Murder by Numbers

by Eric Brown

  Langham wrote the agency’s telephone number on a page of his notebook, tore it out and handed it to the poet.

  Proudfoot read it, then looked up. ‘You don’t know how grateful I am, Mr Langham. I had intended to talk to Hermione, but your wise words have helped me no end.’

  ‘My partner and I are heading there now, as it happens. Trying to talk sense into the stubborn woman.’

  ‘Talk sense?’ the poet repeated, wide-eyed. ‘Do you mean …?’

  Langham sighed. ‘She refuses to believe that she’s in danger and wants to stay put.’

  ‘Hermione can be recalcitrant when she wants to be,’ Proudfoot said. ‘Please try to make her see sense, would you?’

  Langham smiled. ‘I’ll do my very best,’ he said. ‘Now, I’d better pay up and get back to it. My advice to you is to drive straight back to Muswell Hill and lie low, all right?’

  The poet smiled and said he would do just that. Langham paid for the coffees and hurried across the street to the Tivoli Mansions.

  ELEVEN

  Ralph was kicking his heels in the reception area when Langham pushed through the revolving door.

  ‘That sorry specimen,’ Ralph said scathingly, ‘was one of the guests from the other night, right?’

  Langham laughed. ‘Crispin Proudfoot, a poet.’

  ‘A poet, eh? That’d figure. A right drip. You held his hand and dried his tears?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. He had the vapours about being on the hit list. I told him to lie low. Now, you all set?’

  Ralph patted the pocket of his raincoat where the revolver nestled. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Langham crossed to the concierge’s glass cubicle. The old, moustachioed man wore a crumpled grey uniform with chunky epaulettes. ‘Goudge, apartment twelve. If you could inform them that Donald Langham would like a word.’

  The concierge turned to an intercom, flipped a switch and spoke briefly into a microphone. Langham made out the querulous reply, and the concierge said to Langham, ‘If you’d care to take the lift, sir. Third floor.’

  They crossed the foyer, waited for the lift to descend and open, then stepped inside.

  They ascended in silence and stepped out on the third floor.

  Langham led the way along a plush, carpeted corridor until he came to a polished timber door marked with the number twelve. He pointed out the spyhole set into the centre of the door. Ralph knocked, then stepped to one side so as not to be seen through the spyhole.

  Langham pressed himself to the wall, out of sight of whoever should answer the summons. Ralph slipped the revolver from his pocket and held it behind his back.

  Bolts were shot and a lock turned. The door opened and George’s falsetto voice said, ‘Mr Langham? What—?’

  Without waiting to be invited inside, Ralph brandished the handgun and barged into the apartment.

  ‘Oh!’ George cried. ‘Oh, my!’

  ‘Quit the wittering and get into the lounge!’ Ralph snapped.

  Pressed against the wall, Langham smiled as he heard Hermione Goudge call out, ‘George? George, what in heaven’s name …? Oh!’

  He waited twenty seconds, then strolled into the apartment and followed the sound of George’s whimpering down the corridor until he came to a luxuriously appointed sitting room equipped with a grand piano and decorated with an array of undoubtedly expensive works of art.

  George and Hermione Goudge sat side by side on a chaise longue, drip-white and staring at Ralph, who stood over them with his handgun directed at the woman.

  When Hermione caught sight of Langham as he appeared, smiling, and stood next to the gunman, she stared at him pop-eyed and stammered, ‘Langham! What the devil …? What in God’s name is all this about, you vile creature?’

  Langham smiled. ‘Just a little demonstration, Hermione, to point out the fact of your errant stupidity.’

  ‘Why, I’ve never been so insulted!’

  ‘Prepare to be even more insulted,’ Langham said, pulling up the piano stool and straddling it. ‘Ralph, put the shooter away. Hermione and George live to fight another day.’

  Chuckling to himself, and giving the trembling George a theatrical wink, Ralph slipped the revolver under his raincoat and leaned against the wall as if settling himself to enjoy what was about to take place.

