The Arsenal Stadium Mystery

by Leonard Gribble

  Slade told Dunning. The local man listened with close attention. When Slade had finished he sat back, his hands clasped.

  “I don’t know that you’ll get a great deal of help down here, Slade,” he said doubtfully. “Kindilett himself is your best source of information—if he’ll talk.”

  “Exactly,” the Yard man nodded. “If the inquest was soft-pedalled, he certainly won’t want to drag up all that past history again. It wouldn’t be pleasant.”

  “True enough,” Dunning agreed. “He tore up his roots when he left these parts. But he was a father for whom the sun rose and set on his daughter. There was a great deal of sympathy for him at the time. But we’ve nothing in the files here that can help you. Nothing at all.”

  The two Yard men called at the offices of the Ryechester Chronicle, a green-painted shop with a window full of local pictures with typed legends. A desultory youth who seemingly had great difficulty in controlling a mop of flaxen hair looked up at their entry. He had been reading a boy’s weekly, well crumpled and fingered.

  “Mr Fingleton?” he queried sharply.

  “Who’s he?” asked Slade.

  The boy sat up, took more interest in his visitors.

  “’Vertisement manager.”

  “We want to see the editor.”

  “Got an appointment? Mr Clarke’s busy. He’s always busy,” he added diplomatically.

  But diplomacy was lost in a rush of boyish awe when Slade gave him his official card and asked him to take it to Mr Clarke.

  “Gee!”

  He was away from the counter and gone through a glass-panelled door with the word.

  “You’ll be lucky if they don’t insert it in the small ads,” Clinton suggested.

  Slade chose to ignore the sally. After an interval of nearly three minutes the fair-haired boy returned.

  “Mr Clarke’ll see you. This way, please.”

  They passed round the counter, went through the glass-panelled door, and twisted themselves in and out of corded bundles of the Ryechester Chronicle. The boy hopped ahead and seized hold of the handle of another door, on which the word “Editor” was all but worn away.

  He threw open the door with the air of a victor tossing away a laurel wreath.

  “Inspector Slade of Scotland Yard,” he announced, his young voice vibrant with strange personal triumph.

  Slade and Clinton saw a shirt-sleeved young man of about twenty-five get out of an old chair set before an older roll-top desk piled with galley slips and sheets of typing.

  “I thought that young rip was pulling another of his confounded jokes,” said the young man, who exuded an air of tired efficiency. “I’m Clarke, the editor. I hope there hasn’t been any trouble, gentlemen.”

  He looked a trifle nervous. Slade, surprised to find so young a man in charge of even a small local paper, sat down in the chair pushed forward for him.

  “I came wanting information about something that happened here four years ago, Mr Clarke.”

  “I know. Inspector Dunning got on to Mr Hakers. He’s the proprietor of the Chronicle, and—well, he controls the policy and keeps a tight hand on things.”

  Clarke smiled, and Slade, who realized now why the young man had the job and what was expected of him, smiled back in sympathy. It wasn’t the first time Slade had sought information in the offices of a small local newspaper.

  “I want a copy of the edition carrying the story of the inquest,” said the detective.

  Clarke nodded.

  “I can manage that. Anything else?”

  “Photos? They might help if you have any.”

  “Sure. I’ll see what I can do.”

  He left the two Yard men and went out. Nearly ten minutes passed before he came back. He had a newspaper and an illustration “original” that had been touched up with Chinese white. The paper carried the story of the inquest on an inside page, and the story ran to nearly two columns, including a verbatim report on Kindilett’s evidence. Doyce and Setchley also gave evidence.

  Slade ran his eye down the columns, saw that they would provide him with quite an amount of detail, and glanced at the illustration at the top of the page. It showed a group of football players in hooped shirts and dark knickers. At one side of the group was a girl. At the other side was a man in ordinary clothes. The latter had a moustache.

  “This is the photo we made the block from. I thought it would be clearer,” added Clarke.

  “Thanks,” Slade said gratefully.

