Too Many Murderers

by Guy Compton, D.G. Compton

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Private Investigators; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Classic crime from the 1960s from a master of suspense

The first novel in the acclaimed Ben Anderson series.

'Compton has been one of Britain's most original and consistent novelists since the late Sixties, but he has never received the attention he deserves...Compton's prose is fine-tuned, his human insights sharp, and his narrative pace filled with the weird synchronicities and dissonances of how violent things usually happen' INDEPENDENT

Release date: January 18, 2024

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 208

Sample

THE day of the first murder had been thoroughly oppressive. St. Kinnow was a small town, its attic staircase of a main street branching right and left on the Town Quay to become East Street on the left, West Street on the right. The veiled sun had stood heavily over the town from early morning, drawing up every damp coolness from its houses and tiny gardens. By evening, when the mist came in from the sea, its dogs had dusty tongues and its people were sore-eyed and irritable.

Even so it had taken more than just the weather to drive Barny Weare to the edge of murder.

Barnaby Weare was the manager of the Harbour Lights Hotel up Fore Street about a hundred yards on the left. He had always been a plump little man, and eleven years of hotel management had encouraged him to sag both physically and mentally. He was saved from complete stagnation by his love of the sea and small boats—a love he shared with almost everybody in St. Kinnow. Apart from this, the only thing that could be said for him was that he was good at his job.

Society in St. Kinnow existed on three levels; locals, foreigners, and tourists. It worked well enough, and nobody’s efforts had ever succeeded in breaking down the mutual distrust between the three groups. Not even a common interest in sailing could unify them. The St. Kinnow Social and Sailing Club excluded locals by common consent, although a few very superior tourists did succeed in wriggling in as Associate Members. It had its headquarters in a slightly derelict two-storey boathouse down an alley off East Street.

Being himself a foreigner, Barny Weare was naturally a member of the club, and it was his habit to walk down to it after he finished work on Saturday nights. During the season Saturday was a late night for him, with the new batch of guests to be booked and the accounts for the previous week to be checked. There were usually people in the club on Saturday nights even if there was no dance taking place, and Barny welcomed a bit of in-groupishness—especially after a long day of tiresome tourists.

Once Barny arrived at the decision to murder Timothy Garnett he realized that this habit of his might be put to good use. He had spent a great deal of this particular Saturday thinking about Tim. He had always known that sooner or later he would have to be dealt with, and viewed down the perspective of time the prospect of murder had not seemed wholly distasteful. Now that the urgent necessity was upon him it did not look so good.

But blackmail can be pushed so far and no farther. Barny had paid as much as he could. He had wearily decided now on murder as the only way out.

If it had just been his job Tim was threatening, or the possibility of going to prison even, Barny might well have told him to go to hell. But Barny was in love, and a threat to his romance could not be tolerated.

It is doubtful if he was so much in love with Sarah Blaydes as with her capital—but the fact remains that he was in love. Sarah was prominent and respected. She was Hon. Sec. of the club, and she ran a very prosperous photographic business in East Street. After they were married Barny had decided that she would sell her business and they would open a hotel of their own in St. Kinnow. It would be the best hotel the town had ever known. Although he had not let her in on any of his plans, he felt there was a fair chance that she would fall in with them when the time came. But that time would never come—could never come—while Tim Garnett was around.

Tim was expected in that evening, back from one of his summer cruises in his tiny cutter to Spain or even further. After these jaunts he was always short of money, and then the first person he would think of was little, fat, ineffectual Barny Weare.

When the mist first began to creep into the harbour Barny was sitting at his desk in his office, trying to attend to the business of running a hotel, and at the same time wondering how he could safely manage the shooting of Tim Garnett. He stared out of his window at the mist, watching it morosely and cursing it. If it delayed Garnett it would upset all his plans.

Saturday was the busiest day of his week. How was he to deal with the stream of happy holiday faces he could hear arriving at the reception desk? How was he to go out to them, welcome them, tell them what time dinner was, trust they would have a comfortable stay? He who was being blackmailed relentlessly into murder?

His fat hands were hot and sticky and he pressed them on the clean blotting paper in front of him. He left the blotting paper slightly dirtier and his hands as sticky as ever. He stared out of the window at the harbour rapidly vanishing among the furling galleons of mist.

