After five months, there were some eighteen persons residing at the Casa Verde, but Simão Bacamarte did not let up; he went from street to street and house to house, observing, asking questions, and taking notes, and the internment of even one new patient gave him the same pleasure he had once enjoyed when herding them in by the dozen. It was precisely this disparity that confirmed his new theory; he had finally discovered the truth about cerebral pathology. One day, he succeeded in committing the chief magistrate to the Casa Verde, but only after he had scrupulously carried out a detailed study of all his judicial decisions and spoken to all the important people in the town. On more than one occasion, he had found himself on the verge of committing someone who turned out to be perfectly unbalanced; this is what happened with a certain lawyer, in whom he had identified such a fine array of moral and mental qualities that he considered it positively dangerous to leave the man at large in society. He ordered him to be arrested, but the bailiff had doubts and asked Bacamarte if he could conduct an experiment; he went to see a friend of his who had been accused of forging a will, and advised him to engage Salustiano (the name of the lawyer in question) to defend him.

“So do you really think he’ll . . . ?”

“No doubt about it. Tell him everything, the whole truth, whatever it may be, and leave the matter entirely in his hands.”

The man went to see the lawyer, confessed to having forged the will, and asked him to take on the case. The lawyer agreed, studied all the papers, pleaded the case before the court, and proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the will was completely genuine. The defendant was solemnly declared innocent by the judge, and the inheritance was his. To this experiment the distinguished lawyer owed his freedom. However, nothing escapes an original and penetrating mind. Simão Bacamarte, who had already noted the bailiff’s dedication, wisdom, patience, and restraint, recognized the skill and good judgment with which he had conducted such a tricky and complicated experiment, and ordered him to be committed forthwith to the Casa Verde. He did, however, give him one of the best cells.