surgeon's face. But the surgeon, with a big batch of wounded on his
hands, was probably thinking more of the living than the dead; and
besides, we were near the front, and the body before him was an enemy's.

He finished his examination and scribbled something in a note-book.
"Death must have taken place nearly five hours ago," he merely remarked:
it was the conclusion I had already come to myself.

"And how about the papers?" the surgeon continued. "You have them, I
suppose? This way, please."

We left the half-stripped body on the blood-stained oil-cloth, and he
led me into an office where a functionary sat behind a littered desk.

"The papers? Thank you. You haven't examined them? Let us see, then."

I handed over the leather note-case I had thrust into my pocket the
evening before, and saw for the first time its silver-edged corners and
the coronet in one of them. The official took out the papers and spread
them on the desk between us. I watched him absently while he did so.

Suddenly he uttered an exclamation. "Ah--that's a haul!" he said, and
pushed a bit of paper toward me. On it was engraved the name: Oberst
Graf Benno von Scharlach....

"A good riddance," said the surgeon over my shoulder.

I went back to the courtyard and saw Rechamp still smoking his cigarette
in the cold sunlight. I don't suppose I'd been in the hospital ten
minutes; but I felt as old as Methuselah.

My friend greeted me with a smile. "Ready for breakfast?" he said, and
a little chill ran down my spine.... But I said: "Oh, all right--come
along...."

For, after all, I _knew_ there wasn't a paper of any sort on that
man when he was lifted into my ambulance the night before: the French
officials attend to their business too carefully for me not to have been
sure of that. And there wasn't the least shred of evidence to prove that
he hadn't died of his wounds during the unlucky delay in the forest; or
that Rechamp had known his tank was leaking when we started out from the
lines.

"I could do with a _cafe complet_, couldn't you?" Rechamp suggested,
looking straight at me with his good blue eyes; and arm in arm we
started off to hunt for the inn....

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Coming Home, by Edith Wharton

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