Murder by Numbers

by Eric Brown

  He looked at her, then reached out and took her hand. ‘The killer drugged them and slit their throats. They would have been unconscious by then. Wouldn’t have felt a thing.’

  Maria closed her eyes.

  Pamela emerged from the kitchen with a pile of sandwiches and they ate in silence, Langham swilling the food down with gulps of beer. He finished the second bottle and opened a third. So much for a quiet evening, he thought, enjoying a drink and discussing the imminent move to the country.

  They were startled, later, by a hammering at the door, and Langham answered the summons to find a huge, lumbering walrus of a man on the doorstep. He introduced himself as Sergeant Sheppard, and his young partner as Constable Wilson, and told Langham that Detective Inspector Mallory had been informed and had apprised them of the situation.

  Sergeant Sheppard assured him that a bobby would soon be patrolling the alley to the rear of the house, and that he and Wilson would be outside in their patrol car. Langham thanked them, asked if they wanted a tea or coffee – which they declined – and locked and bolted the door behind them as they returned to their car.

  Before returning to the sitting room, he removed the revolver from the pocket of his overcoat hanging in the hall and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  They sat up drinking for another hour, before Pamela said goodnight and went to bed. Soon afterwards, Maria said, ‘I think I will turn in, too, Donald.’

  ‘I’ll be up in a while. I think I’ll ring Ralph.’

  He did so, bringing his friend up to speed with the events of the afternoon and arranging to meet him at the office in the morning.

  Then he sat in the darkness and drank the fourth bottle of beer, his revolver on the chair arm beside him.

  NINETEEN

  Langham was woken at eight by the rattle of the letterbox. Groaning, he turned over and tried to get back to sleep.

  He came awake with a start and was surprised to see that it was almost ten. He dressed quietly, so as not to rouse Maria, splashed his face with cold water in the bathroom, then went downstairs to make himself a cup of strong coffee.

  An envelope lay on the welcome mat, and with an ominous sense of dread he picked it up. It was addressed to Maria.

  He slid a finger under the flap and withdrew the blank sympathy card, identical to all the others, then checked the postmark: it had been franked at Marylebone the previous day at six forty-five.

  Fenton and his accomplice were playing games, and the thought sickened him.

  He slipped the envelope into his jacket pocket, moved to the kitchen and filled the kettle.

  Maria joined him a little later, hugging her dressing gown close to her chest.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  He made some toast and they sat at the table in the sitting room and ate breakfast in silence.

  At last Maria said, ‘This is like a bad dream, Donald. I never thought that Fenton would …’ She trailed off, shaking her head.

  ‘I can understand someone committing murder in the heat of the moment, provoked by anger,’ he said, ‘but for Fenton and the woman to cold-bloodedly plan murders like this suggests …’

  She looked up at him. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I keep coming back to that word. Insanity.’

  But did that mean, he thought, that his accomplice was insane, too?

  Nursing his coffee cup, he moved to the window. The unmarked police car stood directly before the house; Sheppard and Wilson had finished their shift in the early hours and had been replaced by another pair of officers.

  He moved to the hall and from the pocket of his overcoat fetched one of the photographs he’d taken from Miss Wardley’s boarding house, showing the guests assembled outside Winterfield back in the thirties.

  He returned to the sitting room and passed Maria the photograph. She stared distastefully at the image of Maxwell Fenton with a hand on her shoulder. ‘It is odd, but I cannot recall this day. And yet I only visited Winterfield a few times.’

  ‘Do you happen to know who any of these people are?’ he asked. ‘I want to contact as many of Fenton’s old cronies as possible, as well as his old flames.’

  Besides Maxwell Fenton, Maria and Edgar Benedict, there were a dozen other guests pictured – seven men and five women. Maria remembered nine, but the identities of the remaining three escaped her. Langham made a note of the names.

  Pamela, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, yawned her way into the kitchen and made herself a plate of bread and dripping.

  After breakfast Langham went outside and spoke to the plainclothes men, informing them that he was taking the women with him to Earl’s Court, and suggesting they remain in situ and keep an eye out for a young red-headed woman.

