To describe the photograph as ‘touched up’ was to put it mildly. Under Inspector Price’s instructions, an artist had made an entirely new picture out of the photograph of old Pansy, while, at the same time, contriving to leave a resemblance which seemed grotesque to the young detective.
It was as though old Pansy had had a twin sister, one who had closely resembled her in features while differing from her in habits. He found it impossible to believe that old Pansy could have looked like this, even if she had never taken to drink and the other weaknesses which had made her face a tragic caricature of the picture reproduced under the deft brush of the artist working under Inspector Price’s careful instructions.
To the young detective, it seemed a foolish bit of business on Inspector Price’s part. What could be the value to police detection of pandering in this way to a drunken old flibberty-gibbet – and a dead one, at that?
If she had been alive, Price’s motive would have been understandable, for the young detective was well aware of an aptitude of Inspector Price for indulging in flattery, and the flattery did not always have to be subtle.
Richardson banished this aspect of the matter from his mind, writing it down as just one more of Price’s whimsicalities, and devoted himself assiduously to the more practical side.
Early in his inquiries he had been exhilarated on learning from several of them that a man had been seen to enter the dwelling and had also been seen to leave again within a few minutes.
This information whetted his interest and he devoted his whole attention to the task of building up a clear impression of this individual, who undoubtedly was the murderer.
But persist as he would, he could get no detailed description of the visitor. All agreed that he was a man about 5 ft 10 ins. and walked with a slight limp.
‘All I have to do now is go round and find the right one out of about 5,000 men who walk with a slight limp in the left leg,’ said Richardson sourly as he returned to the C.I.B. to report.
But Inspector Price appeared pleased with the results, scantry though they were.
‘Good work, my boy. You’ve been very patient and thorough, and that’s the only way to solve a difficult police case,’ he commended. ‘Now you can come along with me and I think we might take the investigation a step further. It will please you to have a drink with an up-and-coming public man who intends getting into Parliament at the next elections.’
In the police car they called at the large and comfortable hotel in Camperdown. In a few minutes they were seated in the proprietor’s private office, just off the saloon bar.
‘I think you know Richardson, Mr Dalton.’
Mr Dalton was a very handsome man. He was also well groomed, and his voice was exceedingly pleasant.
Richardson liked him at once. Seated in his office, the proprietor shook hands affably with the detectives and discussed a burglary which had occurred, so Price said, in the neighborhood the previous night.
But Mr Dalton was unable to help them, as he had noticed no strangers of the type to excite suspicion within the past few days. Price insisted on taking out the tray himself for the second round of drinks, after which the C.I.B. men departed.
‘Dafton’s a nice chap, even if he couldn’t help us,’ said Richardson.
‘I hope he doesn’t miss his whisky glass I pinched,’ replied Price. ‘It’s a very serious offence to steal glasses from hotels, and there’s been a lot of it going on lately. I feel like a criminal.’
Inspector Price did not appear contrite. In fact, there was an undeniable smirk on his face.
While Richardson stared, he gently withdrew from his coat pocket a whisky glass which was held carefully between two fingers distended within the glass itself.
‘His fingerprints will be plain on the outside of it, you see,’ said Price. ‘I hope they’ll tell us something.’
‘But where the devil does the publican come into it?’
‘Maybe you’ll be surprised – and maybe I will,’ detorted Price. ‘Anyhow, we’ll soon find out.’
Within a couple of minutes after their return, Jarman was able to assure them that Dalton ’s fingerprints were identical with those on the floor. ‘You’ve got your man,’ he said.
Richardson was nonplussed. ‘How the devil did you get a lead up to him?’ he asked in amazement.
‘It wasn’t so difficult,’ said Price. ‘The newspapers really did the job for me.’
He gestured to the ‘doctored’ photographs of the dead woman which were scattered about the desk.
‘You probably wondered why I used such a flattering photo of old Pansy, but I wanted to know who she was before she became nobody except old Pansy. The letters there are from people who knew her years ago. They all thought she was dead, but all of them could remember her as a Mrs Emily Dalton, who had a son named James Arthur Dalton. In other words the man we just left. Quite simple after all, wasn’t it?’
‘But why would he poison his own mother? That’s what we’ve got to prove, isn’t it?’
‘These letters describe Emily Dalton as a woman who became an habitual drunkard years ago, and who was in and out of inebriates’ homes until they finally lost track of her,’ said Price. ‘As we know, she became old Pansy, and I think we’ll find that Dalton, who was steadily rising in the world, was plagued by the nightmare of people finding out her relationship to him. It would be damning to a cove with his social and political ambitions.’
‘What a swine!’
‘Oh – well – I don’t know,’ said Inspector Price slowly. ‘Human nature is unpredictable, and perhaps he thought she would be better dead.’
‘Good heavens, sir! You’re not defending a murderer, are you? And a murderer who put away his own mother?’
‘This is a hard, hard world, my boy. If you’ll read through those letters, you’ll find that James Arthur Dalton has always been a model son, even in circumstances which must have been always exasperating and very often frightfully humiliating. The letters point out that he looked after his mother devotedly, giving up everything for her sake.’
‘That puts a different complexion on it, of course, but it can’t make much difference to the jury, for all that.’
‘That’s so. It’ll be almost impossible for the jury not to see the crime in its worst light. To them it will be a case of a coldblooded poisoner killing his own mother.’
‘What else could he expect?’
‘That’s so,’ agreed Inspector Price again. ‘They can hardly be expected to be interested in pictures of a younger James Arthur Dalton almost carrying his mother from hotel bars and wine saloons. Some of the people who wrote these letters, though, thought it very pathetic. They refer to the patience and devotion and loyalty of young Jimmy to his mother. It seems to me that the scales of justice in this case are off the balance, that it’s old Pansy who should be in the dock for ruining the life of her son.’
‘Her influence certainly warped it.’
‘Warped it is the word. Did you know that he got his limp when he was hurt a dozen years ago while rescuing her from the bedroom she had set on fire while boozed? Ironical, isn’t it? And I can’t help feeling sorry for him, but I don’t know that the Crown Prosecutor won’t let him down as lightly as possible seeing that she was so full of booze that she must have died painlessly.’
‘It seems a hell of a pity,’ said Detective Richardson, whose sympathies had now swung completely to the pleasant-mannered hotelkeeper. ‘He was such a smart and capable type of fellow. I’m sure he would have gone a long way.’
Inspector Price’s telephone interrupted them. Price listened carefully, and laid the receiver back in its cradle thoughtfully.
‘You’re very right about Dalton being smart, my boy,’ he said. ‘He was smarter even than I thought. He must have been suspicious about our visit. He rang the local police station after we left, and asked if there had been a burglary, which was our excuse for going out. The local sergeant told him that there had not been one, which was only natural of course.’