uring the last break that she thought it was possible
that Trenchant had been framed."

"What the hell would give her that idea," grinned Jimbo, with a sly
wink.

"Quiet, keep your voice down." Jonathan moved away from Jimbo and
closed the hearing room door. "Well, for one thing, one of the SmurFFs
you found was evidently written by a student. She came forward and
identified it. That really casts doubt on the ability of the document
examiners."

"One I found? I just don't understand all this. Everyone keeps
telling me that I found some SmurFFs in my course. Lyle, Henry, Mark
and now you. I don't remember it and I told the panel that just a few
minutes ago."

"You told the panel that? Good God, Jimbo, Henry was depending on you
to confirm that you had found them. Lyle is probably showing them the
note you wrote right now."

"Come off it, Jonathan. Lyle didn't say anything about lying to the
panel and it was that cute Janie babe that asked. If Trenchant had
asked the question, I would have said that I had found them. No
problem. All Lyle asked me to do was write and date the note last year
sometime. Nobody asked me about that."

Thank heavens, thought Jonathan. Aloud, he said, "You'd better keep
that under your hat, Jimbo. From what Jane tells me, Lyle has been
pretty creative with the evidence already."

"So what?" Jimbo replied, expansively. "That's his part of the scheme.
After all, he's the one that wants to get rid of her."

"Yes, you're right, but be careful about saying things like that. You
never know who will hear and try to make something of it. Oh, by the
way, did you hear that Kate left Henry? He said she was gone when he
got home last night--just left him a note."

"No shit. Who'd she catch him doin' it with?"

"Well from what I hear...."

The two men gossiped cozily until the members of the panel arrived to
announce that the hearing had ended.

"Proceed with your summary," Henry commanded indifferently when
everyone was back in place at the table.

Diana Trenchant finished making a note and then said, "Yes, I have some
closing words, but first, I want to point out that I was given no
opportunity to present rebuttal witness as you did."

Anuse shifted in his seat, then carefully and slowly, as if he were
speaking to a retarded person, said, "You misunderstand. They were not
rebuttal witnesses. We had them come to clarify things that your
witnesses said."

Bull! t