‘MURDER!’ gasped the uniformed constable.
‘Who would want to murder this poor old derelict?’ demanded Richardson.
‘In our records you’ll find quite a number of cases where old women, just as unlovely and bedraggled as Pansy, were murdered,’ said Price slowly. ‘The first question young detectives always asked was who could be bothered murdering such frowsy old waifs, and why.’
Richardson looked a bit shamefaced. Off hand, he could recall several similar cases which had caused the C.I.B. infinite trouble before it was able to put the murderers in the dock.
‘Better telephone to the C.I.B. and get the Science Section men here at once,’ Price told him. ‘I want every bit of this room investigated before the body is examined and taken away.’
Richardson hastened down the street to the nearest telephone. In his own mind he was quite satisfied that Inspector Price was over-dramatising a case of what, at the worst, could only be alcoholic poisoning.
He returned from telephoning, and a few minutes later, was watching the fingerprint men and the police photographer at work.
He looked in vain for indications of a struggle. There was no sign, as far as he could see, that a murderer had either violently or subtly brought death to this old woman whose dignity of features was now in curious contrast to her rags.
In spite of this, he noted that the Science Section men were going over every inch of the room with a thoroughness that pleased Inspector Price as much as it irked the young detective to witness such waste of time.
Price left them at it while he interviewed the other dwellers in the ramshackle dwelling. Most of them he knew, and with his old-fashioned hat stuck carelessly on the back of his head, he questioned them with a camaraderie which surprised Richardson. The interrogation of a bleary old hag in a front room was typical.
‘Hello, Maggie, you’re looking more beautiful than ever. Now you know that you have lost your good friend and neighbor, old Pansy, you might tell us if she had any callers last night.’
The blowsy old crone leered in a manner which Richardson found most objectionable.
‘Now, Mr Price, you know – well, that Pansy and me was past having visitors. The only man that ever called on us was that hook-nosed so-and-so squirt sent by the landlord. Who the hell else would call on Pansy?’
She leered again, and it made Detective Richardson feel unclean merely to behold it. Immorality and debauchery had carved their repulsive tracery deeply into the face of the old woman.
The sensitive and impressionable imagination of the young detective sought to picture her as a young woman, and failed abjectly. Snaggled-toothed and brazenly vile, she winked at Price.
‘This young feller here is too high and mighty, Inspector. He wouldn’t believe that Pansy and me was as fine a pair as you could see, when we was young ‘uns. But we was, you take it from me.’
Inspector Price did not reveal his quickened interest as he said casually, ‘So you knew Pansy when she was young eh, Maggie?’
The hag shrugged. To his disappointment, she added:
‘Hell, no, of course I didn’t. Never seen her in me life before she came to Hutchinson Alley, but you could tell she was a good looker when she was young. At least, they could as ain’t too superior,’ she went on with a sharp and disapproving glance at Detective Richardson.
Inspector Price was very patient. He chattered on and on with one after another as though he had all day to spare and could think of no better way of spending his time than exchanging pleasantries with residents of Hutchinson Alley. His patience got him nowhere.
No one could remember any stranger calling. More than a dozen could testify that old Pansy had reached her abode about 6.30 the previous evening, a bit drunker than usual, but no different otherwise.
Richardson was peeved as well as bored by the time Price had concluded his inquiries in the vicinity. Yet when they returned to the C.I.B. after lunch, Richardson received a shock.
On Price’s desk was a report from the police medical officer which stated that the woman known as Pansy Morton had died of poisoning by cyanide.
Price peered at Richardson quizzically as the young detective handed back the report with a ‘Well, I’m jiggered! Who would want to murder old Pansy?’
He flushed as the inanity of his remark was driven home to him by Price’s terse reply. ‘Exactly! Who? That’s the job ahead of us.’
He sat back in his chair and contemplated the elastic-sided boots which were known throughout the force as ‘old Price’s laughing-sides,’ as though from their highly polished and comfortable appearance he would derive inspiration.
Richardson, very subdued and crestfallen, was staring humbly at his chief. It was really surprising, he confessed to himself, how difficult it was to keep in mind the undoubted shrewdness and ability of old Price, in spite of the innumerable occasions when the old man had proved capacity almost to the point of genius.
‘Tell me, sir, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘Why were you so sure that it was a case of murder as soon as we went in?’
‘I wasn’t sure at all,’ replied Price. ‘Better to say that I was sort of very, very doubtful.’
‘But why? What was the obvious clue to foul play that I missed?’
‘It was on the oilcloth which old Pansy used to cover the box that served as a table and pantry. There was the impression of a glass or a bottle – in my opinion a glass.’
‘I saw that,’ said Richardson. ‘I hope I don’t seem to be too dumb, but I can’t see where that furnished the direct clue to murder.’
‘You don’t eh? Well, the impression of that glass was still moist.’
‘Yes, I noticed that. So what?’
‘Yet there was no glass or bottle in the room which could have made it. Someone took that glass away. Who was it?’
Richardson stared at his chief more subdued and crestfallen than ever. He paid sincere tribute to Inspector Price’s alertness.
It looks as though we have to find out the answer to your question, why would anyone murder old Pansy, before we can find out who murdered her,’ went on Price.
‘I’m afraid that’s not going to be very easy,’ said Richardson dolesfully. ‘All I can hope, sir, is that your foresight in having the Science Section on the job before anything was disturbed will produce something to help us.’
‘So do I,’ said Price grimly.
A little later they found that the only assistance the Science Section could offer them was several sets of unidentifiable fingerprints.
‘Those of the left hand were taken just here on the floor,’ explained Sergeant Jarman. ‘You will see from the plan that they were near to the old cushion Pansy used for a pillow. And just here we got a full impression of the right hand. There are a couple of smudged prints from the oilcloth, but they had been rubbed over. They might have been anybody’s, but these are clear enough and they don’t belong to you, or Richardson, or Bailey, the uniformed man.’
‘And it’s too much to hope that they belong to somebody we know, of course, Sergeant?’ asked Price.
Jarman nodded. ‘Sorry, Inspector. That does happen to be the case, worse luck for you.’
Price stared at the photographs. ‘It’s plain enough, I think,’ he said, ‘that the prints of the right hand were made when he rested his weight on it to lift up her head while he gave her the drink of poison. The left hand prints would be from resting his weight on that hand while he put down the glass on the box she used for a table.’
‘Yes, that’s the way we reconstructed it,’ agreed the sergeant. ‘There was nothing in the room which could have left an impression identical with that left by the glass on the oilcloth. There was evidence of cyanide in that smear, but the glass itself was gone. It proves it’s a clear case of murder all right. Now, I wonder who would want to murder old Pansy, and why?’
Sergeant Jarman left the room happily aware that this knotty problem was not his pigeon, and pleasantly unconscious of the indignant glare his final remark evoked from Richardson.