Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931) by Francis Beeding

"Francis Beeding" was the shared pseudonym of two writers, John Palmer and Hilary St. George Saunders, who collaborated on more than thirty crime, detective and thriller novels – published over twenty-one year period from 1925 to 1946. The successful collaboration ended with Palmer's death in 1944. Saunders made a one-time return to the genre with an authorized and localized reworking of Pierre Boileau's Le repos de Bacchus (The Rest of Bacchus, 1937) published in English as The Sleeping Bacchus (1951). An excellent impossible crime caper in the Arsène Lupin mold, but the novel for which Saunders and the Francis Beeding collaboration is mostly remembered today is something entirely different.

Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931), the tenth novel that appeared under the Francis Beeding penname, enjoyed tremendous popularity and status as a genre classic for decades. Some of its fame had began to fade towards the end of the previous century, but the reprint renaissance restored it to its former prestige when it was reprinted in 2011. And its reputation is not wholly undeserved.

Beeding's Death Walks in Eastrepps is not the first mystery novel to feature a serial killer or a string of apparently random, unconnected murders. Anthony Berkeley's The Silk Stocking Murders (1928), S.S. van Dine's The Bishop Murder Case (1928) and John Rhode's The Murders in Praed Street (1928) all preceded it, but Death Walks in Eastrepps is the first to explore more than just the hidden-link between random victims and what can be done with a serial killer on the loose inside the pages of a detective story – essentially creating one of the first genuine, Golden Age mystery-thrillers. Over the decades, a who's who of writers tried their hands at a serial killer mystery-thriller, most of which tend to lean towards one or the other. Philip MacDonald's Murder Gone Mad (1931) and Brian Flynn's The Edge of Terror (1932) leaned towards the thriller, while Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders (1936) and Ellery Queen's Cat of Many Tails (1949) headed in the opposite direction. Death Walks in Eastrepps has received credit and praise for other elements of the story, but I'll get to them in a moment.

Robert Eldridge is a successful, financially secure businessman who occupies a small villa in Oakfield Terrace, Eastrepps, traveling to London once or twice a week to keep an eye on things at the office. This outwardly respectable businessman has dark, long buried secret. Robert Eldridge is really the notorious James Selby of Anaconda Ltd.

In 1914, James Selby absconded with a large sum ("the amount was over one hundred and ninety thousand pounds") of the company's funds and bolted to South America. And left behind ruined victims numbering in the hundreds. After sixteen years, Selby's physical appearance had undergone a drastic change, "tactfully obliterated by time and the razor," which helped to cover his tracks "so completely that no one could possibly suspect." So voyaged back home under a new name, settled down in Eastrepps and began a secret affair with a married woman, Margaret Withers, who needs grounds to divorce her husband and not the other way round – or risk losing her daughter. Eldridge does some clever maneuvering to put together a weekly alibi, appearing to be in London, to spend a night with Margaret. Appearing at the local station the next morning as the first London train drew in ("and nobody any the wiser"). While this affair is going on, the murders begin to happen.

The first victim is a spinster, Mary Hewitt, who's body is found in Coatt's Spinney strangely stabbed through the right temporal bone without any signs of a struggle ("it could hardly have been inflicted by surprise, and yet the victim apparently made no resistance"). A murder that poses a problem for the local police, Inspector Protheroe and Sergeant Ruddock, because Eastrepps has "no crime whatever in the real sense of the word." Inspector Protheroe believes "this murder in Coatt's Spinney could only be regarded as a bright exception" and even an opportunity to finally get noticed in order to get transferred to a busier district. And then a second body is found. And a third. And a fourth. Every victim is killed on the same day in exactly the same, peculiar way.

One thing that becomes very apparent after the second and third body is discovered is that the murders are not merely padding for the story, and bodycount, but has very real consequences for the investigating police and the community. A community made up of numerous, distinctly individual characters who are all affected differently by the murders.

