“Yes,” Stone replied. “I think it’s just possible.” He explained the circumstances of Sasha’s fall and his terminal velocity theory.

“Jesus Christ,” Woodman said.

Weaver was a tall, thin man in his sixties. He looked at both letters carefully. Woodman had folded the letters so that the signatures did not show. “This is a Xerox copy, I presume,” he said, holding up Stone’s letter.

“Yes, I don’t have the original at the moment.”

“I’d like to see it, but it probably wouldn’t make much difference in my opinion.”

“What is your opinion, Mr. Weaver?” Woodman asked.

“I’d say there’s about an eighty percent chance that the same person wrote both letters.”

“Why can’t you be sure?” Stone asked.

“Well, the similarity in the shaping of the letters is pro-found, but there’s anomaly that could mean it’s a forgery. You see, here, the spacing in the more recent letter is closer; it has a cramped quality. Its lines aren’t as straight, either.”

“We noticed that,” Woodman said. “Could there be some other reason than forgery for the difference between the two letters?”

“Well, yes. The recent letter doesn’t have quite the vitality of style that the earlier one exhibits. That’s a common trait of forgeries, but it often turns up, too, when the writer is ill or injured or is convalescing.” Weaver held his right elbow close to his side and demonstrated. “A person who is weakened or in pain would characteristically hold his arm in like this, restricting the movement of his hand. This would especially be true in the event of injury—say, a broken arm or ribs. That could quite easily account for the cramped nature of the second letter.”

Stone and Woodman exchanged a look. Woodman raised his eyebrows.

Weaver continued. “In my experience, this characteristic of what you might call the ‘wounded writer’ would be more evident in the writing of a woman, but both these letters were, of course, written by a man.”

“By a man?” Stone asked, incredulously.

“In my opinion, yes; definitely,” Weaver replied.

“Anything else you can tell us?” Woodman asked.

“That’s about it, I think, though I would like to see the original of the second letter.”

Woodman escorted the man to the door. “Thank you, Mr. Weaver, and please send me your bill.” Woodman came back to his desk and sat down. “This is the goddamndest thing I ever heard,” he said.

“Frank, are you certain that Sasha, herself, wrote you this letter?”

Woodman went back to his file and extracted a small sheet of paper. “I watched her write this,” he said. “She was sitting where you are now.”

Stone picked up the paper. It was the address and phone number of Sasha’s new, Fifth Avenue apartment. He compared the note with the first letter, then the second. “The handwriting seems identical to me,” he said, handing Woodman the papers.