Coffin's Dark Number

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘How did you happen to meet up with John?’ I asked. But I didn’t really need to ask. I knew the answer. There’s a sort of built-in communication system between John Plowman and space-men missionaries like Mr Jasna. It must be a kind of radar system like some insects have, I believe. Perhaps they scent each other.

  ‘Mr Jasna wanted to look round,’ said John Plowman.

  ‘Naturally I am interested,’ said Mr Jasna. “This place has been known to us by its intense wave activity for so many years. Now I see it.’

  ‘That must make a difference,’ I said. ‘Is it what you expected?’

  ‘Of course I’d had a very good radio picture of it before I set out. I knew what to expect. Seeing is different. We rely so much on other senses.’

  I did wonder if his radio picture received way back in Sagittarius had shown him the rough scratchy boards from which the hut was built and the peeling paint and the large nail which he was about to step on. I suppose it might have done because he moved his foot neatly and avoided the nail. I wondered what sense he was using there.

  ‘And what brought you here, Tony?’ asked John Plowman with perhaps just a little hint of something in his voice.

  ‘I just brought Dave in for a look round.’ I didn’t have to introduce them; they knew each other already.

  ‘Oh yes.’ His eyes flickered over the drawers. We hadn’t left any scratches on the drawers, but one of the envelopes of herbs had dribbled on the floor. He knew what we had done.

  ‘I hope you feel all right, Tony?’ he said gently. ‘That stuff is strong.’

  ‘I feel gorgeous,’ said Dave.

  ‘I think he’s had a little too much,’ I said.

  ‘No permanent harm,’ said John. ‘Just a simple little herbal remedy.’ He smiled. ‘It relaxes the nerves. It’s a slight sudorific, too.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ said Dave.

  ‘It means you sweat,’ I told him.

  ‘In fact, that’s its main effect,’ said John, giving us a sweet smile. ‘It’s not dangerous.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Unless it relaxes the nerves too far?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I mean it could relax your nerves so far you didn’t care what you did. Or didn’t notice danger.’

  ‘But I know its correct use. I would never misuse it.’

  ‘I know you wouldn’t, John. But I’ve been thinking about those missing children. And now Tom Butt. Suppose they got a dose of it.’

  ‘I don’t believe that could happen.’

  ‘You can see for yourself anyone could get at it.’

  Dave giggled. I supposed he was thinking how clever he’d been.

  ‘What a life,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said, watching John Plowman. ‘I think we’re getting on.’

  ‘Murder’s always serious,’ John said, frowning. ‘So, of course, I’m taking what you say seriously. But I don’t think any of my herbal drops can have been used to harm any of the people you mention.’ He always had a slightly cagey, legalistic way of phrasing things so that you wondered what he really had in reserve.

  Dave gave another laugh.

  ‘Don’t let it get on your nerves,’ I said aside to him.

  ‘What murder?’ said Mr Jasna, who had been showing signs of unease. I suppose they didn’t have murder on Sagittarius.

  ‘It’s been in the papers,’ I said. The children that disappear. I suppose they are dead. And then there’s the young man, Tom Butt. I don’t know if they’ve been taken out into space and left there, if they’ve all really been given another life on another planet, but what it all comes down to is what we on this earth call murder.’

  John was pale, but so indeed was Mr Jasna. He looked at his watch, which was a good earth sort, the same as mine.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ he said in a practical voice. ‘I have to get to work, it’s my night turn.’

  ‘Work?’ I said, surprised.

  ‘Naturally I have an earth-space-time identity too,’ he explained in a kind voice. ‘It’s more convenient that way.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I could see it would be.

  ‘You couldn’t bear to see me as I really am.’

  ‘No?’

  We shook hands with him and my hot earth hand, which was indeed sweating profusely as John had prophesied, touched his cold paw.

  ‘You feel cold,’ I said, surprised.

  ‘I cannot alter my basic temperature,’ he said, rather sadly. ‘I remain basically what I am, what I am.’

