Unfit to Practice

demands made upon her by her own nature. Her loops indicate that her nature is sensuous. Her instinctive physical drives are strong.”

Mrs. Gleb paused while Nina died of embarrassment. She hadn’t sat in on Jack’s previous discussions with Mrs. Gleb.

“Anything else you based your decision on?”

“A strong feeling, my own intuition based on many years of experience,” Mrs. Gleb said. “However, I would have disregarded that if I did not find the other external evidence I have discussed.”

“And your conclusion, once again, based on your years of training and experience?”

“The final nineteen words were not written by the same person who wrote the rest of the document.”

“Thank you very much. No further questions.”

Gayle Nolan got up, every line in her face arched and incredulous. “Mrs. Gleb, what are the names of the last two books you have published?”

“Let me see. I have published ten. The last book was titled Graphology in Everyday Life.”

“And the one before that?”

“The Psychology of the Hand.”

“That is also supposed to be a book about graphology?”

“Yes. Graphology is my current area of interest.”

“What exactly is graphology?”

“It is a type of psychology, a method of determining personality by examining handwriting.”

“And you used graphology in making these observations about the last sentences and the preceding sentences in Exhibit 18, didn’t you?”

“Over the years I have developed greater insight into traditional methods of examining questioned documents using the methods of graphologists, and I took advantage of my insight in this case, yes.”

“Now, you testified that you examined the ink on the two samples and found them to be identical, right?”

“Yes. From the same pen, the lab concluded.”

“And you assume that the forger used Ms. Reilly’s pen, which was found when the briefcase was stolen?”

“That’s what I understood.”

“But in fact you have no personal knowledge that the pen was in the briefcase, right?”

Mrs. Gleb, unflappable, said, “None of us was there at that time. However, I saw the contents of the briefcase as listed in the police report Ms. Reilly gave on the day after the theft, and she mentioned her Waterman pen.”

Nice comeback, Nina thought.

“Let’s assume that we don’t know what happened to the pen,” Nolan said. “And all you had to go on was that the ink was identical. What would be your conclusion then? Based on that one fact alone?”

Jack stood up and said, “I think we’re running into trouble with this hypothetical. I object, lack of foundation. It’s not a fair question, Judge. No handwriting examiner ever looked at just one thing.”

“I understand the point, Counsel,” Judge Brock told Nolan. “We’ll go on.”

“All right, Your Honor. Now, Mrs. Gleb, the paper didn’t help you either, did it, since the questionable sentences were written on the same paper?”

“That is true.”

“So you were quite handicapped in terms of doing any sort of chemical analysis?”

“Yes.”

“Did you look for fingerprints?”

“Yes. Allied Laboratories did that. They discovered many smudged fingerprints. Apparently the papers passed from hand to hand at the insurance company. None were identifiable.”

“So you had no hard evidence of any forgery, isn’t that right?”

“Objection,” Jack said. “What’s hard evidence?”

“Let’s rephrase,” Brock said.

“The point is, all you had was the handwriting itself, is that correct?” Nolan asked.

“It was quite sufficient.”

“Okay, you said that you examined the angle of the writing, the slant, the spacing. You couldn’t conclude anything from that, right?”

“Not from that.”

“Did you find any evidence of tracing?”

“I would say, no.”

“Differences in pen pressure?”

“Nothing obvious.”

“Wavering? Hesitation?”

“No. This was a confident person.”

“So you based your conclusion on four factors, you testified.”

“That, and my overall experience. Many, many years of experience.”

“Right. The first factor you mentioned was the dot above the i.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Now, exactly how many i’s were you able to observe in these disputed final phrases?”

“Six.”

“And in every case, was the dot directly above the short line of the letter?”

“As I testified, only two of the six i’s had dots directly above the line. But these distinct variations from all the other i’s in the document are quite dispositive in my opinion. These two dots were damning, as they show a deliberation and care that does not come from a person taking notes, but only from a person forging a document.”

“The two damning dots were above, rather than to the right, as in the other i’s on the other pages?”

“Yes.”

“What was the difference?”

“I don’t know what you mean, the difference.”

“Between the dots? What you called the forged dots and the nonforged dots. How much out of alignment were the nonforged dots from their roots or slashes, whatever you call the rest of the i?”

“Well, the difference would be in millimeters.”

“Couldn’t Ms. Reilly have made a couple of dots just a millimeter closer to the main letter because she had something on her mind that was affecting her writing a little? Something that maybe made her feel a little less headlong than usual? Like finding out her client was a crook and deciding right then, as she was writing, that she would go along with it?”

“It’s true the sample was small. Only the two letters. However, people don’t usually vary much in the same piece of writing written at the same time.”

“But she’d just had a big piece of news there at the end.”

“Even so.”

“Okay, let’s move on to your second factor. What you call the terminals on the final letters of the words. You say there is evidence that in the questioned passage this extroverted forger wanted to curve up the terminals?”

“Yes. There was a tendency.”

“Let’s see that side-by-side slide again. A tendency, you say. Does that have anything to do with something we can observe?”

“Slide 12, please,” Mrs. Gleb said. A giant swooping geometrical design appeared. “That is the terminal s on the final word, this, found in the last sentence,” Mrs. Gleb said. “Note the slight movement upward.”

“It’s slight, all right. In fact, it’s microscopic, this tendency, isn’t it?”

“Most crucial details in this work are only observable under a microscope.”

“Hmm. Your third factor. The breaks between the letters. Looks to me like this so-called forger did put breaks between the letters.”

“Under the microscope I saw faint connecting lines.”

“Show us the slides then.”

“The slides did not pick up these slight lines.”

“Ah! Because they were only tendencies, too?”

“I saw them, but there are limits to photography. There was an almost imperceptible attempt to connect the letters in several instances.”

“Which you cannot show us in court today?”

“I can only testify they were seen by me.”

“And from these imperceptible tendencies, by the way, you adduced quite a lot about our so-called forger. He or she is a logician, a craftsman who will never be a Rembrandt. Unlike Ms. Reilly, who could dazzle the art world?”

“These are my observations.”

“These are your fantasies.”

“Objection!”

“Let’s move on.” Judge Brock obviously didn’t like to rule on things because inaction cut down on points to appeal.

“And now we move on to your fourth and final factor. Put that slide up, please. Okay, we have a little angularity on two of the letters, on the lower loops, right before they start to loop upward.”

“Where the forger wanted to stop.”

“You certainly are deep into the mind of this mythical forger, aren’t-”