Henry Lieferant and Sylvia B. Saltzberg

“ Days after, the emergency wards reeked with the odor of burnt blood.
Selfishly, I admit, I hoped that the night would pass without a community misfortune. Enough of individual calamity had already crowded my day to capacity. My fellow internes accuse me of keener interest in the human angle of a hospital than in the medical. I accept their banter with amusement. I have never confided to any of them the problem that calls me to the laboratory every night. ”

“ Even the garrulous morgue keeper, whose tongue more than compensated for the many dumb ones in his domain and who could be expected two or three times of an evening to warm up, had gone—to visit a married daughter, he said. I remember wondering whether he jounced his grandchildren on his knee, taught them tricks and told them stories as other grandfathers do. Why not? There are men who make a living on hanging! ”

“ The old chauffeurs knew that the procedure was to turn to the right before the laboratory was reached and draw up at the emergency door, where a porter, summoned by the cacophonies of the bus bell would be waiting with a wheeled stretcher. If I asked to be released of a portion of my routine duties, perhaps there would be time to complete my investigations and obtain a hearing at the National Bacteriologists' before the end of the year. Credit would always redound to the hospital.
But the bell hadn't sounded! The bus had remained at the morgue door! There was the one conclusion. ”

“ The morgue keeper would be down early next morning to sew up the coroner's cut, lest his infraction of the rules be discovered by some early-prowling undertaker. The woman's family would come for their dead. I only wanted her heart, anyway. The woman's family? As I returned to the morgue, locking the little door behind me. I recalled what the hospital historian had told me of the family. Likely as not, she would be in her niche another day or two until the matter could be settled amicably. ”

“ A tribute to the innate tenacity of the human organism it was, that the blow of the man she called her husband had not killed her. Spun glass with the strength of steel.
The far-off rattle of dishes from the kitchen preparatory to the serving of a midnight meal to the night staff emphasized my isolation. ”