"If ever our little Salome is found," Eva Kropp had been accustomed to
say, "we shall know her by two hair moles about the size of a coffee-bean,
one on the inside of each thigh, about midway up from the knee. Nobody can
make those, or take them away without leaving the tell-tale scars." And
lo! when Madame Karl brought Mary Bridget to Frank Schuber's house, and
Eva Schuber, who every day for weeks had bathed and dressed her godchild
on the ship, took this stranger into another room apart and alone, there
were the birth-marks of the lost Salome.
This incontestable evidence the friends of Salome were able to furnish,
but the defense called in question the genuineness of the marks.
The verdict of science was demanded, and an order of the court issued to
two noted physicians, one chosen by each side, to examine these marks and
report "the nature, appearance, and cause of the same." The kindred of
Salome chose Warren Stone, probably the greatest physician and surgeon in
one that New Orleans has ever known. Mr. Grymes's client chose a Creole
gentleman almost equally famed, Dr. Armand Mercier.
Dr. Stone died many years ago; Dr. Mercier, if I remember aright, in 1885.
When I called upon Dr. Mercier in his office in Girod street in the summer
of 1883, to appeal to his remembrance of this long-forgotten matter, I
found a very noble-looking, fair old gentleman whose abundant waving hair
had gone all to a white silken floss with age. He sat at his desk in
persistent silence with his strong blue eyes fixed steadfastly upon me
while I slowly and carefully recounted the story. Two or three times I
paused inquiringly; but he faintly shook his head in the negative, a
slight frown of mental effort gathering for a moment between the eyes that
never left mine. But suddenly he leaned forward and drew his breath as if
to speak. I ceased, and he said:
"My sister, the wife of Pierre Soulé, refused to become the owner of that
woman and her three children because they were so white!" He pressed me
eagerly with an enlargement of his statement, and when he paused I said
nothing or very little; for, sad to say, he had only made it perfectly
plain that it was not the girl Mary Bridget whom he was recollecting, but
_another case_.
He did finally, though dimly, call to mind having served with Dr. Stone
in such a matter as I had described. But later I was made independent of
his powers of recollection, when the original documents of the court were
laid before me. There was the certificate of the two physicians. And
there, over their signatures, "Mercier d.m.p." standing first, in a bold
heavy hand underscored by a single broad quill-stroke, was this
"Conclusion":
"1. These marks ought to be considered as _noevi materni_.
"2. They are congenital; or, in other words, the person was born with
them.
"3. There is no process by means of which artificial spots bearing all the
character of the marks can be produced."
[Illustration: Handwritten conclusion number 3 and signatures of Mercier
dmp and Dr. Stone.]