is to say that I believe you did not shoot Mr. Bierstadt. Whether or not he did in fact die by his own hand is not, of course, something to which either you or I can testify.”
“How else could he have died?” The woman’s gaze narrowed. “Unless he really was genuinely afraid of burglars, and unless he did surprise one in the other room. But wouldn’t I have heard sounds of a struggle? Of course, I was in another room a fair distance away, and there was music playing, and I did have things on my mind.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“And perhaps Mrs. Keppner saw the burglar shoot Howard, and then she fainted or something. I suppose that’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Eminently possible,” Ehrengraf assured her.
“She might have come to when I had already entered the room and picked up the gun, and the whole incident could have been compressed in her mind. She wouldn’t remember having fainted and so she might now actually believe she saw me kill Howard, while all along she saw something entirely different.” Evelyn Throop had been looking off into the middle distance as she formulated her theory and now she focused her eyes upon the diminutive attorney. “It could have happened that way,” she said, “couldn’t it?”
“It could have happened precisely that way,” Ehrengraf said. “It could have happened in any of innumerable ways. Ah, Miss Throop” — and now the lawyer rubbed his small hands together — “that’s the whole beauty of it. There are any number of alternatives to the prosecution’s argument, but of course they don’t see them. Give the police a supposedly ironclad case and they look no further. It is not their task to examine alternatives. But it is our task, Miss Throop, to find not merely an alternative but the correct alternative, the ideal alternative. And in just that fashion we will make a free woman of you.”
“You seem very confident, Mr. Ehrengraf.”
“I am.”
“And prepared to believe in my innocence.”
“Unequivocally. Without question.”
“I find that refreshing,” Evelyn Throop said. “I even believe you’ll get me acquitted.”
“I fully expect to,” Ehrengraf said. “Now let me see, is there anything else we have to discuss at present?”
“Yes.”
“And what would that be?”
“Your fee,” said Evelyn Throop.
Back in his office, seated behind a desk which he kept as untidy as he kept his own person immaculate, Martin H. Ehrengraf sat back and contemplated the many extraordinary qualities of his latest client. In his considerable experience, while clients were not invariably opposed to a discussion of his fees, they were certainly loath to raise the matter. But Evelyn Throop, possessor of dove-gray eyes and remarkable facial bones, had proved an exception.
“My fees are high,” Ehrengraf had told her, “but they are payable only in the event that my clients are acquitted. If you don’t emerge from this ordeal scot-free, you owe me nothing. Even my expenses will be at my expense.”
“And if I get off?”
“Then you will owe me one hundred thousand dollars. And I must emphasize, Miss Throop, that the fee will be due me however you win your freedom. It is not inconceivable that neither of us will ever see the inside of a courtroom, that your release when it comes will appear not to have been the result of my efforts at all. I will, nevertheless, expect to be paid in full.”
The gray eyes looked searchingly into the lawyer’s own. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Yes, of course. Well, that seems fair. If I’m released I won’t really care how the end was accomplished, will I?”
Ehrengraf said nothing. Clients often whistled a different tune at a later date, but one could burn that bridge when one came to it.
“One hundred thousand dollars seems reasonable,” the woman continued. “I suppose any sum would seem reasonable when one’s life and liberty hangs in the balance. Of course, you must know I have no money of my own.”
“Perhaps your family—”
She shook her head. “I can trace my ancestors back to William the Conqueror,” she said, “and there were Throops who made their fortune in whaling and the China trade, but I’m afraid the money’s run out over the generations. However, I shouldn’t have any problem paying your fee.”
“Oh?”
“I’m Howard’s chief beneficiary,” she explained. “I’ve seen his will and it makes it unmistakably clear that I held first place in his affections. After a small cash bequest to Mrs. Keppner for her loyal years of service, and after leaving his art collection — which, I grant you, is substantial — to Leona, the remainder comes to me. There may be a couple of cash bequests to charities but nothing that amounts to much. So while I’ll have to wait for the will to make its way through probate, I’m sure I can borrow on my expectations and pay you your fee within a matter of days of my release from jail, Mr. Ehrengraf.”