  ‘You’re fools,’ Langham said, ‘both of you. Crass and utter fools. Yesterday Detective Inspector Mallory told you of the danger you were in, and what do you do?’ He looked from Hermione to George. ‘You do nothing. You think you know better than the police, who, you might be surprised to learn, have a certain expertise in these matters. But no, the Goudges think they know better.’

  George, at least, had it in him to look shamefaced. Hermione stared defiantly at Langham. ‘Mallory called yesterday with some half-baked story about Bryce’s murder—’ she began.

  ‘Half-baked?’ Langham was incredulous. ‘Bryce was hanged by the neck by an unknown assailant.’

  But Hermione was not to be talked down. ‘That was Mallory’s theory,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t quite fit with what we know, does it, George?’

  She gave her husband a withering look, as if daring him to demur, and he murmured, ‘No, dear.’

  Langham looked from George to Hermione. ‘And what do you know?’

  ‘We happened to offer the doctor a lift on leaving Winterfield,’ she said. ‘It was a foul night, and I wouldn’t have seen a dog out in such weather. And Lower Malton was on our way.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he was sullen and morose for the duration of the journey, though he did say one thing.’

  Against the wall, Ralph glanced up from inspecting his nails. ‘What was that?’

  ‘He said that he felt like going home and drinking himself to death. Those were his exact words. I think George muttered something about it being a terrible business and suggested the doctor have a nightcap and go straight to bed, and Bryce said – and these were his exact words – “I feel more like drinking myself to death, to be perfectly frank.” There! And hours later he was dead, killed by his own hand.’ Hermione stared triumphantly from Langham to Ralph.

  Patiently, Langham pointed out, ‘Hermione, Bryce didn’t drink himself to death. He was hanged. He’d had a drink, granted – but in the opinion of the police surgeon, he would have been too drunk to hang himself. Also, there was evidence that he wasn’t alone when he was drinking. Someone was with him – the same person who assisted him out to the garage and hanged him.’

  Hermione waved this away. ‘Supposition! I heard with my own ears what Bryce said.’

  Langham sighed. ‘You also heard, I take it, Maxwell Fenton’s threats to you all before he killed himself?’

  ‘Threats? More like the ravings of a lunatic, if you want my opinion. And what are you suggesting? That Fenton came back from the dead to murder the doctor, and is now threatening the rest of us?’

  Langham exchanged a pitying glance with Ralph, who rolled his eyes.

  ‘What I’m suggesting, backed up by the police, is that Fenton had an accomplice who is enacting the artist’s final wishes.’

  Hermione goggled at him. ‘Preposterous! I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life! I think you’ve been watching too many trashy movies, my man.’

  ‘But you don’t deny that all those gathered at Winterfield the other night had, as far as Fenton was concerned, wronged him in some way?’

  ‘That’s what the man assumed, yes, but he was clearly delusional.’

  Langham thought about it. ‘Do you have any idea what Bryce might have done to incur Fenton’s wrath?’

  George Goudge lifted a hand like a pupil requesting the teacher’s permission to speak. ‘Ah …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I heard a rumour – this was back in the war – that Doctor Bryce had treated one of Maxwell’s lovers, and word was that it went horribly wrong and she died, and Bryce was responsible.’ He shook his head. ‘But I don’t know th
e details, or even if it’s true.’

  It sounded unlikely to Langham: why, if this were so, would Fenton have kept Bryce on as his personal physician?

  He climbed to his feet and strode to the window which, with art deco flamboyance, curved around the corner of the building. He stood with his back to the room and stared out. Buses grumbled along the street, their diesel fumes adding to the grey fug of the winter’s day. Pedestrians hurried back and forth, totally oblivious to everything but their own private concerns. He wondered what Maria might be doing now.

  He turned and stared at the toad-like pair seated side by side on the chaise longue. He decided to change tack.

  He leaned against the wall and said, ‘I want to know a little more about Maxwell Fenton.’

  ‘Why on earth—?’ Hermione began.

  ‘I’m trying to understand the man,’ Langham said. ‘The better I understand him, the greater the chance I have of working out why he planned what he did – and whom he might have hired to carry through those plans.’

