"I Was Willing to Sacrifice My Life for the Sake of Science"

"Blood Will Tell."
By George Ethelbert Walsh (1865-1941).
First appearance: The Argosy, April 1899.
Short short story (9 pages).
Online at Pulpgen (HERE).

     "The mystery surrounding the murder of the postmaster at Piketown, and the unexpected fashion in which it was cleared up—The village doctor and the part played by his blood sampling theories."

If you want to know everything about a murder, there's no better source than the murderer himself . . .

Comment: We wouldn't be surprised if Robert Louis Stevenson's account of the tragedy of a certain doctor (HERE) was a strong influence on the development of this story's plot.

Resources:
- FictionMags tells us about our author: "Born in Brooklyn." We can infer from his book and story titles list (Bumper, the White Rabbit; Washer, the Raccoon; Scavengers of the Sea, etc.) that, while he focused on outdoor adventure fiction (see HERE) and other nonfiction (HERE), Walsh weaved in and out of the various genres from the late 1880s to the early 1930s. [FictionMags data.]
- A concise overview article about blood is on Wikipedia (HERE).

- While the idea that criminality originates in the blood is an ages-old superstition that's never been scientifically proven, on a more positive note, in South Korea and Japan your blood type could earn you a hot date (HERE).
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