The Arsenal Stadium Mystery

by Leonard Gribble

  Setchley spoke with warmth. It was plain that he was a soccer enthusiast, and it was not difficult to see that a man of his type would try hard to win a place in the team for a good player such as Doyce. Setchley was single-minded, like most scientists. He concerned himself with facts more than theories. He was materialist rather than dreamer and idealist.

  “That certainly enables me to get a better idea of your team as a working unit, to use your own phrase,” Slade told him.

  He nodded.

  “Now, to get to the real reason for your visit, Inspector,” he said, his manner becoming matter-of-fact. “The aconitine we had here in the lab. is missing. I don’t know when it went. Tompkins doesn’t know. We’ve tried to think when either of us saw it last—consciously, to remember it, I mean. Six weeks is the nearest we can say with surety. I know that’s hopeless for your investigation, but then I don’t want to think that was the stuff that—”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of distaste.

  “May I see the poison cabinet?” Slade asked.

  “Certainly. Come right through. Tompkins is in the lab. now, working on something.”

  He led them into an apartment gleaming with glass and metal. On a zinc-covered bench a bunsen hissed, and a spectacled young man was holding a test-tube of coloured liquid in the flame. He didn’t look round when the three men entered. Only when Setchley addressed him did he turn his head.

  “These are officers from Scotland Yard, Tompkins. They’re here to find out what happened to that aconitine.”

  The young man blinked through the thick lenses of his glasses, and smiled a toothy smile.

  “They’re out of luck,” he stated flatly. “I don’t know. It’s not in the cabinet over there, and it’s not anywhere else in the lab. Their guess is as good as mine.”

  Setchley showed the Yard men the poison cabinet. It was fixed to the wall over a small desk. He opened it. Rows of bottles and jars with neat labels stood on narrow shelves.

  “That’s where the aconitine was.”

  He pointed to a gap on a shelf.

  “How long ago was it you were on that experiment with the stuff?” asked Slade.

  “Oh, all of six months. But Tompkins remembers it was here six weeks ago.”

  The assistant put down the test-tube in a rack, turned low the bunsen’s flame, and wandered over towards the group in front of the cabinet.

  “That’s right,” he affirmed. “I checked all the stuff six weeks ago. It was there then.”

  “And you’ve no idea when it was taken?”

  “If it was taken—no,” said Tompkins.

  “How do you mean,” said Slade sharply, “if it was taken?”

  “Well, a cleaner might have had an accident and kept quiet about it.”

  “Not likely the accident would be just to that bottle,” said Slade. “Others on the shelf would have been broken too.”

  Tompkins nodded. “I guess so,” he agreed. He frankly had little interest in the Yard men’s investigation. Clinton glared at him as though his attitude were an affront.

  “Didn’t break it yourself, by any chance?” snapped the sergeant.

  Tompkins turned on his supercilious smile.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” he said, and sauntered back to the bunsen.

  Slade grinned. It was seldom Clinton got no change out of people he questioned. He turned to Setchley, grave again.

  “It was last Monday when Morring called about the insurance, wasn’t it?”

  Setchley’s eyes narrowed.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he come in here?”

  The chemist hesitated, reluctant to give a reply.

  “As a matter of fact, he did. It was against this desk that I tripped and bruised my chest.”

  “Was he alone in here at any time?”

  “Look here, Inspector, I protest against—”

  “Against what?”

  Setchley shrugged helplessly. “Oh, what’s the good?” he said resignedly. “But you’re barking up the wrong tree. He was alone in here for a minute or two, but I tell you—”

  He shrugged again. A look at Clinton had discovered vast satisfaction on the sergeant’s square face.

  “And Kindilett, when he came with Raille and the Swedish manager. He in here too?”

  “Yes. But not alone. I was talking to the Swede most of the time.”

  “And your attention wouldn’t have been on the cabinet?”

  “No, naturally not.”

  “Your assistant?”

  “You’d better ask him,” Setchley suggested.

  But Tompkins, when he dragged his attention away from the test-tube he was heating, had noticed nothing. Slade did not find it difficult to believe him.

  They went back to Setchley’s cubby-hole of an office.

  “What do you make of it?” the chemist asked. “You’ve certainly got some prime suspects now—me, Morring, Kindilett, Raille. Better include the whole team, and take your pick.”

  His laugh was edged.

  Slade surprised him by switching to a completely different subject.

  “Who was Mary Kindilett’s fiancé?”

  Setchley looked at the speaker suspiciously.

  “I don’t know. Did you expect me to?”

  “I thought you might know, that’s all.”

  “Any special reason?” He seemed determined to press the point.

  “None, except no one else seems to know the man’s identity. I thought you might possibly be an exception.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m not. Don’t think I’m touchy, but there’s a bit of mystery about that subject. I don’t think even her father knows to whom she was engaged.”

  “You said she was independent. That certainly sounds like it,” the sergeant agreed.

  “Morring and Raille?” queried Slade.

