Brett Halliday - Michael Shaynes' 50th case

“Go ahead,” Rourke said. He got a limp cigarette out of his pocket and put it between his lips and fumbled for a match.

“What?”

“Cry,” Rourke told her gently, putting flame to the end of the cigarette and drawing in deeply. “Then I’ll put you in my story,” he went on in a tone that was half-bantering, half-serious. “With a picture,” he added enthusiastically. “It’s always a good idea to inject some good, healthy sex appeal in a rape murder story.”

She said, “Oh, you!” and wrinkled up her nose at him, and then asked in a low, hesitant voice, “Was she… raped?”

Rourke said, “I’m hoping the doctor will tell me that. I understand he’s doing the autopsy. Do you know if he’s completed it?”

“I guess he has.” She bit her under-lip and looked embarrassed for some reason. “He came back from the hospital a little while ago.”

“Do you suppose I could see him for a minute?”

“I’ll see.” She got up and went through a door behind her desk, closing it carefully behind her, and Rourke sat on the corner of her desk and swung one leg lazily and wondered if it was worthwhile trying to make a date with her that evening.

She came back through the door after a moment and held it open invitingly and said, “Doctor can see you for a few minutes, but he has an important appointment at twelve.”

“So have I,” Rourke told her with a wide grin. “With a tall glass of bourbon and branch water as soon as the local bistro opens its reluctant doors.” He went past her into a brightly-lighted consultation room where a tall, white-haired man with very bright, very blue eyes regarded him without noticeable pleasure and said flatly, “I don’t want to waste your time, young man, nor my own. I have no intention of discussing one of my patients with a representative of the press.” The sour emphasis he put on the final word made it sound like an obscenity.

Rourke said, “Ex-patient, Doctor. Ellie Blake has become news, whether you like it or not. I won’t quote you if you prefer not, but I would like to get my dope from the horse’s mouth instead of having to pick it up in bits and pieces and rumors from around town.”

“I do definitely prefer not to be quoted. Now, what is it you want to know?”

Timothy Rourke sat in a straight chair and got out a pencil and some copy paper and matched the doctor’s own cold, impersonal tone.

“What do you make the time of death?”

“Between ten P.M. and two A.M.”

“And the cause?”

“Manual strangulation.”

“By a strong man?”

“That is a matter for conjecture. It wasn’t accomplished by a weakling.”

“Did she struggle much?”

“As much as any woman could, I presume, with a man’s hands throttling her. You know this isn’t a proper subject for medical testimony, Mr. Rourke.”

“I’m trying to get a picture. Was she undressed before or after she was murdered?”

“How on earth would I know a thing like that?”

“Had she been sexually attacked?”

“Exactly what does that euphemism mean to you… and your readers?” the doctor demanded disagreeably.

Rourke looked up guilelessly. “All right. We’ll skip the euphemisms. Was she raped?”

“I can’t say. She was a mature married woman with a six-year-old daughter. There are no definite outward signs of rape, but that signifies nothing.”

“Had she had sexual intercourse?”

“There was a quantity of fresh seminal fluid with live spermatozoa in the vaginal passage,” the doctor informed him drily.

“You took samples, Doctor?”

“I made several slides from smears obtained from the interior of the vagina.”

“Did you test for blood-grouping to possibly identify the source?”

“I did not,” snapped Doctor Higgens. “Perhaps you labor under the delusion of many laymen that all proteinaceous body fluids carry the same isoagglutinogens found in the blood corpuscles. In some cases this is true, but often it is not the case.”

“Are you saying, Doctor, that seminal fluid cannot be tested to indicate the blood group of the man who produced it?”

“In some instances it can. Often it cannot.”

“And you haven’t determined which is which in this case?”

“I have not yet done so.”

Rourke shrugged and tapped the end of his pencil against his teeth. “I’m a layman, of course, but I have covered a lot of crimes and it has been my understanding that semen can be typed the same as blood. How about this, Doctor? I’ve also been told that the spermatozoa themselves can be identified under a high-power microscope as having come from a certain individual. That they have definite characteristics that are identifiable. Is that not true?”

Doctor Higgens made a tent out of his ten fingers and peered over the top of it at the reporter with an irritable frown. “I haven’t the time to give you a classroom lecture on the subject. Nor the inclination.” He hesitated and then went on stiffly, “There are some indications that the morphology of spermatozoa may be characteristic of the individual… and can be positively identified by a highly trained technician in that field.”

Timothy Rourke shrugged and dropped the subject, which he felt was getting beyond him. “Did you test the victim for alcohol in the blood?”

“I did. With the generally inconclusive results that are normal with such tests. It is my opinion that Mrs. Blake had had from one to three drinks following dinner.”

“Then she wasn’t drunk?”

Doctor Higgens shrugged and stood up. “That is a completely relative term. A matter of semantics. And also a matter of the individual capacity to absorb and carry alcohol. Mrs. Blake was not a drinking woman. It is impossible for me to form any opinion of the effects one to three drinks might have had on her following dinner.” He paused and looked at his watch pointedly. “And now, if you don’t mind, I have an appointment.”

Rourke said blithely, “I don’t mind at all. And thanks.” He thrust the copy paper in his pocket and went out.

Dave’s Bar and Grill-Package Liquor was on Main Street just past the City Hall where Mabel Handel had told him it would be. Rourke found a parking slot just beyond, and glanced at his watch as he strolled back to the entrance. It lacked five minutes of twelve o’clock, but the door was invitingly open and Rourke went in hopefully.

There was a short bar on the left and half a dozen tables in the small room that was partitioned off from the dining room with an archway between the two. At the end of the bar there were shelves of bottled goods with an iron latticework drawn across the front of them and secured with a padlock.

There were no customers, but there was a slight, sandy-haired man wearing a fresh white jacket polishing glasses behind the bar. He looked at Rourke curiously as the reporter seated himself at the far end of the bar, nodded amiably and said, “Morning,” giving an extra flourish to the glass in his hands.

Rourke said sadly, “If it’s still morning I suppose that’s too early to get a drink.”

“Well, sir.” The bartender turned and craned his neck to look up at the big clock behind the bar. The big hand was two minutes short of twelve. “I reckon that clock of mine could be a couple minutes slow. What’s your pleasure?”

“Bourbon. Make it a double shot just to celebrate the beginning of a new day. With a little water but don’t drown it.”

The bartender made his drink, splashing in extra whiskey to give it a good dark color, and set it in front of him. “Stranger in town?”

Rourke took a long experimental drink and smacked his lips. “I’ll probably be sticking around a day or so… on account of that murder you had last night.”