  They left the house just after midday and drove to Earl’s Court.

  He sat at his desk and made his meticulous way through the first of a dozen telephone directories stacked in a precarious pile on the floor beside his chair, searching for the names of the men and women Maria had recognized in the photograph that morning.

  Maria sat before the electric fire, reading a manuscript. Pamela was with Ralph in the outer office, going through the London phone books in search of Maxwell Fenton’s old flames mentioned by Holly Beckwith the previous day.

  Langham dialled the phone number of the third name on his list, an individual named Russell Graves, impatiently tapping his pencil against the phone book while he waited.

  He had already drawn a blank with two names. The first was in none of the dozen London directories, and the second had failed to answer his call. Maria recalled that Russell Graves had been an architect, and Langham found Graves’s number under Graves and Kemp, an architectural firm based in Chelsea.

  He stared at the group photograph on the desk. Graves had been a small, sturdy, blond-haired young man, cheerily waving a tennis racket at the camera.

  A secretary answered, and Langham asked to be put through to Russell Graves. A minute later he gave his name and explained his business.

  ‘Maxwell Fenton?’ a deep, fruity voice replied. ‘My word, that name brings back memories.’

  ‘When did you last meet Fenton, Mr Graves?’

  ‘That’d be back before the war. Some shindig at his pile near Chelmsford. Why do you want to know? What’s old Fenton gone and done?’

  ‘I want to speak to Fenton in relation to an investigation,’ Langham replied vaguely. ‘How did you get on with the man?’

  ‘Fenton was a fine fellow, Mr Langham. A generous host and the life of the party. Of course, that was back then. Heard since that the war did for him. On his uppers, he was sent to Treblinka as a war artist. What he saw there sent him round the bloody bend. There was a rumour, after the war, that he’d been clapped up in a loony bin.’

  ‘Do you happen to know if he ever married?’

  ‘Fenton?’ Graves guffawed. ‘Too fond of playing the field to get himself hitched.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if he had a dozen brats, the number of women he had trailing after him.’

  ‘I’m interested in tracing one particular woman by the name of Prudence or Patience.’

  ‘Ah, Prudence. Met her a couple of times down at Winterfield. She was a quiet little thing. I couldn’t see what Fenton saw in the woman, but he was smitten.’

  ‘Can you recall her surname?’

  ‘Her surname?’ Graves tootled a little tune as he thought. ‘Sorry, old chap.’

  ‘And her age when she knew Fenton?’

  ‘I’d say she was in her early twenties. He liked them young, the old goat.’

  ‘Do you happen to recall if she and Fenton had a child?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Graves said, ‘but then she was the kind of girl who’d keep things like that quiet. She was “awfully-awfully”, as I recall.’

  ‘As for Fenton’s friends at the time … Did he have people he was particularly close to?’

  ‘He was one of
those chaps who divided people. Some chaps hated him, and others wouldn’t hear a word said against him. I recall a chap … an actor … Benedict. That’s him: Edgar Benedict. They were as close as kidneys back then, before the bust-up.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Something to do with money Fenton sank into funding the West End production of a play Benedict hoped to star in. Fenton got his fingers badly burned when the whole shebang went belly-up. Word was that Benedict knew it was a shonky deal to begin with and managed to get out with his own funds intact. Fenton never forgave him.’

  Langham made a note of this. ‘Do you know if others beside Fenton were involved? Friends of the artist, perhaps?’

  ‘As I recall, Fenton was the sole backer, other than Benedict, to the tune of a thousand or two, so I’ve heard.’

  Langham questioned Graves for a further five minutes but learned nothing more of substance. He thanked him and rang off.

  Maria looked up from her manuscript with an enquiring glance, and Langham recounted his conversation with the architect.

  The next couple of names on the list added nothing to his knowledge of the artist. The first, a sculptor called Hardwick, barely recalled Maxwell Fenton, had visited Winterfield on only one or two occasions, and finished by saying that he’d assumed the artist was dead. The second, a woman Maria had described as a chorus girl, called Fenton an unmitigated cad and slammed down the phone before Langham could ask her to expand on this.

