“Because you were scared, you sweet dumb-wit.”
Jill ignored the gibe.
“You’re utterly selfish. You’ve never thought of anyone except yourself—”
“Thanks for the charming reference.”
“You’re only thinking of yourself now.”
“You’re damned right I am.”
“But you’re making a big mistake if you think you’re going to cause trouble for Phil now—”
“Still scared, eh? Want your precious hero untarnished. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m going to pay him back in his own coin—and it’s bad currency. And now for God’s sake let go of my arm! I want to get dressed.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going out now, immediately. After this I want some clean air. I feel stifled. But I want you to know this. If you go to the police, pretending to tell the truth because you feel you must, I’ll wreck your rotten scheme.”
For some seconds they stood there by the door, acknowledged adversaries, with blades crossed.
“Go ahead, pet, try,” mocked the blonde girl. “I’ve plenty to say that you know nothing about. I’m going to make that conceited fool damned sorry for giving me the run-around. I’m going to make him regret like hell that he ever thought himself too good for Pat Laruce.”
The bedroom door slammed. She was gone.
Jill walked into the kitchen. The breakfast things and the coffee-cups were on the draining-board over the little sink. She dropped on to the plain wooden chair, and cried. She was utterly miserable. She felt helpless. She was crying half an hour later when the door into the hall landing shut loudly, and she was alone in the flat. Her grief was very personal, something that could not be shared.
It was true, she was in love with Phil Morring. Had been in love with him for long months while he had seen only Pat’s blonde beauty and heard her laughter and empty promises. She had tried to resign herself to what she had considered the inevitable.
She thought she had succeeded. It had been hard, but she had disciplined herself. Her love was a thing never to be told.
Now it had been flung back at her by the woman who was determined to wreck Phil Morring’s life out of petty spite and in revenge for the results of her own faithlessness. She had to find a way to save Phil. The police would believe Pat. She knew that.
He might even be arrested on a charge of murder. The thought numbed her mind. She could see the man she loved helpless against the force of circumstantial evidence. Little fragments of fact occurred to her.
That quarrel between Morring and his partner about Pat. The money, the ten thousand pounds for which they had been insured. Phil’s trying to keep Doyce out of the Trojan team. The animosity between the two men that had grown strongly during recent weeks. Words. Accusations…
She could see how a clever detective might string all these pieces of fact together into a damning chain without an apparent weak link. Scraps she had read or heard in the past about innocent men being punished filtered into her clouded mind.
Phil was innocent!
The thought brought sharp pain. He was—he had to be!
It wasn’t possible that he had murdered Doyce, hating him. Where could he have got the poison?
On the heels of the thought came an answer. Setchley might have provided a means.
She got to her feet, ignoring her stained, tear-wrecked face.
“Oh, God, it can’t be true! No—it isn’t!”
Resolutely she made the denial. She couldn’t let him down now when he wanted some one’s trust, when, as never before, he needed loyalty.
She suddenly knew she had to talk to him. She wanted to offer counsel, warn him. She must protect him as she now felt only she could.
Her love was a real thing. Her belief in him was a real thing…
She felt a little happier as she went into the sitting-room and picked up the telephone. She dialled the number of his flat and placed the receiver against her ear. She heard the making of contact, and then the purring of the receiver at the other end of the line.
But she did not hear Morring’s voice.
At last she replaced the receiver and went slowly back to the kitchen. She turned on the hot-water tap and set about washing the cups and saucers and cutlery on the draining-board.
She felt very helpless and very alone.
IX
The Laboratory Report
Throughout that sunday after the fatal match at Highbury white-garbed men worked with frowning attention over their bunsens and retorts in the Home Office laboratory. The most modern batteries of the law in its war on crime were brought into action. Careful tests were made on the stomach organs of the dead man.
Alkaloid poisoning of some kind was proved. Reagents provided an answer that left no doubt. Doyce had been murdered.
While special tests to isolate the particular poison were begun the news was handed out to the Press.
On Monday morning all Britain knew that the Yard was seeking a murderer.
“All I hope is, Slade finds him quick,” said Ted Drake, swinging at a punch-ball in the Arsenal gym.
Bryn Jones, his face moist, paused in his pull at the rowing machine.
“Here’s Chulley,” he said, “the Trojan skipper. Maybe he’s got an idea.”
He rose, wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his maroon training jersey. Chulley looked glum. He was talking to the Arsenal coach, Jack Lambert.
“How do you fellows feel about this?” asked Drake, leaving the punch-ball.
Chulley shrugged.
“I don’t know. The boys don’t feel much like talking. You know how it is.”
“According to the papers this morning there’s no doubt about it being murder.” Bryn Jones’s Celtic features looked troubled. “It takes some getting used to.”
“But who—” began Drake, and stopped suddenly.