  He saluted and walked out. It took me a moment to recover from that chill from Sagittarius.

  ‘He’s one of your best,’ I said to John Plowman. That is he will be. I can see the quality. But he’s not performing yet, is he?’

  ‘He has some very interesting points,’ said John Plowman in a detached way. ‘You are cold and refuse to open your arms. Who can tell what you miss? One day, perhaps, a visitor will come for me, and off I will go with him.’

  ‘He didn’t like hearing about murder, did he? I suppose you can’t blame him. But I’ve been thinking about things and this is what I think. There’s too much coincidence about the dates those children disappeared and the dates we happened, or a group of us happened to be out on trips for the Club. I see that. Will the police see it? And if so, who will they suspect? A visitor from outer space or one of us? And if one of us, which one? You, me, Cyrus Read?’

  ‘You mean Cyrus Read, of course,’ said John smoothly.

  ‘I’m not committing myself to what I mean. It’s not as simple as that.’ And really it wasn’t. All this time Dave was staring at us with wide open eyes. More new ideas were coming to him than he’d had for a long time, and he was a boy who was tenacious of ideas.

  ‘Well, I have a surprise for you,’ said John. ‘I’ve had a talk with the police. And I can add up and do mental arithmetic too. The policeman didn’t say much. Men like him never do, but I just gave him what facts I had.’

  ‘The same as I would do,’ I said.

  ‘Of course, and he was interested. I don’t deny it. He was interested.’

  ‘I think there may be some things I know and you don’t, and that I might tell.’

  ‘Of course. There always are. Be careful, though, won’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that he is the police. I personally have always found him very friendly. But I think one always runs a certain risk in coming forward.’

  ‘But you came forward.’

  ‘Did I say that? No, they came to me asking questions. I only told them what they wanted to know.’

  I frowned. He was saying things I didn’t want to hear. Sometimes the onlooker sees more of the game and so on, you know the saying. Perhaps he was the onlooker who had seen.

  ‘Come on, Dave,’ I said, ‘we’ll be pushing off.’

  I won’t come right out and say what he was hinting at, tape, because I dare say it is guessable, but the feeling I had when I heard about the children, that long shudder, that entry into misery, looked like being thoroughly justified.

  ‘Well, I suppose I’ll be round later in the week,’ I said to him.

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe no meeting this week. I have a lot on hand.’

  ‘Mr Jasna?’

  ‘He’s worth thinking about,’ he said cautiously. ‘And then there’s a man over at Ealing who says he can control machines with his mind. He’s already made a start with his own electric razor. Says it attacked him one morning but now he’s got it under control.’

  I knew then that he wasn’t a bit put out at the insurrection organized by Esther Glasgow, that he might even have helped it on, because he was getting ready to move on to a new interest. Always in the past, I’d been the one to walk out on a club. This time it was happening to me.

  I took Dave home. I thought he seemed more or less all right. I wondered how much there was in that drug talk and how much John had been pulling my leg. Then I came home, avoidin
g my sister Jean, and started to pour myself out on to my tape.

  I wasn’t happy. John Plowman had more or less told me that if I went to the police they would look at me with speculative eyes. Without my knowing it, probably I was already a suspect. But then, we all were. All the same, I thought I’d go and see them. And then I thought after all I’d leave it.

  I swung to and fro. I played the tape again to myself, wondering if any new noise would have crept on to it. But it was dead.

  I went downstairs and sat in the kitchen. Jean was there.

  ‘Have they come home yet?’ I asked mechanically, but I could see on her face that there was no news yet of the missing two, Belle and her brother.

  ‘Did you teach Belle?’ I asked.

  ‘I think I’ve taught all of them,’ said Jean in a whisper. ‘Anyway, I know them. So do you.’

  ‘Only through you.’ I wasn’t looking at her, so I didn’t see her face till she touched my arm. Then I saw she was crying.

  ‘There was blood on your shirt, Tony,’ she said. ‘Maybe you didn’t know, but I found it there.’