  “You can ask them. I don’t think they know. Don’t see why they should if the rest of us didn’t learn it at the time of the inquest.”

  “Doyce? Would he have known?”

  Setchley drew himself together.

  “Look here,” he said, “I can’t honestly help you with these questions. If I could I would. I don’t know who knows. I don’t, and that’s all I care about.”

  They left shortly after that. Clinton was openly sarcastic.

  “That’s what is called aiding the police,” he grunted. “We could have got more help out of a sick headache. As for that assistant, Tompkins, with his buck teeth and goggle eyes. I’d like to—”

  He breathed hard.

  “But it’s another chalk against Morring,” he added.

  “That should please you,” said Slade, starting the car.

  They had a meal in a small restaurant off the Haymarket, and went back to the Yard. Purposely they kept off the subject of their investigation, even when Slade bought an evening paper and the headline “Yard Men in Provinces: New Turn to Arsenal Mystery” shrieked at them from the front page. For nearly an hour Slade was with the Assistant-Commissioner. The A.C. was inclined superficially to find fault and pick holes.

  “We’ve got to avoid chasing our tails in this case, Slade,” he said. “There mustn’t be any running round in circles.”

  Slade knew the A.C. well. This seeming querulousness hid a nervous tension that had to be relieved. The man lived with a dozen cases each day. He was entitled to his grumble.

  “I’ve looked at your reports. Seems plain to me, we’ve got a case against Philip Morring. What do you think?”

  Here was the difficulty Slade had foreseen in having to report at this stage in the case.

  “I think we ought to take a little longer,” he said bluntly. “The case against Morring is circumstantial—strong, but still circumstantial. I’d like to find the weapon before we
make a decided step.”

  The A.C. frowned.

  “You realize of course that by this time the murderer has probably thrown whatever poisoned object pricked Doyce into the Thames.”

  “That’s a possibility. But somehow I don’t think so,” said Slade slowly.

  “Reason?”

  “I don’t think the murderer would have risked concealing the sharp object on his person, for one thing. Suppose they had all been searched. He wasn’t to know. It would have been conclusive proof. On the other hand, with it concealed in a pocket, suppose some one jogged against him, or he stumbled, in the dressing-room, while changing, or on the field of play—that would be suicide, no less.”

  The A.C. nodded.

  “There’s something in that,” he agreed. “But what is your own idea, Slade?”

  He knew Slade’s methods and the way the detective’s mind worked. Numerous cases in the past, now successfully closed in Scotland Yard’s records, attested to the efficiency of the chief of Department X2. Occasionally Slade’s methods had not been those of the copybook. Sometimes he had run an apparent risk, but invariably he had been able to justify what he had done, and, more important, produce a result that would stand up in court.

  As the A.C. knew full well, the Yard’s field workers had not only to complete a case, but they had to complete a case in such a way that it remained legally sound. A case, however brilliant the deduction and detective work involved, was of no practical use if its method of solution allowed a defence counsel to get up and shoot it full of legal holes.

  In the past Slade’s cases had been presented in court with such finality of evidence that there had been no doubts in the open minds of the jury. The A.C., out of past experience of his man and his achievements, was content to let Slade work things out in his own way. As a police official, he was satisfied that Slade would produce a sound and airtight case when he had marshalled his facts; as a student of psychology, he was interested in the human values on which Slade concentrated.

  He considered the detective’s reply very closely.

  “I believe,” said Slade, “that the weapon—to continue to use that term—is still at the Arsenal Stadium. The murderer, I am positive, retrieved it and concealed it somewhere, waiting an opportunity to get it away unperceived—”

  “Surely he would have done that to-day,” the A.C. objected.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then you think you know where it is?”

  “I do.”

  The A.C. had followed the reports closely. “You’ve only one room sealed—the treatment room,” he reflected. “So you think it’s there?”

  “Yes. It would have been too risky hiding it in either of the dressing-rooms. There were too many men about. It was asking for failure.” He paused, added thoughtfully, “But I shall cover the visitors’ dressing-room again—in case.”

  “But he could have taken it out on the ground and pressed it into the turf. It couldn’t have been a big object. It had to fit that envelope.”

  “Even that was risky,” Slade pointed out. “There were seventy thousand people watching the game. Any attempt to get rid of the object in that fashion would have been noticed. I admit the player—if the murderer is a player—could have stooped to tie his boot, and surreptitiously pushed the object, obviously sharp, into the ground. But would he risk even that? The game is speedy. In a matter of seconds the ball might swing his way, and he might find himself in the centre of some strenuous play with the object in his hand. A prick, and—”

  Slade left the rest unspoken. The A.C. frowned.

  “You think you’ve got the murderer summed up pretty well, eh?”

  “I think I know the way his mind would tick—after the crime. If the object were hidden in the turf it would have to be during the second half. And Doyce had not fallen when the players trooped on to the field. Suppose, by some outside chance, he hadn’t pricked himself? Could the murderer risk losing the object altogether without knowing?”