Chulley jerked his head. “That’s all right, Ted. You don’t have to think of my feelings. I know what you must be thinking, all of you. One of us did it.” His fists knotted. “I’d like to know who,” he muttered. “This is going to hit the old man hard. He’s taken some bad knocks while getting the Trojans together, and now—”
There was an awkward pause, filled in by Drake, who turned to Lambert.
“You played against the Saxon Rovers, Jack. Ever turn out against Doyce or that red-haired winger Setchley?”
Lambert shook his head.
“They were after my time. But look here, you haven’t finished—”
He was interrupted when a bounding ball smote his legs.
“Hey!” yelled Swindin, at the farther end of the gym.
Lambert booted the ball back towards the goalkeeper. Drake flogged the punch-ball, making it sing. He stepped away from it.
“I’m going down,” he said. “Untie these, Jack.”
Lambert untied the laces of his boxing-gloves.
“Coming, Bryn? You, Chulley?”
The three players pushed through the swing-door. Lambert watched them go, said nothing. He knew that Arsenal men and Trojans alike that morning were “nervy.” It was a new sensation for the normally happy, boisterous players to work under the eye of the police, as though they were criminals.
Slade and Clinton had arrived some while before, were at that moment with Allison in the manager’s room. The players were going through their routine training day, trying to appear as though nothing unusual had happened. But occasionally a man’s curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to know what the others thought and felt.
Lambert walked up to the other end of the gym.
“Come on, up to it, lad. That’s the way,” he encouraged a youngster of the Enfield nursery club, which he managed.
A group of youngsters in grey sweaters and navy shorts were practising heading a ball. Swindin was saving the shots,
fisting the ball against the wire screens protecting windows and ceiling lights. The juniors were less perturbed by the occasion than the older men.
On the training ground behind the south terrace Eddie Hapgood was playing his usual vigorous game of head tennis. The game closed with a shout. The players paused to mop their faces.
“What do you think, Eddie?” asked Male.
There was no need to say what about.
The grin on the Arsenal captain’s face was replaced by a look of frank puzzlement.
“I’m not a detective, George. But it looks bad for the Trojans.” Hapgood glanced to where the bulk of the Trojan team were practising with a ball at the other end of the training-ground. “I had a word with Raille this morning when he arrived. He didn’t want to talk, and it’s understandable, after all.”
“Sure, with Kindilett an old Saxon Rovers director,” said Male.
“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Crayston, who had overheard the remarks.
“Doyce had only been in the team a little over a week. Must be bad blood somewhere.”
“That doesn’t follow,” contended Hapgood sharply. “There have been plenty of rumours about us, if it comes to that. Specially when we struck a bad patch. But it meant nothing. Talk about bad blood in a team usually does mean nothing. You should know that, George.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Male. “I meant bad blood outside the team, but on the part of the players.”
“I don’t get it,” said Crayston.
“Doyce had a business partner, who is in the team,” Male pointed out. “There could have been something in their private life, couldn’t there?”
This was received in silence.
“Suppose there was a girl—” muttered Crayston.
“Cut it,” snapped Hapgood. “Let’s join the others. Hallo! Here come Chulley and those we left in the gym.”
Lithe as a cat in his grey suede training-suit, the Arsenal captain bounded away. The others followed.
“Raille out here?” called Chulley.
“No, he’s upstairs with the boss,” shouted Hapgood above the hubbub of voices. “Here—hold it!”
He sent a hard cross-drive at the Trojan captain, who trapped the ball neatly and smacked it straight at Male. The Londoner heeled it towards Crayston, and the half back promptly got his head to it and tried to take Hapgood off-guard.
Meantime the Trojan trainer was facing Slade in Allison’s room. Allison and Clinton stood to one side of the desk. Kindilett sat by the door.
“I believe you called at Doyce’s flat Friday evening,” Slade was saying. “Did he have any visitors, Raille?”
“Why, not that I know of.”
Raille looked as though he wanted to ask a question, but didn’t like to.
“That the first time you’d been?” asked Slade.
“No. I’d been there before. Last Tuesday I think it was. I wanted to make sure Doyce was in shape for Saturday.”
“Was he?”
“I think so. He seemed in good spirits, anyway.”
“When, Tuesday or Friday?”
“Both days.”
“There’s one thing I want to know,” Slade continued, “and I’d like you to think carefully before replying, Raille. Were Morring and Doyce friendly in the dressing-room?”
Raille moved his feet. He looked uncomfortable.
“I did think they kept apart, but”—he shrugged—“it wasn’t noticeable.”
“Yet you noticed it.”
“Well, I suppose I did. But I don’t think anyone else would have done so.”
Slade didn’t press him to explain in more detail. “Were they together at half-time?” was his next question.
“I can’t say. I gave Doyce his package, then talked to them altogether. I don’t know if those two spoke. We hadn’t much time, you know.”
“Did you see what Doyce took from his package?”
“No.”
“Another thing, Raille. The rest of the team must feel deeply about what’s happened. Have they talked? You, as trainer, would hear anything they had to say.”