  The next number he phoned belonged to Constance Merriman, a tall, blonde, strikingly attractive woman standing next to Edgar Benedict in the Winterfield photograph. Maria said she had been a painter with a rising reputation before the war.

  ‘The Merriman residence,’ a deep, cultured contralto answered.

  Langham introduced himself and explained that he was attempting to trace friends and acquaintances of the artist Maxwell Fenton.

  ‘I was certainly no friend of the scoundrel,’ Constance replied, ‘though I suppose I might have fallen into the category of an acquaintance.’

  ‘You didn’t know him well?’

  ‘Perish the thought. He was the friend of a friend. Fenton was an awful man.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In the way he treated women. As if they were servants to be used and discarded. I went down to his place in the country only once, and what I saw there persuaded me never to go back.’

  ‘If you could elucidate,’ Langham coaxed.

  Constance sighed. ‘I was appalled by the degree of the man’s ego. He demanded that he was the centre of attention and was constantly boasting of his exploits and the money he made. He treated people appallingly, especially women. I recall the girl he was chasing at the time …’

  Langham’s mouth felt suddenly parched. He considered the photograph, his glance sliding along the row of guests ranged outside Winterfield and settling on Maria and Maxwell Fenton, his hand on her shoulder …

  ‘Go on.’

  As the woman spoke, he glanced across at Maria. She pored over the manuscript, pencilling a comment in the margin.

  ‘She was a young French girl, dark and sultry and quite gorgeous. Barely eighteen, I recall. Fenton was old enough to be her father.’

  ‘And … how did he treat her?’ he asked, his heart thudding. He glanced again at Maria; she was still absorbed in her work, oblivious.

  ‘Like a possession,’ came the reply. ‘She was head over heels, quite taken that this famous artist should be showing her so much attention.’

  He closed his eyes as he felt himself flushing. ‘Do you think they were having an affair?’

  The hesitation at the end of the line seemed to last for ever. ‘I’m not sure about that, Mr Langham. It wasn’t for lack of trying on Fenton’s part, I can tell you. But the girl – I can’t recall her name – was a bright young thing despite the fact that she was starstruck, and I think this, and her Catholic upbringing, served to make her see sense.’

  ‘Do you know,’ he asked, his voice sounding tremulous even to his own ears, ‘if there was any substance in the rumour that back in the thirties he’d fathered a child?’

  Constance replied, ‘I heard the rumour, too. Some people were certain of it, as I recall.’

  ‘Can you remember,’ he asked, ‘the name of the woman involved?’

  There was a silence as she considered the question. He glanced at Maria. Her head was bowed over her work, and there was nothing at all to suggest that she had been alerted by anything he’d said.

  The woman said, ‘Yes. Yes, I can. Prudence. Pru. A bit of a church mouse, as I recall. A nondescript kind of girl.’

  ‘Prudence,’ Langham said, relieved. ‘You don’t happen to know her full name?’

  ‘Let me think about that … I’m sure it was something like Forest, or Forster – at any rate, it began with an F, I’m certain.’

  ‘That’s extremely helpful,’ Langham said, making a note of the surnames.

  He asked her if she was still in contact with mutual acquaintances who might know anything more about Maxwell Fenton and his relationship with Prudence F., but she apologized and said that she had lost contact with ‘that set’ well before the outbreak of the war.

  He thanked her and replaced the receiver, then mopped his face with a handkerchief.

  Maria looked up and smiled. ‘Success?’

  Smiling, he rounded the desk and kissed her. ‘I think so.’ He told her about Prudence F., then asked if she would like a cup of tea.

  They adjourned to the outer office, where a frustrated Ralph was up to his elbows in telephone directories, scraps of paper covered with his scribblings, and two grease-stained brown paper bags that had once contained eel pies.

  Pamela sat crossed-legged on the floor, a hefty directory in her lap.