At nine o’clock the foghorn started and there was still no sign of Garnett. Barny gave up hope. Then suddenly he was saved.

Talking with the night porter out by the reception desk he learned that Garnett’s cutter Greylag had just groped into port. The porter’s son was Mr. Tomlin of the Customs, who of course had a special interest in boats in from foreign parts. Also he learned that Mr. Garnett wouldn’t be coming ashore till the morning, for he was tired out.

And there it was—murder was suddenly easy.

He would kill Tim with the club gun, and the sound of the foghorn would drown the sound of the report.

Murder was suddenly easy.

Shortly after ten Barny Weare was out on the harbour in his dinghy. He was drifting silently across on the tide. He had made up his mind and he wasn’t going back on it. The mist lay heavy on the water; the foghorn blared. He counted the seconds between each blast, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, up to fifteen. The mist stilled the echoes, the sound ceasing as abruptly as it began. Into the grey cave of silence it returned to wait. And Barny waited, waited for a sight of the cutter.

He was hardly a hundred yards from the club landing, yet already it was hidden in the mist. A faint yellow glow came from the club windows, but even that was quickly fading. He felt very alone—a loneliness peculiar to murderers—and he gripped the gun more tightly in his gloved right hand.

He had taken the gun from the top drawer of the desk in the Hon. Sec’s office at the club. Sarah used it, loaded with blanks, of course, for starting races. She also foolishly kept live rounds in the drawer, priding herself on being a passably good shot. Barny had grimly loaded the gun with these rounds, his mind made up.

A white pulling boat showed on the starboard, the sea streaming past it, slapping its clinker planks softly. A small half-decked racing yacht appeared, and then another. He was coming into Hooper’s moorings—he must find out just where he was.

He laid hold of a yacht’s bow mooring rope and peered round him, trying to picture the harbour as he had seen it before the mist had crept in. One by one he identified the vague shapes that lay around him. A slight breeze was coming off the sea and the mist shifted and billowed. It would be clear again in an hour or so. … There was time enough, if he did not waste it. The mist had given him his opportunity and he was grateful.

On the far side of the moorings lay Greylag just in from France. And Tim Garnett was aboard her, cooking his supper, perhaps making up his bunk for the night.

Barny let the rope go and slid alongside the little Cadet. With a push he directed his dinghy further upstream, and then allowed the tide to take her again. The mooring was thick with small craft and he moved to the bow to be ready to fend off as he slipped crabwise along the current. He was carried through the yachts and dinghies, pulling boats and cruisers, directing his course with a slight push or a tug on a rope as he passed it till the boats thinned and he knew he was on the edge of the mooring. Visibility here was barely four yards.

Suddenly a boat larger than the rest loomed out of the whiteness. He caught sight of the name Greylag, a lighted porthole whisked by, and a smell of bacon came to him on the damp air. He was gone in a moment, the current bearing him on up river.

He grabbed at the next boat as it passed and hung on, the two of them swinging on the tide. The wooden creak as the two boats came together seemed enormous, and Barny held his breath. But no sign of interest came from the bigger boat and the foghorn beat out again across the calm water. Barny relaxed. The breeze carried the smell of bacon strongly to him.

He tied up to the heavy old pulling boat he was alongside and climbed into it. He stood up, his legs braced against one of the thwarts. Although Greylag was hardly ten feet away he could make out no more than her blurred outline. Again the foghorn sounded. When it was done he took a deep breath and called.

His voice was husky, his throat thick and half-paralyzed. He cleared it and called again.

He checked the gun as he waited and he breathed deeply to calm the shaking in his legs. He called yet again, the foghorn coming close on his words. This time he had been heard, and the hatch slid back with a clatter. Barny watched the man climb out into the cockpit, a paraffin pressure lamp in his hand, his white shirt a clear target against the night. He watched the man peer into the mist, holding the lamp low to keep the light out of his eyes. Even so the harsh white light beat back at him. He shaded his eyes.

Again the foghorn sounded. As it ceased Barny started counting. One, two, three, four, five, six … For the last time he called, this time more softly. The other man stared blindly in his direction.

Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen … In the moment that the foghorn again blared across the water Barney steadied himself in the big old pulling boat and fired twice.

The cockpit of Greylag was suddenly dark again, the lamp pitching quietly into the grey water. Dimly Barny made out the other’s body, his white shirt over the stern of the boat, one hand trailing in the hurrying water. He peered at his watch, and tousled his damp hair to dispel the fear pricking at his scalp.

The journey out that had seemed to take such an age had in fact taken less than six minutes. It was hardly ten past ten. Returning against the tide was going to be much slower, but even so there was plenty of time. He climbed back into his own dinghy and cast off.

With an oar in the stern slot of the dinghy he sculled silently and expertly. He was punching the tide and his progress was slow. Mechanically he counted the seconds between the blasts on the foghorn. Everything was all right so far—perhaps his luck was going to hold. He usually was lucky in the big things.

It was nearly a quarter of an hour before the dark bulk of the houses showed through the mist again. The glow from a familiar pair of print curtains told him he was by the Northcott’s house, some distance upstream of the club. He turned sharply to port and sculled down parallel with the wet-footed houses bordering the harbour. Nobody stirred. Nobody in their senses went on the water on a night like this. He reckoned he must be near the club again and he paused to listen.

That moment’s caution probably saved his life.

He heard footsteps on the safe, dark landing above him. Then the light over the club forecourt was switched on, casting a circle of light on the water round him. Not daring to make a sound he let his boat drift slowly back into the darkness. He prayed he might not have been seen.

He drifted into a cluster of small boats, striking one hard amidships so that a bilge can was dislodged and rolled noisily in the bottom of the boat. He lay still, as low as possible, just one hand reaching over the gunwale, clinging to the boat he had struck. He lay still and sweated. He waited for some sign that he had been noticed. None came. He heard the boats moored by the club jostling as they were stepped in one by one. He heard the sound of oars being unshipped, of a girl’s voice cursing softly, four or five quick hard strokes of the oars, and then the tiny dripping sound from wet oars held motionless out over the water. Very near now he could hear another sound—a faint, half-suppressed moaning. The girl was crying.

The tide was twisting his wrist sideways, and he knew he was losing his hold. Somehow his thumb had got down in between the two boats and was being crushed. He shifted his grip and looked for a moment over the edge of his dinghy. The girl in the approaching boat was Carol Ingram. There was not enough wind to sail and she was rowing the long way up river to where she lived. Barny saw her in her smart blue yacht, resting on her oars, staring down at her hands and crying. The tide carried her by no more than an oar’s length away. but she saw nothing but her own hands and her own misery.

Barny Weare did not waste much thought on Carol Ingram’s griefs. He could easily imagine the cause of her unhappiness. She had waited, waited among the dancers, waited till now, till nearly half-past ten. And Tim Garnett had preferred to stay out on Greylag—perhaps just for the hell of keeping her waiting. But Tim wouldn’t keep her waiting again, and just now Barny had troubles of his own. He looked up at the brilliant lamp on the wall bracket above the landing and wondered what on earth he should do.

He suddenly realized the size of the risk he had to take. All his planning had somehow only led him up to the firing of the shots. Beyond that he had thought he could work out the details as he came to them. And the safe, dark landing was now brightly lit, the shadow of the rail striking down through the mist, knifing it like half-formed cheese. He had to tie up his dinghy, he had to climb those steps, he had to cross that landing. At any moment someone might come out for a breath of cool air from the smoky, sticky dance. The half-hour he had allowed himself was nearly spent. He had to do those things now.

He replaced his oar in the stern slot of the dinghy and sculled slowly back into the circle of light.

THE first few steps up to the landing were slippery with weed. Due for another dose of quicklime. He climbed them warily, conscious of the heavy revolver in the pocket of his thin worsted trousers. If he were seen now there was no escape, no explanation possible, no hope of concealment. At the top of the steps he looped the painter of his dinghy over the rail among the others, replacing it where it had been before. Now he felt a little easier. He leaned on the rail for a minute, daring anybody to come.

Above him the sound of talking and laughter was almost louder than the music. It overflowed through every ventilator and open window. It seemed to hi. . .