“Did you look into his bedroom at all?”
“No, I had no reason to.”
“Tell me, do you think Morring was engaged to Mary Kindilett?”
“Phil Morring?” There was more surprise in Raille’s voice. “No, I—well, I—”
“I see, you hadn’t considered him as a possibility?”
“No, I must confess I hadn’t.”
“Setchley?”
“No. But I told you, Inspector, I don’t—”
“All right, I remember. Just thought you might have had an idea about one of those two. Morring especially.”
“Might I inquire why?”
“Oh, just the way things are working out. It would make a good case if Morring had been engaged to her.”
Slade was watching the other closely, but appearing to take an interest only in the Ryechester photograph.
“Then Morring is your number one suspect?”
“I didn’t say so.”
Slade looked up. He held out the photograph. “This mean anything to you?”
Raille bent over the picture.
“Mary Kindilett and some of the players.”
“Know any of them?”
“Well, there’s Setchley, and Barnes, I think his name was, and Hodgson, or Higginson, or some such name—”
“Don’t happen to know the fellow on the right, do you? The one in civvies?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“Notice anything strange about Mary Kindilett?”
“Strange?”
“Yes—anything missing?”
Raille looked closer, remained looking for some moments.
“She hasn’t got an engagement ring on her left hand,” he said at last.
“So I noticed,” said Slade. “Does that omission tell you anything?”
“No. Should it?”
“I was asking you,” smiled the Yard man.
He dropped the photograph on his desk, refolded the copy of the Ryechester Chronicle, and rose.
“Frankly, what is your own opinion of what happened on Saturday, Raille?”
“I don’t know. I’ve thought, but thinking hasn’t got me very far, I’m afraid. I’m not cut out for a detective, any more than I was for a dentist.”
For just a moment there was a lingering bitterness in his tone. Slade marked it, altered what he was about to say next.
“Who was last out of the dressing-room after half-time—remember?”
“I think I was. I was fixing a bandage round Crieff’s right ankle, and we went out last. Yes, I remember now you draw my attention to it. Why?”
“None of the players lingered in the dressing-room then?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Not Morring?”
“No, I’m sure of that.”
“And Kindilett?”
“He just looked in for a moment, then went out again. I believe he had a cup of tea with Mr Allison.”
“Another point, Raille. You were with Kindilett last week when he called at the laboratory in the Great West Road where Setchley works. Did Mr Kindilett appear to take an interest in the cabinet over the desk in the lab.? Did you notice?”
“Afraid I can’t say. The Swedish manager of a Stockholm amateur team was there, and I remember talking about callisthenics, because the Swede was very keen on them.”
“Setchley didn’t happen to remark about Morring having been there the day before?”
“No. I’m sorry if I didn’t notice much—”
“Oh, that’s all right, Raille. Don’t worry yourself. Detective work is just a case of delving and then delving again, only deeper the second time. And the third time—”
“Deeper still, eh?”
“Exactly.”
Raille left shortly after that. Clinton extracted himself from his papers with a heavy sigh.
“You took him a long way round in circles,” he protested vaguely.
“Bait, Clinton,” said Slade. “I’ve sent him away to talk, to think, possibly to do some ’phoning. I’ve made him curious, and now—”
Clinton sucked his teeth noisily.
“Possibly a waste of time,” he said unconsolingly. “Now what?”
“Now a quick visit to the Commer-Photo studio.”
The Commer-Photo studio was a typical photographer’s studio, untidy, littered with box-like dressing-rooms, and in the charge of a man with a very squeaky voice and an over-trimmed beard. The feminine paleness of his face above the curly beard was heightened to some extent by the brightness of his searching brown eyes.
“What has she been up to?” was his first question after the Yard men had explained the reason for their visit.
“Oh, don’t get a wrong idea, Mr Sykes,” said Slade. “Miss Laruce is merely required to answer a few categorical questions.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” said the bearded Mr Sykes doggedly. “I don’t have to, do I?”
“I don’t like it myself,” Slade confided.
Somewhat mollified by this, Mr Sykes showed the detectives into a small anteroom, with a large mirror and dressing-table, the latter littered with sundry not too clean hair-brushes, in the bristles of which were stuck coloured bath-combs. He went out and left them.
Clinton looked round the room.
“Marvellous to think anyone can make a living out of the place,” he reflected.
Slade stared over the dressing-table at a particularly nauseating photograph of a stack of smoking factory chimneys. The door opened and Patricia Laruce came in. She was annoyed at their being there, and was ready to voice her grievance.
“I’ll lose my job now. Sykes will go thinking I’m up to no good.”
Slade forbade from telling her how right he thought she was. Instead he put on his most encouraging smile, and said, “Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at the inquest to-day—”
“How do you know I was there?” she asked suspiciously.
“I saw you.”
“Oh!”
She looked taken aback. Slade went on to seize his momentary advantage.
“I want you to cast your mind back to Friday evening.”
“Friday evening?”