  Ralph slammed the phone down as Langham sat on the corner of the desk and Maria put the kettle on. ‘Not a ruddy thing, Don! Not a sausage!’ He waved at his notes. ‘Talked to four of the women Holly Beckwith mentioned, but none of them admitted to having his kid, or knew anything about anyone who might’ve.’

  Langham smiled. ‘I might have something,’ he said, and told Ralph about Constance Merriman and Prudence F. ‘Let’s try Foster, Forster, Forest and every variation thereof. Of course, she might have married since then.’

  ‘I’ll make a start anyway,’ Ralph said, scribbling on a scrap of paper.

  Langham was drinking his tea, a minute later, when the phone shrilled. Ralph snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Ryland and Langham Detective Agency, Ralph Ryland speaking. Jeff? Fine, fine. Just trawling through the phone book trying to trace Fenton’s conquests. Come again?’

  Ralph listened to what Mallory had to say, frowning. ‘Well, one of us could. The other should stay with the girls. I’ll hand you over to Don.’ He passed Langham the receiver.

  ‘Jeff?’ Langham said.

  ‘Ever attended an exhumation?’ Mallory asked.

  ‘An exhumation? But it’s only three days since the death.’

  ‘Yes, I thought it odd. But the coroner was happy with the police report, and Fenton’s solicitors – there being no next of kin that they were aware of – arranged for a burial in unconsecrated council ground without any kind of religious service, so that hurried things along. The body’s in the council site next to the church in Oldhurst. I have an exhumation order and Edgar Benedict’s dental records to hand. I’m driving down now, if you’d care for a lift to save petrol.’

  ‘Hold on a sec, would you? Just need to check something at this end.’

  He lowered the receiver and said to Maria, ‘That was Jeff. They have an exhumation order for Fenton’s supposed corpse. He asked me if I wanted to attend—’

  Maria said, ‘You can go, Donald.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I was going to book us into a hotel for the night. There’s no way we’re going back to Bermondsey.’

  Ralph finished his tea and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘I know a n
ice little guest house in Greenwich – the Laurels. I’ll take the ladies there.’ He patted his jacket, where his revolver sat. ‘And don’t worry, Don – I’ve got this.’

  Langham lifted the receiver. ‘All set, Jeff. And no, I’ve never attended an exhumation.’

  ‘I’ll see you in ten minutes.’

  He replaced the receiver and finished his tea.

  ‘Rather you than me,’ Ralph said. ‘The corpse can’t have been a pretty sight when you saw it three days ago. Gawd only knows what it’s like now.’

  ‘Please!’ Pamela protested.

  Langham retrieved his coat from the peg by the door, kissed Maria on the cheek, and left the office.

  TWENTY

  Jeff Mallory’s racing-green Humber pulled up dead on time and Langham ducked into the passenger seat. An early twilight was descending, and the lights from shop fronts reflected in the rain-slicked tarmac as they drove from London.

  Langham told the detective about the Prudence F. lead, and that Ralph was tearing his hair out over the phone books as they spoke.

  ‘Good work. I’ll have the team look into that. What gets me about Maxwell Fenton,’ Mallory said, ‘is how opinion of him is so divided. Some people think he was God’s gift, while others revile him. Speaking to the legion who knew him, I’m surprised at how many people he fell out with.’

  ‘He was an egotist, Jeff, who didn’t need an excuse to feel animosity towards people he rubbed up against.’

  ‘And I find this odd: that there are only seven people he hates sufficiently to want to kill. Why not more? His enemies number a couple of dozen at least, and they’re only the people I’ve managed to hunt down. There must be many more.’

  ‘And yet he’s selected these seven for his own form of justice,’ Langham said.

  ‘Doctor Bryce, who might have been responsible for the death of Fenton’s lover; Hermione Goudge, who criticized his work; George Goudge, who married the woman he supposedly loved; Holly Beckwith, who destroyed some of his paintings; Crispin Proudfoot, who stole his money; and Maria, who had the temerity to fight back and scarred him for life.’