He felt restive. He had an urge to follow this Kindilett theory to its ultimate conclusion. He wanted to know.
He picked up the ’phone.
“Get me George Allison’s home,” he told the operator.
A couple of minutes later he was speaking to the Arsenal manager.
“I’m doing nothing more important than reading a Western novel,” said Allison. “Come round by all means, Inspector.”
For the second time that day Slade drove north through London, this time to Golders Green. He drew up before a house fronted by a row of neatly trimmed trees. The maid who answered his ring said, “Mr Allison is expecting you, sir.”
The Arsenal manager rose from the depths of an easy-chair.
“You chose a night when the rest of the family are out,” he smiled.
“Then I’m not interrupting—”
Allison waved a hand. “Just this horse-opera, I believed it’s called. As a matter of fact, Western fiction is one of my weaknesses. Two-gun men, bad sheriffs, tough hombres, and all the rest of it. Oh, and I was trying out this radio of mine. It’s an old friend that’s suddenly gone back on me.”
He pointed to a small wireless set on a side-table.
“I bought it in America years ago, and it travels around with me. It’s just recently started to protest. But—a drink?”
Slade found himself supplied with a glass of whisky and a cigarette.
It was a comfortable room with soft lighting reflected from pale-coloured walls. The cool note of a green silk suite contrasted with the warm gleam of oranges piled in a crystal basket. The brightness of daffodils enlivened the sheen of natural oak.
Allison turned back from a cocktail cabinet and raised his glass.
“Well, here’s luck, Inspector.”
They drank.
“Excuse me,” said Allison, attentive as a host.
An ash-tray decorated with a pheasant in bright colours was put at Slade’s elbow.
It was as though both men were reluctant to allow a grim reality to intrude into an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity. They sipped their drinks, smoked, chatted for some minutes about sport in its general aspects, before Slade said, “I really came to talk about Kindilett.”
Allison nodded.
“I see.”
Slade studied the man opposite him. Small in height, with full figure, Allison had a fighter’s jaw and a pair of shrewd eyes shadowed by jutting brows. There was strength in the face, Slade saw, and humour. The quick smile that came to the firm mouth indicated a ready understanding. A man who could see both sides of a question and remain with a mind of his own.
“How can I help you, Inspector?”
The question was typical of the man and his methods, to the point, leading somewhere.
“I want to see Kindilett from a friend’s perspective, Mr Allison. I want to know his qualities, what he’s capable of.”
“You think I can tell you?”
Allison’s gaze was thoughtful, his jaw squared.
“I do,” said Slade bluntly. “When I spoke to him I came up against a barrier. I can’t quite explain it, but I was conscious of it, a barrier of reserve. We both tried to pretend it wasn’t there, but we both knew it was. I think it was this reserve that tended to make him—well, suspicious.”
Allison leaned forward, put down his glass.
“It isn’t just suspicion, Inspector, if you’ll allow me. Francis is an old friend of mine, as I’ve already told you. I’ve known him for years. He’s been a man with a dream, but not a dreamer. You’ll appreciate the difference.”
Slade nodded. “He wanted to put amateur football in England back on its one-time high pedestal.”
“Exactly,” Allison said. “He worked damned hard, and he succeeded. That’s as the world sees him, as the Press reports him. But his friends know he is a man with a broken heart. I’m being very frank.”
There was a pause, till Slade said, “You agree, then, that he never fully recovered from his daughter’s death?”
“I know he didn’t,” said Allison. “Could he be expected to?”
“I suppose not. But to be personal for a moment, Mr Allison, how do you think he’s taken this business of Doyce?”
“Hard—damned hard,” said the Arsenal manager convincingly. “I was speaking to him to-day, after the inquest. He’s terribly cut up. That report about the investigation in Ryechester—it’s opening old wounds.”
Slade realized that Allison was utterly sincere in what he said. He was speaking about a man he admired, for whom he entertained real friendship and genuine sympathy.
But Slade was outside that orbit of friendship. He could ask himself—was Allison right?
Kindilett had told him that his daughter had worn a solitaire engagement ring for two days. It had suddenly disappeared from her hand. Obviously she had quarrelled with her fiancé, and presumably had given back the ring. And Slade was positive of one thing; every piece of deductive reasoning pointed to it. Namely, the ring which had brought death to John Doyce was the solitaire ring Mary Kindilett had worn.
Hence the Press cutting. Hence the poison, the pricked envelope. A prised-up claw smeared with aconitine. Was it adding a gesture to murder? A reminder of the past?
Then, again, supposing Mary Kindilett had not given back her ring. Supposing her father had later found it in her room, and had kept it…
“Something’s puzzling you, Inspector,” said Allison, studying the Yard man’s face. “Have another drink. It’ll help.”
He rose and refilled their glasses.
“Cigarette?”
“No, thanks, I’ll try my pipe.”
The Arsenal manager returned to his chair. “I’d like to ask you something, Inspector.”
“Go ahead,” Slade invited.
“Are you seriously considering Francis Kindilett as a—a suspect?”
