“Fine. Many thanks. And your inheritance, Don Roberto? How is it coming?”
“Getting along little by little. Within a year you’ll behold me a rich man.”
“I’ll be happy to see the day.”
“I told you already that I imagined there was a plot on the part of the priests in this affair. Well, that’s exactly how the matter stands. Don Fermín Núñez de Letona, the priest, founded ten chaplaincies for relations of his bearing the same name. Knowing this, I inquired about these chaplaincies at the Bishopric; they knew nothing; several times I asked for the baptismal certificate of Don Fermín at Labraz; they told me that no such name appeared there. So, a month ago, in order to clear up the matter, I went to Labraz.”
“You left Madrid?”
“Yes. I spent a thousand pesetas. In the situation I’m now in, you may easily imagine what a thousand pesetas mean to me. But I didn’t mind spending them. It was worth it. I went, as I told you, to Labraz; I saw the baptismal register in the old church and I discovered a gap in the book between the years 1759 and 1760. ‘What’s this?’ I said to myself. I looked; I looked again; there was no sign of a page having been torn out; the number of the folios was all in due order, yet the years did not agree. And do you know what was the matter? One page was glued to the other. Thereupon I proceeded to the Seminary of Pamplona and succeeded in finding a list of the students who attended toward the end of the XVIIIth century. On that list is Don Fermín, who signs himself Núñez de Letona, Labraz (Alava). So that Don Fermín’s baptismal certificate is on that pasted page.”
“Then why didn’t you have the page unglued?”
“No. Who can tell what would happen then? I might scare away the game. Let the book stay there. I have sent my script to London; when the letters requisitorial arrive, the Tribunal will name three experts to go to Labraz, and before them in the presence of the Judge and the Notary, the pages will be unglued.”
Roberto, as always when he spoke of his fortune, went into an ecstasy; his imagination opened wonderful vistas of wealth, luxury, marvellous travels. In the midst of his enthusiasm and his illusions, however, the practical man would intrude; he would glance at his watch, at once calm down, and return to his writing.