Assessing the Gamadge

"Do you charge a lot for what you do?"
"Just the usual," said Gamadge. "I suppose you know what I do do. I'm supposed to advise on disputed manuscripts and documents."
"Are you?" The young man looked astonished. "I thought you investigated things for people - quietly."
"I have, sometimes," said Gamadge. "If you want to know my fee for that kind of thing, it's nothing."
"Nothing?"
"I'm not a professional," said Gamadge. "I have facilities and no license. I only do that kind of thing very rarely, for friends or their friends, or because  I'm interested for reasons of my own."

--Elizabeth Daly
"The Book of the Crime" (1951)

 

Elizabeth Daly's detective, Henry Gamadge, is a bibliophile - a lover of books. He is an antiquarian - one who collects and studies antique books and manuscripts. He is an examiner of "questioned" documents, those which may be false or counterfeit. And, as befits a participant in this week's "Moonlighting for Murder" gathering on Jen's Book Thoughts Blog,  he is, as he says, an unlicensed amateur investigator who helps friends, or friends of friends, who are in trouble and need help with some serious problem - sometimes a dangerous, deadly one.

But what does he do for a living? He appears to have no shortage of money, living in an old house in New York City, not far from Central Park on the east side of Manhattan. It would have been a very comfortable place in the New York City of the 1940s.

Despite Gamadge's professional love of books, there is not a great deal about his work discussed in the books. He is said to have written a number of books - very often the people who consult him do so because they are familiar with his writing.

Based on his conversations with book and manuscript dealers, it would seem that he does work, at least to some degree, in the general field of forensic or questionable document examination.

It appears that his work during World War II involved putting his knowledge of forgeries and handwriting to work for allied intelligence. In "Arrow Pointing Nowhere," there's a fascinating conversation between Gamadge and an unidentified agent, in which Gamadge assures the agent that a particular document was not written by a  certain individual named Doumets:

"There's no tremor, they couldn't reproduce that even if they knew it was there."
"They might have known it would be there!"
"They couldn't reproduce it; otherwise the forgery's almost perfect. You were very clever to suspect it."

That is the kind of detail one would expect an expert on forged signatures and documents to spot.

As for his profession, Wikipedia explains it this way:

The American Society for Testing and Materials, International (ASTM) publishes standards for many methods and procedures used by FDEs [Forensic Document Examiners - ed.]. ASTM...(Standard Guide for Scope of Work of Forensic Document Examiners) indicates there are four components to the work of a forensic document examiner. It states that an examiner "makes scientific examinations, comparisons, and analyses of documents in order to:

1. establish genuineness or nongenuineness, or to expose forgery, or to reveal alterations, additions or deletions,
2. identify or eliminate persons as the source of handwriting,
3. identify or eliminate the source of typewriting or other impression, marks, or relative evidence, and
4. write reports or give testimony, when needed, to aid the users of the examiner's services in understanding the examiner's findings."

It's the kind of work that, clearly, requires a sharp eye for detail, along with considerable practice in determining handwriting (or printing) quirks, inks and so forth. A knowledge of photography is also helpful, for photographing and enlarging documents, to make them easier to analyze.

How it works, again according to Wikipedia:

Generally, there are three stages in the process of examination. In brief, they are:

1. Analysis: The questioned and the known items are analyzed and broken down to directly perceptible characteristics.
2. Comparison: The characteristics of the questioned item are then compared against the known standard.
3. Evaluation: Similarities and differences in the compared properties are evaluated and this determines which ones are valuable for a conclusion. This depends on the uniqueness and frequency of occurrence in the items.
4. Optionally, the procedure may involve a fourth step consisting of verification/validation or peer review.

It sounds as if it is very similar to the kind of work some art specialists do, examining originals both physically and stylistically for evidence of forgery and fraud.

It seems only fair to allow Elizabeth Daly to have the last word about her detective, his background and his work. According to the Golden Age of Detection Wiki, Daly wrote the following, circa 1946:

In 1904, Henry Gamadge was born in the family home in the East Sixties of New York City. His father and grandfather had both been interested in rare books and Henry himself was 'steeped in books from infancy'. By 1939, after the usual proper schooling for one of his background, he was drawn by circumstances into what he calls 'a sideline with a puzzle interest'. This, of course, refers to his detective work in which he has to date 'participated' in ten cases. He married Clara Dawson in 1940 and has one son, born in 1943. His hobbies and recreations are bridge, golf, music (as a listener) and -- he insists -- the conservation of the transitive verb. He says he has no pets. 'That yellow object that you see rolling among my papers, my cat Martin, is not a pet. He merely came and stayed. You might call him local colour, or you might call him my Familiar.' During the war he worked here and in Europe for Counter-Intelligence. When asked what he did, he says he flew around.



Comments

[Jen Forbus]

Obviously Henry is a man of means! His skills seem to be a cross between handwriting analysis and art analysis. Very fascinating. Thanks Les!

[Les Blatt]

Jen, that last quote from Daly will also give you a taste of her quiet sense of humor. She's one of my favorites.

[bermudaonion (Kathy)]

That sounds like a fascinating job. It seems like a skill that would be sought after.

[Les Blatt]

Kathy, it is a skill which can be applied in a number of ways to help determine authenticity or fraud.