Slade drew on his pipe, tamped the ash in the bowl with his little finger.
“I’ve got to. But there are features that leave me undecided. Would you care to hear the facts?”
Slade asked the question with knowledge of the man to whom he was putting it. Had Allison considered himself in no fair position to advise the Yard man, had he not, in effect, been able to listen with an open mind, he would have said no.
Instead, he said, “I should, very much,” and Slade knew that, whatever the ties of friendship, George Allison could still remain honest and impartial in his judgment.
“Very well. Briefly, they are these.”
He gave the Arsenal manager in outline the facts that made a case against Kindilett. He told him of the letter, but omitted to mention Doyce’s wife. For the first time he showed Allison the Press cutting and the report in the Ryechester Chronicle.
Allison sat silent, attentive, impressed visibly. He said nothing until Slade showed him the photograph, which he studied closely before glancing up.
“By the way, I’ve got an album Francis loaned me. Would you care to see it? It’s filled with football photos of different kinds. There are quite a few of the Saxon Rovers team of four years ago.”
“Thanks, I should very much.”
Allison rose and went out of the room. To Slade it seemed significant that the Arsenal manager had made no comment on the array of facts that he had presented.
Allison came back, carrying a large-sized volume bound in grey morocco. He placed it on the centre table, and Slade rose and opened it. He turned over the grey-green pages, glancing at the photographs fixed by their corners.
But there was none that interested him except one showing a group of footballers in quartered shirts and light knickers. Among them was the man with the moustache who was in the photograph he had brought from Ryechester.
He slipped the photograph out of its page and turned it over. On the back i
n pencil was written, in a handwriting he recognized as the same as that in the letter to Doyce: “Some of the Saxon Amateurs—1935.”
“Do you recognize any of them?” he asked Allison.
Allison studied the group, but shook his head.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t, Inspector.”
Slade replaced the photograph in the album and handed the volume back to the other.
“There’s one thing I’ve still to find, Mr Allison,” he confided.
The Arsenal manager gave him a sharp glance.
“I can guess what that is, Inspector. The object that pricked Doyce’s thumb.”
“Yes—exactly. I’m convinced that object—as you might have gathered from what I’ve told you—is a solitaire diamond engagement ring.”
“Mary Kindilett’s—”
“That’s what I believe.”
“And you think you’ll find it?”
“I’m certain it is somewhere in the Stadium.”
Allison started. Whatever he had been expecting, this had come as a surprise.
“Good Lord! You really think that?”
Slade nodded. “I feel certain the murderer took the ring from Doyce’s clothes after the team had gone on to the field for the second half.”
“That lets out one obvious suspect, then—Morring,” said Allison quickly. “Possibly Setchley too. And Francis himself. But doesn’t that let out the whole team? I—” George Allison paused, genuinely stumped. “I begin to see something of what you’re up against, Inspector. Might I ask what you have in mind? You had some real reason”—Allison smiled wryly—“in coming to see me.”
Slade nodded. “I’d like to go over the dressing-rooms and treatment room again,” he said. “Preferably with yourself.”
“Of course. But when?”
“Now,” Slade said, “to-night.”
If Allison was surprised again, at this request, he managed successfully to keep his surprise to himself. He was a man well able to produce action when necessary. He pushed Kindilett’s album across the table, picked up the detective’s glass, and said, “Another drink, and I’m your man, Inspector.”
Ten minutes later Slade and Allison were heading for Highbury.
“It’s a bit fortunate that you chose Tuesday night,” the Arsenal manager explained as the car left Golders Green behind. “Bernard Joy, our centre-half, trains at the Stadium on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. He’s a schoolmaster, but has to get in his training. Whittaker generally comes with him one night in the week, Milne, the assistant-trainer, the other.”
“They’re still here,” Slade remarked when he drew into the kerb before the Arsenal Stadium gates. A light shone in the hall.
He followed Allison into the building. There was an eerie atmosphere about the deserted Stadium. It might have been the entrance hall of a museum in which Slade stood—until Allison pushed open the swing door leading to the dressing-rooms. From farther along the corridor came The Chestnut Tree whistled off-key.
“Here’s the visitors’ dressing-room,” said Allison, opening a door and switching on a light. “If you’ll excuse me, Inspector, I’ll just have a word with Whittaker while I’m here.”
He left Slade to begin a thorough search of the tiled apartment. But the detective, as he had expected, met with no success in that room. There were few places where anything could be hidden. He went into the bathroom beyond.
He was methodically feeling round the baths when padding feet sounded behind him. He turned, to meet the interested gaze of a tall, fair-haired man with fresh complexion. Bernard Joy was rubbing his head with a towel.
“I don’t need to inquire if you’re looking for something,” he smiled.
“I’m not having much success,” Slade told him.
“Something little?” The towel went on rubbing the tousled head.
Slade straightened. An idea had just occurred to him.
“If you had to hide something, Joy,” he said, “something dangerous and smaller round than, say, a halfpenny—where would you conceal it?”
Bernard Joy continued wiping his left ear while the fingers of his right hand meditatively scratched his bare chest.