  Hermione began to protest, but Ralph snapped, ‘Shut up and listen, for Christ’s sake!’

  Hermione pursed her lips and avoided Ralph’s disdainful gaze.

  ‘When did you first meet Maxwell Fenton, Hermione?’

  ‘Why, that would be at some point in the late twenties.’

  ‘“Some point”? That’s not good enough. I want to know exactly.’

  Hermione pulled a sour face and thought about it. ‘Very well … It would be ’twenty-nine.’

  ‘George?’ Langham asked.

  The little man tapped his lips, staring at the chandelier. ‘We met at art college after the war, in 1919. Fenton was tutoring there.’

  ‘Were you close to him then?’ he asked George.

  ‘We became friends later, in the twenties. We agreed on certain things. We were both politically conservative, and shared a disdain for modernism in the arts then sweeping Europe. After college, I decided I couldn’t cut it as an artist and began art dealing in a small way. I sold some of Fenton’s early pieces.’

  Langham interrupted. ‘And was Fenton as egotistical then as he was in his later years?’

  George hesitated. ‘Maxwell was always self-assured. And opinionated. He was quick to take issue with people and was easily offended.’

  ‘Was he paranoid?’

  ‘Some people opined that he was, yes. As for myself …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t think he was paranoid at the time, but became so later, in the late thirties.’

  ‘When his work fell out of favour?’

  ‘Around then, yes.’

  Langham moved from the window and sat on the piano stool. ‘Fenton mentioned, the other night, something about your betrayal. What happened, George?’

  The little man went red and stared down at his sausage-like fingers.

  ‘I asked you a question!’ Langham snapped.

  George jumped as if shot and shifted uncomfortably.

  Hermione spoke up. ‘Don’t say a thing if you don’t want to, George. He has absolutely no authority to ask such impertinent questions.’ She stared at Langham. ‘What business is it of yours, young man?’

  Langham sighed, then said reasonably, ‘I’m trying to investigate a murder, Hermione. I’m also, though you might find this hard to believe, trying to help you – to save your skins, even. It might be useful if I knew why Maxwell Fenton held such a grudge against your husband.’

  She continued to stare at him, and Langham was reminded more than ever of a truculent Pekinese. She said, ‘I assure you that it has not the remotest bearing on this case, Mr Langham.’

  ‘If that’s how you want to play it,’ he murmured to himself.

  He stood up again and moved around the room, examining the paintings adorning the walls. He recognized a few names: Nicholson, Spencer, Freud – contemporary painters whose work was much sought-after.

  He came to a portrait of a woman he recognized. It was Hermione herself, perhaps in her early twenties, and Langham was surprised to find himself thinking that, back then, she had been almost attractive in a compact, dark, mysteriously brooding way.

  He was even more surprised when he made out the artist’s signature: Max Fenton,’29.

  The woman smiled out of the painting, her mouth wide, almost laughing, and there was an unmistakably mischievous light in her eyes. He thought he’d seen the same dancing light portrayed in another canvas he’d seen recently …

  He turned and leaned against the wall, between Hermione’s portrait and a Nicholson still life.

  Going on a hunch, he asked, ‘How long after you met Fenton, in ’twenty-nine, did you fall in love with him?’

  The reaction of those in the room was interesting: George closed his eyes in a gesture almost of despair or resignation; Hermione opened her mouth as if to deny the question but was silent – which Langham found interesting in itself. Across the room, Ralph stared at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘Well?’ Langham prompted.

  ‘I …’ Hermione stared down at the array of diamond rings that encrusted her fingers.

  It was gratifying, Langham thought, to see the woman speechless for once.

  ‘It was a brief fling, nothing more,’ she murmured at last. ‘I was young and foolish. I knew as little then about men as I did about art – my knowledge of both came much later.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she snapped.

  ‘You left him, am I right?’

  She hesitated, then said, ‘After we had been together for perhaps three months, I became aware of his unfaithfulness.’

  ‘He was seeing other women?’

