“Where could he have stolen them? No, they are counterfeit, false, false. Ah, thou Catalan rogue, who art in the infernal regions. I hope that thou art making false notes with thy skin of Barrabas!”
“I have learned the secret,” thought the doctor. “There is no doubt of it.”
He still looked exclusively at the numbers, the false ones looked larger, they really were not, but as the lines were more delicate, it made the ciphers look larger.
“Those poor people are now in prison,” said Doctor Santos sorrowfully. “They have denounced me and the police will shortly come to arrest me, and no one will believe they were ever given to me!”
He raised the stove cover. “No, that won’t do. The embers and ashes will remain. They can smell the smoke and burnt paper.”
The doctor had a dove-cot: a dove just then lighted on the window sill. A bright idea came to him. He took two tin boxes—such as are used for cut tobacco—and stuffed them both full with bank notes, climbed up to the dove-cot and looked through the garret window. No one could see him. He raised some tiles and hid the boxes, then covered them up, leaving all as it was before. Breathing heavily, his heart thumping furiously, he descended the staircase which led to the second floor and dropping into a chair, opened a huge volume which he held before his face, while he tried to recover his usual composure.
If he had been surprised and arrested, the inspector would have noticed that the book was upside down, the two old bills, with the magnifying glass and compass, were still on the table, and that the lappels and sleeves of his coat were covered with earth and whitewash.
After several hours had passed, the old servant had returned, and as no one else had appeared, the doctor began to think that perhaps the bills had not yet been changed and, by virtue of such a supposition, he hurried to the widow’s house with the pious intention of substituting one of his old bank notes in place of the supposed false one. The bill had been changed; the widow and her children were having a little party in honor of their great good luck. They were not alone, as they generally were, but had asked several of their friends to share their joy. They were so profuse in their expressions of gratitude that the good old doctor did not know what to say nor how to explain his sudden return.
“Now be sure you take a room where you can have sunlight and give the children a dose of castor oil,” he said as he hurried away.
Doctor Santos did not recover his usual composure for a long time. He seemed taciturn although he continued in his accustomed mode of living. After a while, however, he became more like himself.