Raille dropped his gaze. “They haven’t said much.”
Slade leaned forward. “I want you to get out of your head, Raille, any idea that you’re tittle-tattling by answering my questions frankly. A man has been murdered. That’s bad for the team. It means a murderer has to be found. It’s up to you to help in any way you can.”
The trainer stood silent.
“Even if it means the arrest of one of the team,” added Slade, as though reading the man’s thoughts.
After several more seconds Raille glanced up.
“Doyce wasn’t liked,” he said slowly. “His manner was cocksure, and it didn’t go down with the others. He was a newcomer, and he hadn’t any tact. Perhaps he was over-confident—”
“Raille,” said the Yard man as the trainer hesitated, “did Doyce quarrel with any of the team?”
“That I can’t say.”
“Can’t?”
“I mean because I don’t know.”
“I see.” Slade studied some notes he had spread out before him. “You say Doyce was cocksure. I have reason to believe he was popular with the other sex. Know anything about that?”
Raille shook his head.
“Yet you visited his flat.”
“That’s true, I did—twice. I’m afraid I don’t understand, Inspector.”
“Mean you didn’t see the photos of his lady friends?”
“No.”
Slade stood up. “All right, Raille, that’ll be all for now, thank you.”
The trainer, after a glance at the unhappy Kindilett, went out, closing the door.
Allison moved away from the wall.
“You didn’t get much from him,” the Arsenal manager reflected.
“No,” said Slade, “I didn’t. I think Raille mistrusts the publicity his team are getting.”
“Surely that’s natural,” said Kindilett, his voice flat.
“Natural. But my job isn’t to study people’s feelings,” Slade pointed out.
“Then you think he was holding something back?” queried Kindilett.
“I can’t tell. He wasn’t very communicative about Doyce—”
The ’phone rang. Slade picked up the receiver, listened, and said, “Put them through, please.”
Half a minute later he pursed his mouth.
“Aconitine. Yes—yes, I get that. Right. Oh, about an hour or so. Yes, I want that report.”
He sat back and dropped the receiver in its cradle.
“Well,” he told his audience, “we now know which poison killed Doyce. Aconitine. It’s one of the most deadly poisons known. The lab. has just reported.”
Kindilett shook his head sadly.
“All this is more distressing than I can say. I have been hoping that there has been some—some blunder. That Doyce wasn’t—” He broke off, added heavily,“But he was.”
His head sank on his chest.
Allison glanced meaningly at Slade.
“I’d like to see them at work on the training-ground,” said the detective.
“All right, I’ll take you down, Inspector.” Allison turned to Kindilett. “You stay here, Francis. Have a drink. You know where it is.”
The two Yard men and the Arsenal manager went out, leaving Kindilett in his attitude of dejection.
“He’s taking it hard,” grunted Allison.
Neither Slade nor Clinton offered any comment. They followed Allison down the corridor along which the players filed on to the ground, walked to the end of the East Stand and passed by the first-aid room, and came round to the training-ground. Steel netting enclosed the ground on two sides. Allison led the way through an iron gate on to the red-surf
aced ground.
About thirty players were divided into two groups, each dribbling and shooting before a goal. The balls smacked against boots and goal-posts, performed crazy geometric designs in the air.
“An hour at this is hard work,” Allison explained to the Yard men.
“I can believe it,” said Slade.
“The game to-day is faster than it’s ever been,” the Arsenal manager added. “Only the fit can survive.”
“And hope to win the League Championship,” put in Clinton.
Allison smiled.
“Hey! Look out!”
The sudden shout sent all three looking in the direction from which it came. A swiftly travelling ball had cannoned from Hapgood’s foot. Setchley, his back towards the Arsenal captain, stood in its path. At the shout the Trojan player turned to see what was the matter. Before he could jump clear or throw up his arms the ball had struck him on the left side of his chest.
With a short cry he fell over.
“He’s hurt,” said Allison, running forward.
The two Yard men moved with him. But before they could reach the fallen player Raille was bending over him. Setchley was clasping his chest and moaning through tight lips.
“Better get him inside,” Allison advised. “Tom will give you something to fix him, Raille.”
Supported by the Trojan trainer, Setchley hobbled off the training-ground.
“Perhaps we’d better follow,” Slade suggested. “I don’t think it was the ball that hurt him.”
“Hapgood’s got a hefty kick,” said Allison.
“All the same, I’m curious,” said the Yard man.
They left the training-ground and returned to the Stadium. In the Arsenal dressing-room Whittaker was already examining Setchley’s chest. The injured player was on a treatment table.
“Nasty bruise,” said Whittaker, looking closely at the discoloured skin under his fingers. “Hurt much?”
“Bit,” said Setchley, grinning with an effort.
“It’s not a fresh place,” Whittaker decided.
“No, he’s had it about a week,” Raille informed his fellow-trainer. “It’s been all right, but I suppose that bang just now has made it sore.”
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery Page 10
