“If I prove that this money here was not that money, then it is not his?”

“Certainly not; but this is irregular.  If you had such a witness it was your duty to give proper notice of it and have him here to—­” He broke off and began to consult with the other judges.  Meantime that other lawyer got up excited and began to protest against allowing new witnesses to be brought into the case at this late stage.

The judges decided that his contention was just and must be allowed.

“But this is not a new witness,” said Wilhelm.  “It has already been partly examined.  I speak of the coin.”

“The coin?  What can the coin say?”

“It can say it is not the coin that the astrologer once possessed.  It can say it was not in existence last December.  By its date it can say this.”

And it was so!  There was the greatest excitement in the court while that lawyer and the judges were reaching for coins and examining them and exclaiming.  And everybody was full of admiration of Wilhelm’s brightness in happening to think of that neat idea.  At last order was called and the court said: 

“All of the coins but four are of the date of the present year.  The court tenders its sincere sympathy to the accused, and its deep regret that he, an innocent man, through an unfortunate mistake, has suffered the undeserved humiliation of imprisonment and trial.  The case is dismissed.”

So the money could speak, after all, though that lawyer thought it couldn’t.  The court rose, and almost everybody came forward to shake hands with Marget and congratulate her, and then to shake with Wilhelm and praise him; and Satan had stepped out of Wilhelm and was standing around looking on full of interest, and people walking through him every which way, not knowing he was there.  And Wilhelm could not explain why he only thought of the date on the coins at the last moment, instead of earlier; he said it just occurred to him, all of a sudden, like an inspiration, and he brought it right out without any hesitation, for, although he didn’t examine the coins, he seemed, somehow, to know it was true.  That was honest of him, and like him; another would have pretended he had thought of it earlier, and was keeping it back for a surprise.

He had dulled down a little now; not much, but still you could notice that he hadn’t that luminous look in his eyes that he had while Satan was in him.  He nearly got it back, though, for a moment when Marget came and praised him and thanked him and couldn’t keep him from seeing how proud she was of him.  The astrologer went off dissatisfied and cursing, and Solomon Isaacs gathered up the money and carried it away.  It was Father Peter’s for good and all, now.

Satan was gone.  I judged that he had spirited himself away to the jail to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was right.  Marget and the rest of us hurried thither at our best speed, in a great state of rejoicing.