  On the back was pencilled, “Some of the Saxon Rovers. Mary Kindilett at left-hand of group.” It said nothing about the man with the moustache. But at the bottom was a rubber-stamped address, “Peter Prines, 10 Crayle Street, Ryechester.”

  Slade pointed to the address.

  “This man Prines. He still here?”

  Clarke nodded. “Very much so. Doesn’t touch Press stuff any more. He’s come up in the world. Portraits at fancy figures. Big do’s occasionally. But he knows his stuff. Good cameraman.”

  “Many thanks. I don’t think we need detain you any longer, Mr Clarke. I’d like to keep this copy and the photo—”

  “Sure. That’s all right. Only”—the young editor hesitated—“if you can let me have something—early,” he stressed, “I’d be grateful. I know you’re busy and—”

  “I’ll drop a word to Dunning. He’ll probably help you out.”

  “That’s very nice of you, Inspector. I’d like to get a local slant on this case. The nationals are giving it a big boost.”

  They left him preparing to wrestle again with the pile of papers on the roll-top desk. In the outer office the boy looked up from his twopenny thriller. He followed them with eloquent eyes.

  In the street again, Slade said, “We’re getting somewhere at last.”

  He sounded pleased.

  The sergeant gave him a side-glance. He knew that tone in his superior’s voice. It usually indicated that Slade was finding things working out.

  “Can’t see it myself. I’m hoping this Prines fellow will give us some help.”

  As it turned out, Peter Prines evinced a ready inclination to be of whatever service he could. He was a short man, tubby, thin on top, with a pair of eloquent hands. They were always moving, always giving queer emphasis to his words.

  He studied the picture Slade gave him, listened carefully to the detective’s explanation of how he had come by it, and nodded his head in a quick, bird-like fashion.

  “M’m, m’m, I remember,” he nodded. “I was doing quite a bit of leg-work for the locals.”

  Slade glanced at the well-tailored black jacket with the red carnation in the buttonhole, at the knife-edge crease in the grey-striped trousers falling over well-polished willow-calf shoes. Mr Peter Prines had come a long way from his leg-work for local newspapers, unless appearances lied very considerably.

  “Sad case that Mary Kindilett business,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Her father was liked by everyone. Sad business indeed.”

  “You remember the inquest?”

  “Distinctly. There was quite a commotion when her fiancée didn’t come forward.”

  “Oh.” Slade looked interested. “How was that?”

  “Well, she’d been engaged, but had broken it off about two or three days before she was found drowned, if I remember rightly. I recall her father stated that he didn’t know the name of the man. For myself, I’m pretty sure I know why he didn’t come forward.”

  “You are?”

  “Supposing he had,” said Mr Prines, looking sorrowful, “what would have happened? There would have been a lot of discussion and questions back-firing, and ten to one the jury would have decided she had chucked herself in the fosse—suicide. See? That would have been a reflection on her. It—well, it wouldn’t have been nice, would it?”

  Slade agre
ed that it wouldn’t. Mr Prines continued.

  “As it was, he didn’t come forward. There were all sorts of rumours, but without anyone to pin them to, what could they do?” He appealed to the detectives. They waited for the answer they knew he would supply. “They brought in a verdict of death by misadventure. See? An accident. My opinion is her fiancé stayed away from court on purpose to save her father suffering.”

  “She went to a dance on the night of the misadventure,” said Slade.

  “True. I remember now. And it was one of those footballers took her. Wait a minute, his name’s on the tip of my tongue. I can see him now, standing up giving evidence, a dark-haired fellow, very sure of himself, nattily dressed, and—Good God!” Mr Prines bounced on the balls of his feet. “John Doyce! It was him. So that’s why you’re down here!”

  He was suddenly animated. Arms and legs moved, fingers flexing, knees crooking, as though he couldn’t keep still. His eyes danced.

  “What a fool not to think of it! Of course!” he exclaimed. “Kindilett—Doyce dead—that dance. Pity, pity!” He shook his head, suddenly to change the motion to a nod. “A great pity indeed.”

