Dr. Daniel Cruson preferred the high-sounding title “graphologist.” His white beard and bushy eyebrows fit a man who spouted lofty theories about the European “talking cure” of Drs. Freud and Jung. He was also prone to statements like “The complex robs the ego of light and nourishment,” which was why Bell avoided him when he could. But Cruson possessed a fine eye for forgery. So fine that Bell suspected that “Dr. Graphology” made ends meet by cobbling up the occasional bank check.

Cruson inspected the photograph of the suicide note with a magnifying glass, then screwed a jeweler’s loupe into his eye and repeated the process. At last he sat back in his chair, shaking his head.

Bell asked, “Do you see inconsistencies in that handwriting that might suggest it was penned by a forger?”

Cruson said, “You are a detective, sir.”

“You know I am,” Bell said curtly to head off a windy discourse.

“You are familiar with the work of Sir William Herschel?”

“Fingerprint identification.”

“But Sir William also believed that handwriting exposes character.”

“I am less interested in character than forgery.”

Cruson did not hear. “From this mere sample, I can tell that the man who wrote this note was eccentric, highly artistic, and very dramatic, too. Given to the grand gesture. Deeply sensitive with powerful feelings that could be overwhelming.”

“In other words,” Bell interrupted, bleakly conceding he would have to report the worst to Dorothy Langner, “the emotional sort likely to commit suicide.”

“So tragic to take his own life so young.”

“Langner wasn’t young.”

“Given time, with psychological analysis, he could have investigated the sources of his sorrow and learned to control his self-destructive impulses.”

“Langner was not young,” Bell repeated.

“He was very young.”

“He was sixty years old.”

“Impossible! Look at this hand. See the bold and easy flow. An older man’s writing cramps—the letters get smaller and trail off as the hands stiffen with age. This is beyond any doubt the handwriting of a man in his twenties.”

“Twenties?” echoed Bell, suddenly electrified.

“No older than thirty, I guarantee you.”

Bell had a photographic memory. Instantly he returned in his mind’s eye to Arthur Langner’s office. He saw the bookshelves lined with bound volumes of Langner’s patent applications. He had had to open several to find a sample for his camera. Those filed before 1885 were handwritten. The more recent were typed.

“Arthur Langner played the piano. His fingers would have been more supple than those of the average man his age.”

Cruson shrugged. “I am neither musician nor physiologist.”

“But if his fingers were not more supple, then this could be a forgery.”

Cruson huffed, “Surely you didn’t summon me here to analyze the personality of a forger. The more skillful the forgery, the less it would tell me about his personality.”

“I did not summon you here to analyze his personality but to confirm whether this is a forgery. Now you are telling me that the forger made a mistake. He copied Langner’s hand from an early sample of his handwriting. Thank you, Dr. Cruson. You’ve opened a new possibility in this case. Unless his piano playing made his handwriting like that of a young man, this is a forgery, and Arthur Langner was murdered.”