“Yes. John Doyce had a visitor while you were there. Who was it?”
She could tell that he knew, that he was trying her out. She did not repeat her earlier mistake.
“Raille, the trainer,” she said.
“He didn’t see you?”
“I didn’t give him the chance. I don’t trust his sort.”
“What sort is that?”
She shrugged and sniffed.
“I see. What did he talk about?”
“Training, being fit, playing up, playing up, and playing the game. You know the line.”
“How long was he there?”
“Far too long. Nearly half an hour, I should say.”
“Did you remove all your clothes into the bedroom?”
She flushed quickly. “Who said I was in the bedroom? However—” She glanced down at her smart shoes. “No, I picked up my coat, and my hat, but forgot my handbag. And now if you’re finished with me—”
They were.
Outside, threading their way through the crowd that perpetually inhabits Regent Street in the daylight hours, Clinton said, “Why did Raille say he didn’t know she was there?”
“Perhaps he wanted to protect her.”
“Or some one else,” suggested Clinton dubiously.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Slade.
XIV
The Other Woman
Upon their return to the Yard they found awaiting them a communication from Milligan, the attendant at the block of flats where Doyce had lived.
The man ha
d ’phoned about half an hour before, and would not leave a message. He wanted to speak to Inspector Slade, and had left word that what he had to say was of an urgent nature.
“Maybe something in all this Press publicity has reminded him that the rent is still overdue.”
Clinton chose to take a sceptical view of the possibilities of the ’phone message.
“You know,” said Slade, “I’ve been wondering at one aspect of this case. None of Doyce’s relatives has come forward.”
The sergeant perked up.
“True. But he may be an orphan.”
“None of the Trojans has mentioned a word about Doyce’s family.”
“Well, I don’t suppose this Milligan is going to confess to being a step-brother.”
What Milligan had to tell them was something that made both Yard men take fresh interest in his story.
“It was just after lunch when she called,” said the porter. “She was a smallish woman, pretty face, but not as young as it had been—if you know what I mean. And there was something about her eyes. I can’t rightly describe them, but I remember how they looked. Hard, sort of. And fixed, too. Staring without seeming to stare, if you get me.”
“I think I know what you mean, Milligan,” Slade nodded.
The porter went on with his narrative.
“I saw her moving towards the lift, and not having seen her here before I thought it best to say something. You know, you can’t be too careful with blocks of flats like this. All kinds of people ready to try anything. I said to her, ‘Who you wanting to see, ma’am?’ just like that. She fixed that hard stare on me, and said, ‘Mrs Brown’ quick-like, without stopping to think. She was smart, I’ll say that. She had it all ready. Only it didn’t do her any good. Her luck was out. There’s not a Mrs Brown in the building. ‘You’ve made a mistake,’ I told her. ‘We haven’t got a Mrs Brown, ma’am.’ She kept looking at me, and I didn’t like the way she seemed to look through me. ‘Maybe you’ve got the address wrong,’ I suggested. You see, I didn’t want any trouble with her, and she looked the sort to go off half-cock. You know how some women are?”
He paused, as though to make sure that Slade really did know.
The Yard man nodded.
“I can see you handled her right, Milligan.”
“I’m not sure I did.”
“How’s that?”
The man pushed his tongue into one cheek, reflected for some moments, and then took what for him was plainly a plunge into unknown depths.
“She gave me five bob and showed me a key. Wasn’t any doubt about it. It was a key to Mr Doyce’s flat.”
“You let her go into the flat?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well stop her. She said she had a perfect right, and there was the key.”
“And the five bob,” put in Clinton.
Milligan looked at the sergeant, and seemed to receive inspiration from the knowing look on Clinton’s face.
“You see, it was like this,” he said, hurrying his words. “I thought—well, if I let her in, she might do something that would give the police a clue. If I didn’t let her in, chances were she’d just disappear. Then the police would know nothing. And she might be important.”
He paused, uncertain how this would be taken.
“You bet she might,” said Slade. “Milligan, you’re a polished liar. Go on.”
The porter took heart.
“Anyway, she went up. She was up there—oh, twenty minutes, not more. When she came down I came out of the office. ‘Everything all right?’ I inquired. Just like that. Chatty. She gave me a hell of a look. ‘I’ve wasted five bob,’ she said in a way that gave you goose-flesh. But I stuck to her. ‘Taxi?’ I said. ‘I can get one myself,’ she snapped.”
“So you didn’t find out where she went,” Clinton gloomed.
Milligan gave a prodigious wink.
“She was fly, all right. But not fly enough. I went into the office, saw her go over to the rank, and take the first taxi. I know the driver. Bill Stevens. Him and me often has a bit of chin-wag. He’s in the Auxiliary Fire Service, a part-timer, and I can’t get out of him how the hell he’s going to go out on a call when he’s driving a fare the other side of London—”
“You know this Stevens’ address?”
“No. But he works for the White Seal Cab Company. They’ve offices in the Euston Road.”