Firstly, Eastrepps is a small, seaside town attracting a rowdy crowd of tourists, young men in blazers and young women in white pleated skirts, which Eastrepps did not encourage, but the third murder cleared the town of its visitors – a blow to the local economy ("there isn't a boarding-house in the town that isn't hit as badly..."). The tourists who were already in town quickly packed their bags and rooms booked in advanced were canceled. Only the press has an outside presence in town and dubbed the murderer "the Eastrepps Evil." Secondly, the murders have a very real, noticeable effect on the day-to-day life of the local residents as everything is "curiously calm." There are few people in the shops and still fewer on out in the streets. Even at ten-thirty on a Saturday morning and when the evening falls, the streets are deserted as the citizenry locked themselves into their houses ("a city of the dead"). One person who ventured outside wore a crash helmet for protection. When the murders mercilessly continue, the panic grows resulting in the formation of the Eastrepps Vigilance Association and calls for placing the town under martial law. Thirdly, every new murder increases the pressure on the police to get results and criticism grows every day without results ("...swarming about all over the place and letting folk be murdered in their beds?"). A wrong, bungled arrest and several more murders is not making their jobs any easier. There are even questions being asked in the House, which leads to a huge row and suspension of one of its Honourable Members. A funny little scene that allowed the story to catch its breath.

I think this is the biggest contribution the book made to the Golden Age serial killer thriller. The murders aren't merely padding to give the serial killer a bodycount to match the title nor are the victims just pawns with a name-tag. They were well-known, sometimes highly respected and beloved whose violent deaths are both mourned and have very real consequences for the town, investigators and everyone who gets caught up in their investigation. A second arrest is made and this time the suspect goes to trial with a long courtroom scene preceding the dramatic ending. Beeding even went for a grand surprise, a final twist, which undoubtedly was as surprising to readers in 1931 as Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) was five years earlier, but the passage of time has severely blunted it. This idea, or trick, has been done to death ever since with even Christie giving it the good, old college try. Although it has been touted as a first, it has been done before in the 1800s and early 1900s. However, it's undeniable Beeding really worked on the idea and refined it to the point where most readers today can probably instinctively identity the murderer. And make an educated guess about the somewhat ambiguous, but well-handled motive.

There are, however, one or two things to nitpick about. First of all, the false arrest came as a result of the presence of a mentally unbalanced, young man, "partial to female society," who sneaks out of his locked bedroom to stalk woman in the street and tip his head at them. A little too convenient to have such a character in the vicinity coming on top of the Robert Eldridge plot-thread positioning so many of his former victims as next door neighbors. This simply came across as cheap and second-rate, but mercifully, only a small part of the story. Secondly, the book suffers from happy-ending syndrome trying to sugarcoat its dark, grim ending in an “all's well that ends well” wrap-up. However, the damage the murderer has done by that point has been so extensive that the only way to salvage anything good from the human wreckage is for the murderer to have gotten away with it. I suppose it's not something that would have gone down well in 1931, but it would have been the most fitting, least painful ending to the story as it never addresses (sugarcoated) the consequences of the real murderer getting revealed, arrested, convicted and finally executed. Such as (SPOILER/ROT13) gur unatvat bs na vaabprag zna sbe gur zheqref, gur choyvp uhzvyvngvba bs Znetnerg jub yvxryl ybfg phfgbql bs ure qnhtugre va gur qvibepr naq gur frevbhf qnzntr qbar gb gur erchgngvba naq cerfgvtr bs gur cbyvpr naq pbhegf, juvpu erdhver fbzr urnqf gb ebyy.

Regardless of those little stylistic annoyances, Death Walks in Eastrepps comes highly recommended as an exciting and thrilling read with some genuine clever touches to the plotting and storytelling. A truly vintage mystery-thriller with real stakes that holds up well more than ninety years after its original publication. I enjoyed it so much, I moved Beeding's The Norwich Victims (1931) to the top of the pile.