  ‘Several other women, Langham. He was an incorrigible philanderer with not a moral bone in his body. I confronted him, then broke off our affair. Not long after that, I met George.’ She reached out and, in a show of affection Langham found oddly touching, took her husband’s hand and squeezed it.

  ‘How did Fenton take it?’ he asked. ‘Both your breaking off the affair and your subsequent engagement to George?’

  ‘Like all philanderers, who think nothing of being unfaithful to their partners, he didn’t like the taste of his own medicine. He was cut to the quick when I said I had no desire to see him ever again. He begged me to reconsider, but I told him, in no uncertain terms, to go to hell.’

  ‘And he resented you ever since – as much for what he saw as your betrayal as for your later condemnation of his art?’

  She held his gaze. ‘Perhaps that is so, Langham, but I can assure you that my criticism of his work had nothing to do with our affair. He was a poor painter, period, and it was my duty to declare him such.’

  ‘And yet,’ he said, turning to her portrait, ‘you display his painting of you?’

  She glanced down at her fingers. ‘It is one of his few competent pieces,’ she said hurriedly, ‘and anyway it’s worth a fair amount. And I must admit that it reminds me of my … my youth.’

  Langham looked across at George Goudge. ‘So back in the thirties, you meet Hermione, fall in love, and marry. And your friendship with Maxwell Fenton, I surmise, hits the rocks.’

  George shrugged. ‘We’d been drifting steadily apart anyway,’ he muttered.

  ‘And your taking up with his old flame,’ Langham went on, ‘was the final straw for Maxwell. He accused you of betrayal, and had resented you for it ever since.’

  George burst out, ‘Maybe so – who can see into the mind of a madman?’

  Langham smiled and gestured as if to concede the point: Who indeed?

  ‘I’ve heard that Fenton was married,’ he said.

  Hermione said, ‘I heard rumours that he’d tied the knot, yes. In the early thirties, I think it was.’

  ‘To? Do you happen to know her name?’

  Hermione frowned. ‘I think she was called Prudence, or was it Patience? As for her surname … No, it’s gone – if I ever knew it at all.’

  ‘And was it with t
his woman that he had a child?’

  ‘I’ve no idea with whom it might have been,’ she said, ‘though I did hear he’d become a father.’

  ‘Do you know if the child was a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I really can’t recall – but I did hear on the grapevine that the poor thing died in infancy.’

  Langham drew a long breath. ‘And a few years later, as a war artist in Europe, he witnessed things that finally became too much, and unhinged him.’

  ‘So the story goes,’ Hermione said.

  ‘You don’t believe it?’

  She sighed. ‘I really haven’t the faintest idea how to untangle what might be the facts of the case from the self-propaganda with which Fenton liked to glamorize himself. He was ever the egotist, and had a penchant for playing the role of the tragic artist.’

  ‘And it all ended at Winterfield, with a bullet in the head,’ Langham said. ‘And yet … and yet his resentment lives on.’

  He rose to his feet abruptly, startling the pair. ‘I’ve done my best to warn both of you of the danger you face. If you’re stubborn enough to ignore Fenton’s threats, then so be it.’

  He nodded to Ralph and was about to suggest that they leave when he heard a rattle from the hallway, followed by the slap of letters landing on the parquet.

  Ralph pushed himself from the wall and disappeared into the hall. He returned, smiling to himself and clutching an envelope.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, ‘what do we have here?’ He looked across at Langham and raised the envelope. ‘Shall I?’

  Langham smiled. ‘Go ahead.’

  Ralph passed Hermione Goudge the envelope, and Langham said, ‘On the day he died, Doctor Bryce received an anonymous card – identical, I suspect, to the one you’re now opening.’

  Hermione looked from him to the envelope, then opened it. She pulled out a card, grimaced and passed it to George.

  Langham saw that it was indeed identical in every respect to Bryce’s, decorated with a single white lily and bearing the legend ‘With sincere sympathy’. It was, unsurprisingly, unsigned.

  Langham nodded to Ralph and they made their way from the room.

  Before he reached the hallway, Langham paused and turned to the stupefied couple, still staring down at the card. ‘Take my advice and leave London as soon as possible, OK?’