  We sat in silence. Then I said, ‘The blood doesn’t mean anything. All that talk about blood is nonsense. I probably cut myself.’

  ‘You’ll go to the police, won’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I’ll go.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No. I don’t want you coming with me like a mother.’

  And I heaved myself up out of my chair. Misery is a big, big city to walk into, but when you’ve got to its heart then you certainly know you are there.

  I could hear the child next door still hooting and crying. He’d been at it all day.

  I’d go to the police. If they all had minds like Jean it would be a risk, I thought, but a calculated risk. A risk I’d have to take. I owed it to Tom.

  Chapter Ten

  Inspector Dove had his car back and still hadn’t discovered who had lost the child’s rubber duck. He had put it aside, not thinking it would ever be claimed now.

  ‘Someone’s crying for that, I bet,’ he said.

  But he said it mechanically. It wasn’t something he was really thinking about. Perhaps he had a slight passing thought in his mind about his car, which had disappeared and come back. There had been a rash of stolen cars in the district in the last few weeks. And the most popular type to steal seemed to be Fords. You can steal them in any colour, this thief seemed to be saying to himself, so long as it’s a Ford.

  They were walking on the edge of violence in Coffin’s bailiwick these days. The disappearance of the two last children, Belle and her brother, had sharpened fears to the point where they were bound to cut someone soon.

  Coffin was in his room with Dove when Tony Young asked to see him.

  ‘I’m too busy,’ he said to the constable who brought the message. ‘Give him to someone else.’

  ‘Parr thought there was something worth thinking about with this Young,’ said Dove. ‘It’s in his notes.’

  ‘All right, let Parr see him then.’

  ‘Parr’s out, sir,’ said the constable. ‘He had a message a minute ago and went out.’

  ‘Let Young wait till he comes back then.’

  Tony Young waited some time. When Parr eventually came to him, his plump face was unfriendly. He looked at Tony without speaking, then sat down. They were alone together in a small bare room which was used for such interviews. A former occupant, while waiting as Tony had waited, had chipped a large circle in the plaster of the wall, and no one had tried to do much about it. After all, they were moving soon, weren’t they?

  ‘Well?’ said Parr.

  ‘My sister, Jean,’ began Tony nervously. He hadn’t meant to be nervous, but he was. The wait had achieved what Coffin had probably meant it to achieve. ‘Jean,’ he said again. It was a bad beginning and he knew it.

  Parr didn’t answer, but the figure of Jean was behind his eyes. He waited for Tony to begin again.

  ‘I just came round.’ He hesitated again, then said, with a touch of the old Tony, ‘Well, say something.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s a help. Now I know how you feel.’ His voice shook.

  Parr was still slow to speak. Perhaps he wanted Tony to see that no, he didn’t know how he felt.

  ‘I came round here because I wanted to say something.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Parr again.

  ‘If my sister ever goes out with you, she’ll want her head examined,’ said Tony vindictively.

  ‘Let’s leave that, shall we? Co on as if you’ve never spoken,’ said Parr.

  ‘About Tom Butt. And the children.’

  Now Parr relented. He got out his cigarettes and offered one. ‘Now take your time,’ he said. ‘Don’t rush.’

  ‘I don’t smoke. And don’t run up any flags. I know you policemen. I’m not confessing.’

  ‘Who said anything about a confession?’

  ‘You. You shouted it out loud without saying a word. Let’s make it easy for him, you said, he’s come to tell all. Well, I came to help you.’

  ‘Almost everyone says that,’ said Parr.

  ‘Jean says I’d better come. I always do what she says. And so will you in the end.’

  ‘You better get on with what you’ve got to say.’

  ‘I run a Club. You know that?’

  ‘I know about it.’

  ‘Yes, of course you do. I suppose you think we’re all crazy, but we’re not. We’ve got our reasons for what we do. Different reasons, some of us.’ He stopped.