  “For whom?” Slade inquired mildly.

  Mr Prines looked surprised.

  “Why, for Francis Kindilett! The whole thing will be dished up again, hot and steaming in the dailies, now Scotland Yard are down here clue-hunting. His daughter, and now the man who took her to that dance. What a story!”

  “I suppose you don’t happen to know, yourself, who was Mary Kindilett’s fiancé?” said Slade hopefully.

  “I don’t.” It seemed he put an unnecessary emphasis on the denial. “I don’t know anyone who does. It was a complete mystery.”

  “Have the Kindilett family any relatives left in the town?”

  “I don’t think so. I never heard of any. The mother died a good many years ago, I believe. No, when Kindilett moved I think the last of them went.”

  Mr Prines was quite prepared to go on talking as long as they would listen, but Slade drew the interview to a close with a word of thanks. The photographer bowed them out of his studio. The Yard men called back at the police station, where Slade had a few minutes’ talk with Dunning, and then they hurried to catch a train to London.

  Both were silent. Clinton was frankly puzzled how to fit in the new details with the case as he saw it—which was one against Morring. He did venture a half-hearted suggestion.

  “Suppose Morring were the missing fiancé.”

  But Slade scouted the idea.

  “You’ve built your case against him, Clinton, on how he’s reacted in a similar situation—a girl and Doyce. Wouldn’t he have done the same then? You’re allowing a bad inconsistency.”

  Clinton was compelled to reconsider his theory. Slade’s objection was strong and logical. If Morring had been Mary Kindilett’s fiancé, and the engagement had been broken off, presumably on account of Doyce, then surely he would have reacted just as positively as he had when Doyce had robbed him of Patricia Laruce. By such reasoning, Doyce would have been found dead, not Mary Kindilett.

  Yet without admitting Morring as the fiancé of Mary Kindilett, how explain the cutting found in Doyce’s clothes?

  That had been a personal reminder of this tragedy of four years ago. A reminder presumably with a bearing on what was happening recently. It was a piece of the puzzle which fitted—but where—how?

  If Morring wasn’t the girl’s fiancé, then Clinton’s whole case was weakened. He would have to admit another fiancé, another person with a strong reason to hate Doyce.

  Or would he?

  “Let me see the account of the inquest,” he said.

  Slade passed over the copy of the Ryechester Chronicle. Clinton read through Doyce’s evidence. Yes, he had taken the girl to the dance, but admitted that she had disappeared some time before the end. He had searched for her, but had not been able to find her. He had ’phoned her home, but got no reply. He had not quarrelled with her, he claimed. They were good friends. He did not know the name of her fiancé. He had thought her engagement a joke. He was hurt and surprised when he heard her body had been found.

  That was all. The usual line such a witness might be expected to take, admitting little.

  Clinton gave the paper back to Slade.

  “Thought of something?” asked the latter.

  The sergeant nodded moodily.

  “Plenty, but it doesn’t make sense. I think, from that account, Doyce was playing the same game as every one else. Holding back information.”

  “To protect a dead girl’s name,” Slade mused.

  “Maybe,” Clinton grunted. “Or maybe to protect himself. It doesn’t look so good for him. He took her to the dance, he was catching her on the rebound after breaking off the engagement, probably caused her to break it off. We know he was good at fixing engagements—”

  “Didn’t he say he thought the whole thing a joke?”

  “That was clever of him. Threw a wrench in the works right away. Made his opinion not worth asking, and so let him off lightly.”

  “Clinton,” said Slade, “you’re a cynic.”

  That closed the discussion, each man returning to his private meditation.

  It was dusk when they entered London. They drove from the station to the Yard, and in the office of Department X2 found a memorandum awaiting them.

  Setchley had ’phoned the Yard earlier that afternoon, and had left a message for Inspector Slade. The message was marked “Urgent.” Setchley was reporting that the bottle of aconitine usually kept in the poison cabinet of his laboratory was missing. Neither he nor his assistant, Tompkins, knew when it had disappeared or whence.

