Part 33 (1/2)
”I have been thinking it over, Mr. Hartington, and I should recommend you to bring Cooper with you.”
”Who is Cooper?”
”He is one of our greatest experts on handwriting. I don't know whether you have any of your father's letters in your possession.”
”Yes, I have several. I brought over the last two I had from him, thinking they might be useful.”
”Well, his opinion on the signatures may be valuable, though as a rule experts differ so absolutely that their evidence is always taken with considerable doubt, but it is part of his business to look out for erasures and alterations. It is quite possible Brander may have removed that blot, and that he has done it so well that neither you nor I could detect it; but whether he did it with a knife or chemicals you may be sure that Cooper will be able to spot it, whichever he used. I have very little doubt that your suspicions are correct and those parchments were really the pretended mortgage deeds. If you like I will go round and see Cooper at once and arrange for him to meet us in Coleman Street to-morrow at four o'clock.”
”Thank you very much. The idea of the blot being erased had never struck me.”
The next day Cuthbert met James Harford and Mr. Cooper at the door of the accountants, and after being introduced by the clerk to the expert they went up together. On giving his name in the office a clerk came across to him.
”If you will come with me, gentlemen, I will lead you to the room that is ready for you. This is the doc.u.ment that you desire to see.”
As soon as they were alone they sat down at the table, and opened the deed.
”How is it for size?” Cuthbert asked.
”It is about the same size, but that is nothing. All deeds are on two or three sizes of parchment. The last page is the thing.”
Cuthbert turned to it. There were but four lines of writing at the top of the page, and below these came the signatures.
”Of course I could not swear to it, Mr. Hartington, but it is precisely in accordance with my recollection. There were either three, four, or five lines at the top. Certainly not more than five, certainly not less than three. As you see there is no blot to my signature. Now, Mr.
Cooper, will you be kind enough to compare the signatures of these two letters with the same name there?”
Mr. Cooper took the letter and deed to a desk by the window, examined them carefully, then took out a large magnifying gla.s.s from his pocket, and again examined them.
”I should say they are certainly not by the same hand,” he said, decisively. ”I do not call them even good imitations. They are nothing like as good as would be made by any expert in signing other people's names. The tail of the 'J' in James in these two letters runs up into the 'a' but as you will notice the pen is taken off and the letter 'a'
starts afresh. Here on the contrary you see the pen has not been taken off, but the upstroke of the 'J' runs on continuously into the 'a.' More naturally it would be just the other way. In these two letters the writer would be signing his name more hurriedly than to a formal deed, and would be much more likely to run his letters into each other than when making a formal signature on parchment.
”Looking through this gla.s.s you will observe also that although the letters run on together there is a slight thickening in the upstroke between each letter as if the writer had paused, though without taking his pen off, to examine the exact method of making the next letter in a copy lying before him. In the surname there are half a dozen points of difference. To begin with, the whole writing slopes less than in the other signatures. In both your father's letters the cross of the first 't' is much lower than usual and almost touches the top of the 'r' and i.' The same peculiarity is shown in the second 't' in both letters, while on the deed the 't's' are crossed a good deal higher. The whole word is more cramped, the flourish at the end of the 'n' is longer but less free. In the capital letter, the two downstrokes are a good deal closer together. There has been the same pause between each letter as those I pointed out in the Christian name, and indeed the gla.s.s shows you the pen was altogether taken off the paper between the 'o' and the 'n,' as the writer studied that final flourish. My opinion is that it is not only a forgery but a clumsy one, and would be detected at once by anyone who had the original signatures before him. I will even go so far as to say that I doubt if any bank clerk well acquainted with Mr.
Hartington's signature would pa.s.s it.”
”And now for the blot,” Cuthbert said. ”There was a blot somewhere near the signature of Mr. Harford.”
”Don't tell me where it was, Mr. Harford. I would rather not know its exact position.”
With the aid of the magnifying gla.s.s the expert carefully examined the parchment and then held it up to the light.
”The blot was in the middle of the signature and involved the letters 'a' and 'r.' Is that right?”
”That is right, Mr. Cooper; he used blotting paper to it at once, and it did not show up very strongly.”
”An eraser has been used and a chemical of some sort, and the two letters involved in the blot have been re-written, or at any rate touched up, but they have run a little. You can see it quite plainly through this lens. The difference between their outline and that of the other letters is quite distinct, and by holding the parchment so that the light falls across it, you can see that, although it has been rubbed, probably by the handle of a penknife to give it a gloss, the difference between that gloss and the rest of the surface, is distinctly visible.”
”I see that,” the clerk said, ”and I should be quite prepared to swear now, Mr. Hartington, that this is the doc.u.ment I signed some three weeks after I signed as witness to the transfer.”
”That is quite good enough, I think,” Cuthbert said. ”Thank you, Mr.
Cooper, you have quite settled the doubt I had in my mind. I do not think I shall have occasion to ask you to go into court over this matter, but should I have to do so I will, of course, give you due notice.”