  ‘Yes, go on. Different reasons?’ Parr wasn’t as yet a skilled interrogator; he was only learning. At the moment he hadn’t developed a style of his own; he was imitating his boss.

  ‘Well, different reasons. I won’t go into those now. Anyway, you know what we do. As well as having meetings we get reports on UFO sightings and if it’s within range off we go. John’s got a motor bike and one of the girls, Esther Glasgow, can borrow her father’s car. Another member, old Miss Jones, has an old car that works if we don’t use it too often; it’s old like her, see. We manage. Well, what I’ve noticed is that always when one of these children has disappeared, it coincided with the date of one of our little checking expeditions.’

  ‘So?’ prompted Parr.

  ‘I know it could be just coincidence.’

  ‘And why did you think it wasn’t?’

  ‘Well, in spite of what people say it’s easier to believe in a reason than just plain chance. I suppose it’s because we always want to believe in intelligence.’

  ‘And whose intelligence were you believing in?’

  ‘I had to ask myself if it was a human intelligence at all.’ Tony looked warily at Parr. But Parr did not laugh. Indeed, his features tightened somewhat. Cautiously, Tony went on. ‘It didn’t seem likely, though, that a vehicle from outer space had landed round here and taken off any of the children. There would have been some external evidence, I thought. Of course, I know what John Plowman says: that the operation of physical laws can appear to work miracles, that that is what a miracle is, the laws of the universe working in a way beyond our understanding. But I couldn’t seem to accept a miracle.’

  Parr said nothing, but looked as though miracles wasn’t his word for it either.

  ‘So then I had to ask myself if it was one of us, somehow using the opportunities of these expeditions. I wondered if perhaps these trips didn’t provide some sort of conditions that made any abductions possible. Perhaps this character could only get out at such times, or something like that. I was looking round for an answer, you see.’

  ‘Yes, I do see,’ said Parr, a little grimly.

  ‘I even thought that perhaps some sort of drug was involved. I still think there could be something like that.’

  Parr nodded. He waited, but Tony had no more to say. ‘And that’s all?’ said Parr.

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘You haven’t got any names to offer?’

/>   Tony shook his head silently.

  ‘Right.’ Parr got up. Tony got up, too. ‘You’re not going?’ he said with some anxiety.

  ‘I’ll be back.’

  ‘But you haven’t said anything.’

  ‘All right,’ said Parr. ‘Thank you. Will that do?’

  He went out and left Tony alone. He met Dove in the corridor, who looked enquiringly. ‘He says he doesn’t believe in miracles and it was a human agency,’ said Parr.

  ‘That’s what I believe, too,’ said Dove sourly.

  ‘Us and who else?’ said Parr.

  ‘The kid’s not speaking,’ said Dove. ‘Not yet, anyway. He came back two hours ago, by the way, but his mother took her time letting us know.’

  Parr left him and went into the room where his boss Coffin was standing by the window. He listened to what Parr had to tell him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Interesting. Not the way he thinks it is, of course. Brave of him, really, to put his head into the lion’s den.’

  ‘I would say he is quite frightened,’ said Parr. ‘More than he cares to admit.’

  ‘Well, go back in to him and bring him along to see me.’

  ‘All right,’ said Parr and went along the corridor to the interrogation room which wasn’t really very far away and spoke to Tony.

  ‘The boss wants to have a word with you.’

  ‘What about?’ Tony was nervous.

  ‘What about? What do you think? What you just told me.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tony considered. ‘So that really was something then?’

  Parr smiled. Not perhaps the very nicest smile in the world, nor were his motives good in smiling it. He wanted to alarm Tony and to dominate him at the same time. All this was reflected very accurately in the smile and Tony saw.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d take me seriously.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that now.’

  Tony studied Parr’s face. ‘Has something happened? Something I don’t know about?’

  Parr shrugged.

  ‘You look as though something has happened.’

  Parr took a risk. ‘One of the children has been found.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tony went white. From his pocket he took out a big pair of tinted spectacles and put them on.

  ‘You often wear those?’ asked Parr with interest.