  He and his assistant would be at the laboratory until seven o’clock, in case they were wanted.

  XI

  Who Stole the Poison?

  Setchley was on the point of leaving when Slade and Clinton arrived at the laboratory in the Great West Road. Like most research laboratories, this one was housed in an insignificant and rather dilapidated building. It was tucked away between two large factories with imposing concrete façades.

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” said the red-haired chemist.

  “We’ve only just got back from Ryechester,” Slade explained, and watched the other, to see how he took the news.

  He made no attempt to conceal his surprise.

  “Ryechester? But what were you doing down there, Inspector? Getting old Saxon Rovers’ background?”

  “Among other things. I wanted to find out what was said at Mary Kindilett’s inquest.”

  Mention of the girl’s name affected the chemist strangely. He started, opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought better of it. He showed them into a small cubby-hole at the end of a narrow corridor.

  “I don’t know if you can manage to find somewhere to sit—”

  He threw a bundle of science magazines on the floor, leaving a space on the corner of his desk. He cleared a low filing cabinet for Clinton, sat himself on the desk, and motioned Slade to the chair.

  “Is it necessary to dig up the past?” he asked, coming to the point.

  “I’m afraid so. You must understand I have no wish to be unpleasant about this investigation, Setchley. But murder is murder.”

  The chemist frowned gloomily at the magazines he had dislodged.

  “I appreciate that. But you see, Inspector, all of us who knew Kindilett in the old days—well, we have a secret understanding to save his feelings. You understand? Mary was the apple of his eye. She was a nice girl, jolly, gay, a bit independent, but every one liked her.”

  “She was popular?”

  “Immensely. I think the whole team was in love with her. When they found her after that dance it hit us all pretty hard. But Kindilett—it broke his life till he began afresh, building the Trojans. That’s why h
e found so much loyalty among those who knew him in the old days. He’d had a bad break, and some of us felt we should rally round. I don’t want to get sentimental, but we feel some loyalty to him. Sympathy too, if you like.”

  There was just a shade of defiance in Setchley’s manner, as though he expected to be misunderstood. He was a scientist, a man without a great deal of sentiment in his nature, and he was rather shy in making this admission.

  “You, Morring, and Doyce,” said Slade.

  “Not Doyce. He came along afterwards. I don’t think Kindilett was too keen to have him, although he realized his quality as a player. But he offered no objection. It was Morring who objected, very firmly. I was the one who was directly responsible for Doyce being in the Trojans. He was a good player. To me that was what counted. I couldn’t see that his private life was anyone’s concern save his own. It certainly wasn’t mine.”

  “Then you mean you and Morring rallied round Kindilett when he proposed forming the Trojans.”

  “Yes. But don’t forget Raille. Without Raille there would have been no team. He was with Kindilett at the beginning of the Trojan venture.”

  “But Raille wasn’t a member of the Saxon Rovers in Kindilett’s time?”

  “No. But he was in the Saxon Amateurs. They were a sort of off-shoot of the other team, affiliated as a kind of nursery club. That’s where Raille got his grounding in soccer, and imbibed Kindilett’s own principles.”

  “Would Raille have known Mary Kindilett?”

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt. Every man in both teams knew her. But you won’t find Raille any more ready to talk than the rest of us. He’s very loyal to Kindilett, shares his ideals about the Trojans. In fact, he makes the team, as a working unit, possible. He’s with Kindilett when there’s any foreign soccer manager over here, explaining things, boosting the team’s stock. Raille’s a hard worker. He was going the rounds with Kindilett only last week. The manager of some Swedish team, from Stockholm I believe, was interested in the Trojans. They all came along here, saw me. They called on other members of the team. Plenty of hard work keeping that sort of thing going, holding a team together, and then having to make sure it’s up to scratch, fit and ready for a tussle like Saturday.”