The car slammed on its brakes and stopped a few yards before it reached Frank.
David Young stepped out of the car. “Hello, Frank,” he said. “Get in.”
Frank felt uncertain about this.
“We’re a block from the theater, I don’t want anyone to see us talking,” Young explained.
Frank nodded and then got into Young’s European compact car. Young looked like a giant crammed into the driver’s seat of the tiny automobile as he drove Frank around the block.
“Mr. Young, what are you doing here?” Frank asked.
“I’ve been here for twenty-one hours now,” Young told him, referring to a pile of empty cardboard coffee cups on the backseat of the car.
“Mr. Jeffries told you to stake out the theater?” Frank asked.
“Mr. Jeffries didn’t much like my conclusion that you boys and Dennis Paul were innocent,” Young told him. “When I said I planned to watch the theater overnight to see who the real culprit might be, he sacked me.”
“Sacked you?” Frank asked.
“Fired me,” Young replied. “So I figured I’d better stake it out for your sake, if you know what I mean.”
“Then you saw us when we chased after Neville Shah,” Frank realized.
“I didn’t know who or what you were chasing,” Young said.
“Where did Jennifer go?” Frank asked.
“Back into the theater,” Young replied. “Then Jeffries came out about six A.M.”
“Came out?” Frank repeated. “Don’t you mean, went in?”
“Never saw him go in,” Young answered. “Only saw him come out. Then again, I might have been dozing when he arrived.”
“What about Jennifer?” Frank asked.
Young shook his head. “I didn’t see her come out at all. You might want to ask Jeffries, since he was here.”
“Thank you, Mr. Young,” Frank said, getting out of the car and turning to shake Young’s hand through the window. “You’ve helped us a lot.”
“Well, I feel a bit of kinship to my American investigative counterparts,” Young said with a smile. “So long for now,” he added before driving off.
Frank hurried across the street and into the theater where he found the cast on a five-minute break. He told them all the good news about Schulander and the light board he was lending to them.
Joe pulled Frank aside and into the lobby. He related his news about Blanco and Jeffries’ conversation and about Jeffries’s veiled threat.
“Jeffries might also have something to do with Jennifer’s disappearance,” Frank said, and told him what he had learned from David Young. “Mr. Young saw Jennifer go into the theater after we left her, but she never came out. He saw Jeffries come out of the theater early this morning, but never saw him go in.”
“Do you think he took her hostage?” Joe wondered.
Frank shrugged. “I don’t see Jeffries taking a hostage up the ladder and over the roof, and he would have tripped the alarm if he went out the fire exit in back.”
“Blanco and Jeffries are meeting again later this afternoon,” Joe told Frank. “Listening in on that meeting might be our best chance to find out what Jeffries is up to.”
Just then a man in a chauffeur’s uniform walked into the theater and into Jeffries’s office. The chauffeur reemerged with Jeffries a moment later.
“Here we go,” Joe said quietly to Frank, stepping over to the front door after Jeffries had left.
Joe caught a glimpse of Blanco in the backseat as the chauffeur opened the rear door for Jeffries. As the limousine pulled away from the curb, Joe and Frank stepped outside and the younger Hardy flagged down a taxi.
“Follow that white limousine,” Frank told the driver as he got into the back of the taxi with Joe.
The limousine stopped briefly in front of a storefront with the name Union Fidelity Title painted on the window. Two men in business suits stepped out the front door of the title company, carrying briefcases, and got into the back of the limo.
Twenty minutes later the limo stopped outside the press entrance to a giant sports stadium, but only Blanco and Jeffries got out.
“West Ham versus Chelsea, eh?” the driver asked Joe.
“What?” Joe asked.
“You’re going to the football match, West Ham versus Chelsea,” the driver clarified.
Joe looked to Frank. “I guess we are.”
“Not through that gate,” Frank said, pointing to a sign over the entrance through which Jeffries and Blanco were passing. “It says Press and Authorized Personnel Only.”
“I guess we’ll have to buy tickets and try to find them inside,” Frank said, paying the driver and getting out.
“Looks like we’ll be lucky if there are any left for sale,” Joe said, walking quickly toward the long line at the ticket window.
The boys were lucky enough to get two of the last tickets.
“We might as well be in Scotland, these spaces are so far away,” Frank said, taking back his ticket stub from the turnstile attendant.
“We’re sure not going to find Blanco and Jeffries if we go to our assigned spaces,” Joe agreed.
“We’d better not split up,” Frank recommended. “We’ll never find each other again.”
Joe nodded and they headed toward the sections closest to the field.
Frank looked up at the sea of humanity, standing and cheering. “This will be like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” he remarked, then turned his gaze toward the field.
The game was in full swing, and a West Ham player had just placed the ball in the corner of the field closest to the Chelsea goal.
“That’s John Moeller taking the corner kick,” Joe said.
Moeller kicked the ball toward the players massed in front of the Chelsea net. One of his teammates headed the ball, which deflected off the goalie’s fingertips and into the Chelsea goal.
The crowd erupted. Someone grabbed Joe and swung him around in celebration while Frank got bumped against the man walking behind him by some other rowdy fans.
“They take this seriously,” Joe said after he had been put down. “Too seriously.”
“Man, that was a perfect kick, though,” Frank commented.
“Not perfect,” a white-haired man in a cap said. “Moeller’s perfect kick came in a World Cup match he played for England three and a half years ago. The corner kick hooked perfectly over the goalkeeper and into the far side of the net.”
Frank looked back at the game as Chelsea started their attack. A sign at the far end of the field caught Frank’s eye. It appeared to be an advertisement for a restaurant called the Corner Kick.
“Looks like they even named a restaurant after Moeller’s play,” Frank said, nodding toward the sign.
“That’s because John Moeller owns it,” the man in the cap told him. “It’s huge, one of the most popular restaurants in London. Packed all the time, it is.”
Pieces of the puzzle began falling into place in Frank’s head.
“If I’m caught, you can forget about the Corner Kick,” Frank said aloud.
“What?” Joe said, still scanning the crowd.
“What Shah said on the phone,” Frank explained. “I have a hunch he was talking to Jeffries. Blanco wasn’t there to talk about renting the theater for a show. I think he was there to talk about buying the theater and turning it into another Corner Kick restaurant!”
“Wow, Frank, that really seems to fit,” Joe agreed. “Jeffries was talking about room for dancing in the restaurant, not on the stage!”
“No wonder Moeller has been in that neighborhood,” Frank added.
“But why would Jeffries take such drastic measures to stop our show? Why wouldn’t he just let Innocent Victim have its run and then sell the theater to Moeller and Blanco?” Joe wondered.
“Good question, Joe,” Frank said. “I don’t have an answer.”
The Hardys spent the next ninety minutes scouring the stadium for Jeffries. Only a minute remained in a tied game.
“Wait, there they are!” Joe shouted, pointing to Blanco and Jeffries, ten rows up near midfield. Jeffries saw Joe and jumped to his feet, exchanging a few quick words with Blanco before heading down the steps toward the field.
The Hardys headed down after him just as a Chelsea player kicked the winning goal as time expired. The rowdy crowd leaped up in an angry eruption, then many began rushing toward the exits.
The boys got stuck between two gangs of rival fans shouting and threatening one another.
“Forget Jeffries for now!” Joe yelled. “We’d better get out of here!”
A young woman fell to the ground in front of Frank as they tried to escape the mayhem. Frank helped her to her feet, but then got pushed from behind and hit the pavement as a throng of fans began to trample him beneath their feet.