Arthur Vance had his spectacles off when I came in at half past eleven, and he polished them with a silk handkerchief before setting them back on his nose.

The red leather ledger sat open on his blotter, a farm parcel number circled in pencil.

“This is your daughter’s signature?” he asked.

“That’s what she says.”

He held a page up to the window, then laid it beside the ledger.

“It’s a good forgery.

A steady hand.

But it isn’t hers.”