“You mean in this bathroom?”
“No, not necessarily,” said Slade, in the tone of some one expounding a problem. “But somewhere in either this room, the dressing-room next to this, the treatment room, or—no, you can leave out the Arsenal players’ dressing-room and bathroom—”
“That leaves the visitors’ rooms and treatment room—and, yes, Tom’s office?”
“Right. But you’ve got to put this something where it won’t be seen. Probably where it won’t be looked for. Somewhere, too, where you can recover it when you want it.”
Bernard Joy regarded the detective thoughtfully.
“You’re serious in this, Inspector?”
“Absolutely.”
The towel recommenced its vigorous rubbing, bringing a pink flush to the fair man’s skin.
“I know a bit about schoolboys’ capers, but—the treatment room’s sealed.”
“That doesn’t matter. We can break the seals.”
“In that case, that’s where I’d look. If I was hiding this object you speak of, and wanted to do it effectively and quickly, I’d choose somewhere in that large glass cabinet with its shelves of bottles.” Bernard Joy slung the towel round his neck and folded his arms. “A boy in class can usually get away with something he conceals under the master’s nose. It’s something hidden at a distance, given perspective as it were, that is quickly found.”
“My own idea,” Slade said.
At that moment George Allison returned.
“Oh, there you are, Joy. Whittaker wants to give that arm another run over. Can’t be too careful, and we’ve got a hard away game on Saturday.”
Joy nodded. “Tom’s a bit worried, but it’s going along nicely. I’ve been resting it. Well, happy hunting,” he threw cheerfully at Slade, “even if I don’t know what it’s all about.”
“Drawn a blank?” asked Allison as the centre-half went through the door.
“In here—yes. But I only covered these visitors’ rooms as a kind of preliminary routine.”
“Then you think it’s in the treatment room?”
“I do.”
Allison fingered his chin.
“That means whoever took the ring carried it on the field of play with him during the second half.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Allison looked puzzled. “McEwan and the commissionaire established that no one came along the corridor,” he pointed out, revealing to the detective that he had followed the established evidence closely.
“True enough,” Slade agreed. “But there was an interval after the match, before you locked the doors and ’phoned the Yard. There was opportunity then for some one to conceal the ring in the treatment room, and people were probably drifting in and out.”
Allison looked grave.
“That’s true, Inspector. I was forgetting. But surely if the ring was hidden then—well, anyone could have done it?”
“Yes, the issue is widened considerably. The only narrowing down one can do is from motive pure and simple.”
“Always supposing it was that ring,” put in Allison shrewdly.
“Yes, always supposing that,” Slade agreed.
Slade broke the seal on the door of the treatment room that led into Whittaker’s small office. He unlocked the door, and followed by the Arsenal manager he entered the room where John Doyce had breathed his last, and which had been shut up since the two Yard men had left it on the Saturday.
The photographs and finger-prints taken by Irvin had not proved of any material assistance, but Slade was still careful not to disturb surface conditions as he moved around. Allison lit a cigarette and
stood with hands in the pockets of his overcoat, watching the detective.
Slade crossed to one of the sun-ray machines, switched it on, and examined its interior through a pair of smoked glasses which he took from a rack. He switched off the machine and removed the goggles from his face.
“There was just a chance it might have been poked away inside one of these,” he explained, pointing to the machines.
Allison nodded. He watched Slade examine the other sun-ray machines without comment. But the Yard man finished his examination without finding anything. He turned to the sink, went from that to the wall-racks and the cupboards. He was very thorough, and he did not hurry his search. Finally he turned to the large case of bottles and jars containing various medical supplies.
“Fitted out like a hospital,” he said.
“We’ve got to be,” said Allison.
Slade went to work on the shelves of bottles containing liquids of all colours. As he removed the jars—holding each with his handkerchief—took out the stoppers, and peered inside the atmosphere became heavy with the tang of ammonia and turpentine and of the various patent embrocations and liniments.
This was the slowest task of all. George Allison leaned against one of the treatment tables and lit fresh cigarettes.
The minutes dragged by. Bernard Joy pushed his head round the door to wish the two men good-night. Then Whittaker came and held a whispered conversation with Allison about the team. They stood together, smoking, for some minutes, watching the Yard man. Whittaker called good-night, left, and Allison returned to the treatment table.
“Slow work, Inspector,” he said.
“Looking for a needle in a haystack always is,” said Slade, straightening his back. “Not many years ago an American tried to find the answer to that stock problem. It took him some eighty-odd hours, working steadily.”
“Feel like a rest?”
“No, I’ll finish it while I’m at it.”
Slade picked up the next bottle, unstoppered it, looked inside, swirled the blue liquid round, held it up to the light, and shook his head.
“No luck,” he muttered.
He continued along the shelf, moved down to the next. But he did not find what he sought. He was feeling very tired, and his back ached when he bent over a glass dish with a grubby label on which the words “Sterilized horsehair” were printed in ink. He removed the glass lid, and held the dish up to the light.
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery Page 19
