Smythe had had a magnification made of the name on the note, and the one on old Hen's letter, and every banker in town went on and swore about these names. John Smythe, Fillmore's half-brother, knew Hen's signature; and had had to study handwriting so hard in the bank that he had got to be an expert. He was always thought a kind of a ninny, but here's where he sure did loom up with the knowledge. He acted just as smart as those Chicago experts we read about, and living right here in the county all the time, and never out of the bank a day! A good deal of my ability comes from dropping into some big city like Fort Dodge or Ottumwa, or maybe Sioux City, or Des Moines every winter, and getting on to the new wrinkles and broadening out; but John Smythe was always behind that brass railing, like a cow in stanchions. And yet he was able to see that those two signatures just had to be made by the same man. This spiel was cutting ice with the jury, and Mac roared and pointed out where they were different; but Smythe hinted that it only seemed so because Mac was ignorant. He could just see the same man a-making them—the way the stem of the "P" was made, and the finish of the "y" like a pollywog's tail made it a cinch. Hen swore under his powerful breath that it was a dad-burned lie; but it looked awful plausible to me.
"You notice," said Fillmore, "that the name on the letter is more scrawly and uneven?"
"Yes," said John, "but that merely means that he used a different pen or was nervous. I think I see in the last the characteristic tremor of anger."
This looked bad to me, for if ever a man had a right to the characteristic tremor of anger, it was old Hen when he signed that letter. It showed Smythe knew what he was at.
Mac showed them a lot of Hen's real signatures, but the experts said they only made it clearer. Every one had a little curlicue or funny business that put Hen deeper in the hole; and he finally chucked the bunch, all the reporter didn't have, in the stove. Fillmore Smythe inflated himself and blew up at this; but Brockway, still concealing his love, said that while it looked bad, and the jury might consider this destruction of evidence as one of the facts, the papers belonged to defendant and the court didn't see fit to do anything. Our case looked as bad as it could, and I didn't see why Smythe hollered so about it. The jury looked on us as horse-thieves and crooks, and every time old Hen stepped, he balled things up worse.
Whitten, of the First National, was stronger than John Smythe. He said it was physically impossible for any man but the one that signed the letter to have made that note; and he was an expert from away back. He pointed out the anger tremor, too. Mac showed him how the check-signatures all looked like that on the letter, and not like the one on the note; but Whitten said a man was always calm when he made a note, and mad as a hatter when he drew a check. Knowing Hen, this looked plausible to me, and made a hit with the jury. The man that hollered "Whay!" wrote it down on his cuff.
Ole Pete Hungerford, the note-shaver, snorted disdainfully that there was no doubt that the note was genuine. He swore that a bogus check I made was genuine, too; and got redder than a turkey when he found I had made it, and said it was the work of a skilful forger. The man that hollered "Whay!" looked at me in horror, and wrote some more on his cuff. I felt considerable cheap.
Every expert said the same thing. I believe that there was one while when Hen would have admitted he signed the note if they had called him and raw-hided him enough. Hen had some hopes when Zenas Whitcher of the Farmers' Bank had some doubts about one signature; but he flattened out again when he found it was the one on the letter that had old Zenas guessing, and that he was dead sure the one on the note was a sure-enough genuine sig, only it looked as if he was trying to disguise his hand. Fillmore seemed to think pretty well of this, and had them all go back and swear about this disguise business. They could all see wiggly spots now and places gone over twice where Hen had doubled on his trail to throw pursuers off the track and disguise his hand. It begun to look to me like Hen was up to some skulduggery,—all these smooth guys swearing like that,—but Hen was paying me my wages and needed friends, and I stuck. He looked down his nose like an egg-sucking pup. When I came on to swear that it was not Hen's signature on the note, my mind was so full of curlicues and polly-wogs' tails, and anger tremors, and disguises, and the gall of my swearing against these big men that had money to burn, that I went into buck fever, and was all shot to rags by Smythe's cross-examination,—any of you fellows would be,—so that I finally admitted that the note looked pretty good to me, and that I'd have probably taken it for Hen's note if I'd been a banker and had it offered to me. Mac threw up his hands, said that was all our evidence, then went at the jury hammer and tongs, and I looked at poor old Hen all collapsed down into his chair like a rubber snake, and I went and hid.
In the morning I crawled out, supposing that it would all be over, and wondering where I'd find Hen; but I heard Judge McKenzie's closing argument rolling out of the court-house windows like thunder. I didn't care for eloquence the way I was feeling, and was just sneaking away, when who should I run on to but Fanny walking with a fellow down under the maples. I was shocked, for she was hanging to his arm the way no nice girl ought to do unless it's dark. I trailed along behind to see who it was, when the fellow turned his head quick, and I saw it was Hank. They come up to me, Fanny still shamelessly hanging to his arm, looking excited and foolish, like they had just experienced religion or got engaged.
"Doc," said Hank, "we've just found out about it!"