Sworn Affidavit
Sworn statement of Quentin Quill, court-appointed tongue-writing analyst, entered into file PP-08-21-9420. The witness asked that the bundle of checks be present in the room. It was. He did not look at it directly.
I have authenticated tongue-writing for thirty seasons. Wills, deeds, love letters pressed into reed-paper, the occasional ransom note. I know the difference between a hand that writes to give and a hand that writes to take, and I know it the way you know a friend's knock. The seventeen checks in Exhibit B were written to take. Every one.
I studied all seventeen for six days. I did not eat on the fourth day. And I will tell this court plainly: not one of those checks was signed by an honest frog. There is a pressure to an honest signature — even, unhurried, unafraid of being read. These signatures press hard at the start and flee at the tip. That's a frog signing a name he's frightened to be caught holding. That is not how PeePoo signs. PeePoo signs like he's leaving a gift.
On the sixth day I finished my analysis and I wept into the bundle. I am not ashamed of it. Thirty seasons of reading other frogs' hands and I had never held seventeen consecutive lies before. The bailiff logged my tears as evidence of tampering; the judge, more sensibly, logged the bundle itself as evidence and let my tears stand as commentary. The bundle is now Exhibit B and my tears are, I'm told, a footnote to it. So be it.
Somewhere across the pond is a frog with PeePoo's face and none of PeePoo's hand. He signed these. I would stake my quill on it and I have brought a spare specifically so I can. Free the honest one. Return the checks to the frog whose fear is pressed into them. He is not in this courtroom, and that, gentlefrogs, is the loudest thing in it.