That’s a case-opening stamp.

The clerk stamps page one when the file is opened, and anything executed afterward is filed into the existing case.

A stamp earlier than a signature is the most normal thing in that building.

It happens nine hundred times a year.”

I sat down on a stool.

“So it means nothing.”

And Helen Bowersock said: “It means a great deal.

It just doesn’t mean what you decided at one o’clock this morning.