This time Wenston managed to keep his face more of a mask. “What else?” he asked. “Have you any proof?”
She took a somewhat dog-eared envelope from her purse. The envelope had a Chinese stamp and postmark. She said, “This letter was sent from Shanghai, January 8, 1921.”
Wenston and Mason both moved over to take a look at the envelope. Wenston reached for it. She pushed his hand back with a quick gesture and said, “Naughty, naughty! You can look, and that’s all.”
“Your father wrote that?” Wenston asked.
“That’s right, and you’ll notice the name, Doris O. Wickford, written on the envelope.”
“The return address in the upper left-hand comer,” Mason said, “is that of George A. Wickford at Shanghai.”
“That’s right. That was his real name. Here’s a photostatic copy of his marriage license to my mother. September, 1912, and here’s a copy of my birth certificate, November, 1913. You’ll notice my mother’s name was Octavia, and you’ll note that I was christened Doris Octavia Wickford.”
Mason examined the photostatic copies of the documents, then raised his eyes to meet Wenston’s perplexed gaze.
She said, “Now I’ll read you some of the excerpts from this letter. After all, remember I was a child of eight at the time, and he’s written to me the way a father would write to a girl of that age.”
She took some folded sheets of paper from the envelope. They were written in pencil. The paper was a thin, limp rice paper characteristic of Chinese manufacture. She read, “ ‘My dear daughter: It seems like a very long time since your daddy has seen you. I miss you very much and hope you are being a good girl. I don’t know just when daddy is coming back to you, but I hope it won’t be long. Over here, I am doing some good business and expect to return and clean up all of the debts I owe. You must remember not to mention to anyone where daddy is because some of those people who made so much trouble for me would try to keep me from getting enough together to pay off what I owe. If they will only leave me alone for a little while longer, I can not only pay off everything, but have money left. Then I will come back to you, and we will be together for a long time. You can have nice dresses and a pony if you still want one.’ ”