The Ehrengraf Nostrum

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Gardner Bridgewater paced to and fro over Martin Ehrengraf’s office carpet, reminding the little lawyer rather less of a caged jungle cat than — what? He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, Ehrengraf thought, echoing Shakespeare’s Cassius. But what, really, did a Colossus look like? Ehrengraf wasn’t sure, but the alleged uxoricide was unquestionably colossal, and there he was, bestriding all over the place as if determined to wear holes in the rug.

“If I’d wanted to kill the woman,” Bridgewater said, hitting one of his hands with the other, “I’d have damn well done it. By cracking her over the head with something heavy. A lamp base. A hammer. A fireplace poker.”

An anvil, Ehrengraf thought. A stove. A Volkswagen.

“Or I might have wrung her neck,” said Bridgewater, flexing his fingers. “Or I might have beaten her to death with my hands.”

Ehrengraf thought of Longfellow’s village blacksmith. “ ‘The smith, a mighty man is he, with large and sinewy hands,’ ” he murmured.

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