When a directive like that comes across a notary’s desk, submitted on a client’s behalf by a third party, without the client’s own hand anywhere near it, it raises exactly the right kind of alarm.

He found it irregular enough that he flagged it and contacted my office this morning, on his own initiative, before any of this happened here.

That is why we were already looking.” I have thought since about how much I owe to strangers who simply did their jobs carefully, a notary who paused over a form that did not smell right, an analyst who would not be bought.

The whole scheme had been designed around the assumption that no one would look too closely.