“All right, Milligan, you’ve earned your five bob. But don’t let anyone else up to the flat—not if they offer you a pound.”
Milligan grinned. “I ain’t that lucky,” he told them.
The two Yard men went up to the flat, entered, and looked round the rooms.
“She has a tidy mind, whoever she is,” muttered Clinton, “she’s put everything back as she found it.”
“Has she?” said Slade.
“Well…”
If the woman had taken anything, they couldn’t tell. They left Baker Street and made their way to the Euston Road and the office of the White Seal Cab Company. A rotund Cockney in shirt-sleeves hunted up Stevens’ address.
“Don’t know when he’ll get home. Bill’s got a habit of working late. Some nights he leaves off about seven, some nights ten or later, after the theatre traffic.”
“Then your drivers don’t keep set hours?”
“Sure they do. But Stevens is buying a cab from the company. He’s different. He works his own hours. That’s why he’s sticking late. Gives him a chance to pay off a bigger instalment before the cab’s out of date.”
The rotund man laughed. He thought that a good joke.
“Tell you what,” he said, “if he happens to look in I’ll get him to give you a ring. How’s that?”
“It’ll have to do,” agreed Slade, disappointed at not finding his man sooner.
“And when we do find him he may not remember where he took her, or she may have driven to a station, just to leave a blind trail,” Clinton remarked as they went in search of food.
After a meal they returned to the Yard, there to wait until word came from a taxi-driver who was cruising round London unaware that the police wanted a word with him. Slade could have got his man quicker by broadcasting the number of his cab, but he particularly wanted to keep this new lead out of the newspapers.
He was prepared to wait longer, and avoid the publicity. Already the case had enough publicity to ensure its being talked of throughout the remainder of the year.
As it happened, Slade’s luck was in. An hour or so after his return to the Yard a call came through from the White Seal Cab Company, reporting that Stevens had had a breakdown, and a van had gone to tow him in. Slade and Clinton went back to the Euston Road, and found their man had just arrived, and was in a flaring temper.
“Just my confounded luck. Breakdown, an’ me with rates an’ taxes to pay, an’ an instalment due.”
The rotund man picked his teeth and winked at a mechanic.
“Take it easy, Bill. You’ve got all the rest of your life to wear out that cab.”
“Not at the rate he’s started in, he ain’t,” said the mechanic cheerily.
Slade and Clinton took Stevens away from the others’ wit.
“Belloge Court? ’Cos I know it. Me an’ Milligan the porter there are old buddies. ’Cos he’s a bit of a gas-bag, an’ me, I don’t—”
“Remember picking up a fare while on the rank outside Belloge Court about midday?”
Stevens had no trouble in remembering. The reference to this particular fare brought a scowl to his normally bland features.
“Yes, I took her to Clifficks Gardens.”
“Where’s that?”
“Hampstead.”
“Remember the number?”
The scowl deepened. “I shan’t forget it. It brought me this bit o’ bad luck. Thirteen, that was the number.”
“Just one other thing,” said Slade. “Did you remain outside the house in Clifficks Gardens long enough to see whether she rang the bell or used a key?”
“The whole street’s blocks of flats,” Stevens explained. “She just walked in through an open door. But if it means anything, she took a latch-key out of her handbag when she was standing on the kerb, about to pay me off. Put it in her mouth while she went on fumbling for change.”
“Thanks,” said Slade. “Er—I don’t suppose you use the Belloge Court rank very often, do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. What with knowing Millie, an’ him always bein’ good for a bit o’ jaw, an’ there bein’ a nice little cook-shop round the corner, that just suits me—well, I’m on that rank four or five times a week, I should say. Why, any particular reason?”
“I was wondering if you recalled ever picking up this same fare before. At that rank, I mean.”
Stevens shook his head.
“No, can’t say I can. And she was a woman one’d remember all right. Striking looking. Good eyes, bold, and she had a way with her. You know, as though she cottoned to what made the wheels go round.”
“And now John Doyce. Ever had him for a fare?”
“Oh, several times. Good for a bob tip. But I don’t want to get dragged into any murder case, me with that cab not paid for, and—”
“You’re not being dragged into anything,” Slade assured the man, who suddenly looked cagey. “I merely want to know if you ever drove Doyce to Clifficks Gardens.”
Stevens shook his head.
“Never,” he said, and he couldn’t have put more expression into the word had he been on oath.
Slade and Clinton left the White Seal Cab Company’s building.
“Hope you got what you wanted,” called the shirt-sleeved man, who was still watching a mechanic work.
“Thanks for the ring,” said Slade, adding nothing to satisfy the other’s curiosity.
“Where does it get us?” asked Clinton, as the detectives’ car sped down the Euston Road.
“To Hampstead,” Slade told him, tooling his way through a crowd of traffic. Cutting north, and avoiding the West End, Slade reached Hampstead in just over a quarter of an hour. Clifficks Gardens proved to be a semicircular thoroughfare running back from the Heath.
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery Page 16
