“More years ago than I care to count, but it was a year or two before most of you girls were born, I did the hardest thing I have had to do in my entire life. My superior officer, Captain Bill Harrison, who was my friend as well as commander, lay mortally wounded in a shell hole in no man’s land—Marcia, please excuse me if this is difficult for you but I want these girls to know you as I do—I had dragged him there during a lull in the bombing. Both of us were wounded; I slightly, Bill fatally. ‘I’m going on—old man,’ he gasped. From the light of a rocket which flared above us I could see his agony and knew that he was telling the truth. He was trying to take something out of his pocket but he was too weak. I unbuttoned his stained uniform and drew out a picture of Marcia.” Dr. Barnes reached across the desk and patted Aunt Marcia’s gloved hand. She had a far away look in her eyes but she was erect and smiling faintly. “I held it up before his clouded eyes—‘Darling—See her Barney—and tell—her—I love——’ But he had gone on before he finished. A year later I brought his effects and message home to a gallant lady.”
Dr. Barnes had to wait for his throat to relax before he continued.
“Another year passed swiftly and that same lady, still gallant and smiling, came to me for advice. She was lonely she said. Knowing that she would never marry because all of that kind of love she had to give was buried in Flanders, she discussed with me her idea of adopting a daughter.
“I was with Marcia when she selected Clorissa from the fifty children subject to adoption. You were a lovely little thing, Chloe, and that was not your name at all. Your Aunt Marcia renamed you and gave you her own last name of Madison. You held out your tiny arms and ran out from the line of children as if you were expecting a beautiful lady to take you in her arms. When you were nearer, however, you stopped and hung your head, but you had touched Marcia’s heart. She wanted none of the children so much as you. The record showed that you had been left inside of the wall of the home and, when found by a nurse, you were leaning against a tree sobbing. There was a note tied to your wrist stating that your father had been deported and that your Aunt would come someday from the old country to claim you. This story was credited and recorded, but two years had passed and no word had come so you were placed on the list for adoption. These are the things I wrote your father, Mimi.”
Not even Mimi spoke.
Dr. Barnes had woven a spell over his hearers. Chloe, although she strained forward and clenched her hand on Aunt Marcia’s arm tighter, uttered no word. It was as if she were listening to a gripping story about some one else.
“Shall I begin now?”
“Yes, Mimi, but I wanted you girls to know as much as possible. There is still much to unravel.”
“My story will be brief,” Mimi began. “I wrote my Daddy the little Chloe had told me. Daddy answered sympathetically but figured there was nothing he could do. Then a most peculiar thing occurred. Daddy was called to see a sick man in the slums of Leipzig. At first he was merely another patient, a big fellow who was slowly dying of an incurable malady. The second time Daddy was called the man was delirious—he muttered and cursed some one called Freida. At the name Freida something inside Daddy clicked. He knew the man had lived in the United States. When he rolled up the man’s ragged sleeves to give him a hypodermic to quiet his raving, he saw the man’s arms were tattooed! That in itself was not unusual but it dovetailed perfectly with what Chloe had told me. Daddy asked the man’s friends a few questions. When he got home he wrote me for more details. In the meantime Chloe described the tattooed pictures. One day Daddy dropped by to see the man and he was gone. When my letter arrived, he searched high and low for him and could not find him. The name had been fictitious.
“The next time Daddy was called the man whom we now know was Fritz must have been dying. By reading the cablegram, we know Daddy somehow managed to use the little knowledge he had, plus his hunch that the man was guilty, and by playing the great American game of bluff, pulled a confession from him.”