Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

The young lieutenant looked toward Blinney, shook his head, looked away. He went to Evangeline Ashley and lightly touched her head with an open comforting palm. “Miss Ashley,” he said, “I’m not married, but I have four sisters. If you’re telling the truth, whatever you did, I compliment you for it.”

She looked up with wet, beseeching eyes. “I’m telling the truth.”

“All right. Please get dressed. You too, Mr. Blinney. Go to your room and get some clothes on. We’re going downtown. Make a bundle of the clothes you were wearing, Miss Ashley. We’re taking them with us. They are, as a matter of fact, evidence in your favor.”

Oscar Blinney went to his room and got dressed. Lieutenant Andrew Borrelli collected the bottle-neck and fragments of the broken whiskey bottle and tied them into a neat package within a clean towel. Evangeline Ashley dressed, combed her hair, put lipstick to her lips, and brought the clothes she had been wearing, in a small suitcase, to Lieutenant Borrelli. Together, the three went “downtown.”

There, under crisp, expert questioning by the Man From The Prosecutor’s Office, Blinney’s story and Evangeline Ashley’s story were reduced to sworn signed statements. Scrapings of skin from Miss Ashley were compared to scrapings from beneath the fingernails of Pedro Orgaz by sleepy police technicians, and sampling of Miss Ashley’s lipstick was compared to the smears on the mouth of the dead man. Additional photographs were taken of Miss Ashley’s shoulder and breast wounds by suddenly-wide-awake police technicians. An autopsy was ordered upon the body of the deceased.

At 5:05 A.M. Miss Evangeline Ashley was released upon her own recognizance, on direct instructions from the Prosecutor’s office. She was accompanied home by Mr. Oscar Blinney.

VI

On the morning of the fifth day of March, the last will and testament of Pedro Orgaz, a strange document, was offered and admitted to probate. It was concise and unambiguous. Whatever he owned he devised and bequeathed to his wife, Theresa Columbo Orgaz. He specifically ordered that upon his death there be no services, no funeral, and no attendance, not even by his wife or children.

The preliminary hearing of Evangeline Ashley went smoothly, quickly, politely and co-operatively, without rancor or dispute. Oscar Blinney testified to the screams; and what he saw when he entered Room 203. He testified further that he had called for a doctor and for the police. He was shown the tom clothing and identified them as the clothing Miss Ashley had been wearing when he entered the room.

Lieutenant Andrew Borrelli testified that the police had arrived with a police physician and that there had been no need for the services of a private doctor. He gave his version of the scene in the room and introduced the evidence the bottle-neck and the fragments of the broken bottle. He corroborated Mr. Blinney’s testimony with regard to the tom clothing.

Evangeline Ashley told her story, bearing up superbly, and shedding only a tear or two. The police physician testified to the condition of the deceased and the condition of Miss Ashley with emphasis upon the scratches on her shoulder and bosom. A police photographer authenticated photographs of the wounds upon the body of Miss Ashley. A police technician testified that sampling of Miss Ashley’s lipstick compared exactly with the lipstick-smears on the mouth of the deceased.

Another police technician testified that scrapings of skin from the body of Miss Ashley were identical with the scrapings from beneath the fingernails of the deceased. An expert from the police laboratory gave testimony that autopsy disclosed sufficient alcohol in the stomach and blood of the deceased to substantiate a judgment of thorough intoxication.

And then there was introduced into the record four separate certified copies of convictions in the criminal history of the deceased from the files of the Canadian police.

Complete acquittal of Evangeline Ashley was a foregone conclusion from the first...

And they were inseparable — Evangeline Ashley and Oscar Blinney. He was with her morning, noon, and evening. He was consumed by her, his attentions completely enveloped.

They swam together, walked together, went on trips together, went to restaurants together, went to clubs together, ate together, and drank together. He marveled at her resilience; within a few days she had bounced back; she was gay, smiling, bantering, beautiful. True, she drank a great deal, but after what she had been through, could he blame her? He himself was drinking much more than was his custom.

They were together morning, noon, and evening, and at night he was filled with wild dreams of her. He was certain that she responded to him, physically, although she had made no overt act. He had not kissed her, not once. His innate shyness, the timidity that was so much a part of his nature, smothered and enshackled him. He suffered, and his dreams grew wilder.