  The A.C. acknowledged this point with a short nod.

  “That’s reducing the murderer’s perspective very narrowly,” he said. “Risky from our point of view. And he apparently had a fair supply of the poison.”

  “I don’t think he would have gone through all this dramatic preparation a second time,” Slade said. “The whole affair has an element of climax about it. I am sure that whatever the murderer’s object was, it meant something to Doyce. It was something that would hold a strange personal significance for him.”

  “How do you make that out?”

  “The Press cutting suggests as much.”

  The A.C. considered this.

  “Isn’t that rather clouding the issue?” he asked.

  “Frankly, I don’t think so. Rather the reverse. That cutting has a definite value in the case. Its value is related to some other value—I am presuming the value of the weapon employed—”

  “I don’t follow you there, Slade.”

  The detective smiled. “I was hoping to keep this back until I had progressed a little farther,” he admitted, “but I can see I had better show my hand.”

  The A.C. looked interested. “You’ve got something, then?”

  “I’ve got this much,” said Slade. “Mary Kindilett was engaged in rather mysterious circumstances. Her father, I am informed, didn’t know the name of her fiancé. The engagement was broken off. Doyce took her to a dance, and she did not return home. She was found drowned. At the inquest the fiancé did not come forward. Doyce is murdered four years later and a cutting referring to the tragedy sent him with an object that killed him. That object is related to the cutting in some way. At least, I am assuming as much.”

  “Yes, I follow all that,” said the A.C. slowly. “And your assumption is reasonable. I see that now. But you haven’t told me anything new.”

  “My point is this,” Slade resumed. “I believe the object that killed Doyce was no less than Mary Kindilett’s engagement ring.”

  The A.C. started.

  “Good God, man, but—why?”

  “It’s the only ‘weapon’ that fits in with the dramatic background of the crime—Doyce’s first match in Kindilett’s team, the Press cutting, his death on the field of play, and one other important thing.”

  “Well?”

  Little creases showed at the corners of the A.C.’s eyes. He was following Slade’s argument with closest attention, and he saw that there was a good deal to what the detective claimed. At first it sounded fantastic, unsubstantiated, something with little more foundation than a hunch, but now he could see where Slade’s emphasis on human values was evolving a reasoned explanation.

  “How was the murderer to be certain that Doyce would not show the object to his team-mates? He couldn’t be sure unless the object was something—considered in conjunction with the cutting—about which Doyce would wish to remain silent. Anyway, until he had tried to work out the reason for the package, the ring, and the cutting.”

  “Yes, that’s a strong point,” the A.C. conceded. “Doyce would have put such a ring in his pocket. It wasn’t found there.”

  “Because the murderer had taken it. That again points to the treatment room. Doyce’s clothes were hung up there.”

  “The room was locked, remember.”

  “Afterwards. There was an interval. There must have been. Allison did not ’phone immediately. Then there was another interval during which the clothes were removed from the dressing-room to the treatment room. Anyone could have had an opportunity to take the ring from a pocket—except the Arsenal players themselves. They were in their own dressing-room all the time after the match. As you know, the evidence of Punch McEwan and the commissionaire shows that no one got to the dressing-rooms between half-time and the end of the game, unless he left the field of play and entered by the players’ corridor. But Doyce himself
was the only one who left the field.”

  The A.C. stroked his jaw.

  “It’s a devil of a problem, put like that, Slade,” he confessed. “But”—his tone sharpened—“you said just now ‘if the murderer is a player.’ What did you mean exactly?”

  Slade considered his next words carefully.

  “There’s a strong presumptive case against Kindilett himself,” he said slowly, “in view of what we turned up at Ryechester.”

  The A.C. considered this for some moments.

  “Yes—I see.” He took a turn across the office. “And you propose?”

  “Seeing Kindilett to-night. Putting the cutting, newspaper report of the inquest, and photo in front of him, and getting his reaction. If he isn’t our man, he may be suspecting something. He may be holding something back.”

  “Why should he?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if he mistrusted Doyce. That fatal dance must have rankled with him. It looks as though Doyce may have been instrumental in breaking up the mysterious engagement and disturbing the girl’s mind. She went with him to the dance. That suggests the pendulum swinging over in—well, mental reaction.”

  “And Morring?” snapped the A.C., getting back to the original case he had considered.

  “He remains where he was.”

  “And supposing he was Mary Kindilett’s fiancé?”

  “Then we’ll have to arrest him,” Slade concluded, not attacking this supposition as he had when Clinton raised it.

  The A.C. sighed and sat down. He spent a short while looking at his fingers.

  “All right,” he said at last, “carry on along those lines, Slade, but be careful—though I don’t need to give you that caution. Don’t give too much away.”

  “I shan’t do that,” Slade assured him. “I was tempted at first to show the cutting to Allison, in case it meant anything to him. But he’s Kindilett’s friend. It would have been placing him in an unnecessarily awkward position.”

  “Good. Keep your lines clear, whatever you do. And now is there anything else?”