King Coffin: A Novel

by Conrad Aiken

  Toppan! The very thing.

  He sat up in bed, switched on the light in the corner, looked at the hexagonal wrist watch—quarter to three.

  Why not present the whole business to Toppan as a mere exercise in detection—the latest and best specimen—a particularly attractive problem? It would join on to the previous conversation perfectly: and his pleasure in it, both their pleasures, would be deliciously enhanced by the fact that Toppan wouldn’t quite dare presume that it was a question of the other thing, the pure murder, or in any case that it was for anything but the novel. Why not? And why not now? To rouse Toppan from his sleep, startle him, take him thus off his guard, with all his conscious defenses down, still surrounded, as it were, by all the naïve transparency of sleep—it would be like turning a harsh searchlight on a naked soul. An experience in itself.

  In the study, knotting the dressing gown, he paused to look at the map, leaning close to it to familiarize himself once more with the tangle of small streets between Huron and Concord Avenues, and also to observe the column of dates which he had entered in pencil on the upper left-hand margin: ten of them,—the latest this morning’s. It looked formidable enough. Ten days. Possibly a little slow: but certainly there had been no delay? Map of the City of Cambridge. C. Frank Hooker Acting Engineer. 1932.…

  From the table beneath it he picked up the small green book which lay open there, with the pages downward, and read again the passage which had caught his attention earlier in the evening. “But there is the dark eye which glances with a certain fire, and has no depth. There is a keen quick vision which watches, which beholds, but which never yields to the object outside: as a cat watching its prey. The dark glancing look which knows the strangeness, the danger of its object, the need to overcome the object. The eye which is not wide open to study, to learn, but which powerfully, proudly or cautiously glances, and knows the terror or the pure desirability of strangeness in the object it beholds.” Extraordinary that Lawrence should have said just that—italicizing the word “strangeness”—but wasn’t he completely mistaken in assuming that there was no desire—in the savage eye—to learn, to study? In any case, what was the savage eye? Who was to say? or who was to say that—finally speaking—it wasn’t the only true eye in the world, the only one which saw virtuously?

  The terror, or the desirability of strangeness.

  The pure desirability!

  That was odd, too. An odd, but perhaps natural, antithesis. Something a little uncomfortable in it, as well. But why? After all, if the prime need was to overcome the object, then the study of it was absolutely indispensable, was simply a means to an end. The cat, in short, understands—in the deepest sense—the mouse: observes it with that sort of pure virtue of love which is the prelude to conquest. It sees, and knows, the mouse—and that is precisely its playing with it. In the savage eye there is therefore not merely the desire to kill, there is also that look which just as coldly embraces a tree, a landscape, a star, an idea. It must purify what it sees, and see what it purifies: the only vision which is noble. There is no compromise with the object, no placid or reasoned acceptance of it. It is seen, understood, and destroyed. The vision is pure.

  He said it aloud, as he descended the half-dark stairs—“the vision is pure”—remembered his pipe and tobacco and went back for them, descended again with the pipe in his hand. Toppan’s door was unlocked, he stepped in, switched on the light, his forefinger automatically finding the ebony button in the dark, then for a moment he stood unmoving in the silent room. The bedroom door, in the far right-hand corner, was closed, the green window shade had been pulled down, except for three inches at the bottom, where the night-dark showed, a sheet of music had fallen from the piano and lay open on the bench, a brown felt hat dangled from one corner of the mantel. Taking three steps forward, to the middle of the gray carpet, he listened: he could hear the deep and regular breathing. Toppan had not waked: lay there at his mercy. To read the diary now, with Toppan in the next room——

  And there it was, on top of the desk.

  It had been closed on a pen, tonight’s entry was still fresh.

  He turned the pages.

  “May 2. The great Jasper has certainly stirred them up, and no mistake. Saw all of them—Sandbach, Gerta, Mrs. Taber, her husband, and that analyst chap, also a little fellow from Chicago, at the C Bookshop this afternoon, and what they wouldn’t do to him if they could! Sandbach and Mrs. T. in particular. They had a long discussion of the episode at Tremont Temple—I must say I couldn’t help laughing, for Jasper seems to have done a first-rate theatrical job of it: apparently just walked in and dismissed them. Not so bad! Goodness knows there is something rather fine about it, even if one doesn’t feel moved to emulation. Gerta, however, I noticed, didn’t have anything to say: what does she know? I had an impulse to talk with her, but of course, in the circumstances—I decided it could wait, perhaps she doesn’t know what I know, or guess, and there’s plenty of time. Mrs. T. says what he needs is a good spanking, that he’s spoiled. Sandbach rather surprised me by suggesting that he’s definitely insane. The analyst just said ‘Oh, no, perhaps a little paranoid,’ wanted to know what his relations were with his father. Gerta could have told him, of course, and so could I, but neither of us said anything. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that would account for much, though I daresay an analyst would do him a lot of good. I never knew any one so cut off as he is—but then, you’ve got to admit that he seems entirely and horribly self-sufficient. It seems impossible to get at him, much less to hurt him. Walked back with Gerta, and she asked me in, but I didn’t go.… Squash with Hempel——

  “May 3. Law Society——

  “May 4, 5, 6, 7——

  “May 8.… and had a curious encounter with Sandbach and Gerta outside the Fogg Museum. They looked as if they’d been quarreling, anyway something was up, they were walking along very slowly ahead of me, and just before I caught up with them they turned and came toward me. Their voices were raised a little, they had that fixed and angry look, didn’t see me at first, and then were both embarrassed. Very self-conscious meeting. I thought Gerta looked extremely pale. I asked them to tea, and Gerta came up, S pretending (?) that he had to get back to town to go over a talk he is giving at the Burroughs Foundation. Sounded like an alibi. Gerta was unusually quiet, subdued, didn’t say anything about J till after we had had tea, then asked me if I had seen much of him lately. I said quite truthfully that I hadn’t. She said she hadn’t either, and just wondered whether he was ‘all right’—wanted then to know whether I had seen him at all. As a matter of fact it hadn’t occurred to me before, but when I stopped to think of it, I had been pretty busy, and I don’t believe I have seen him, even a glimpse of him, for over a week. She thought this was a little queer, and asked me if I didn’t agree: as before, I could see she wanted to discuss the question of his sanity, in fact she got as far as saying she was worried about him, but I pooh-poohed it, reminded her that he had always been like that, going in for temporary disappearances and so forth. I don’t think I convinced her, but then I didn’t try very much, for I was uneasy about perhaps getting in too deep. She’s frightfully in love with him. I have a feeling Sandbach is jealous, and that the row was connected with it: of course S has been hanging around her for a hell of a while. She was a little hurt with me, I could see, managed to suggest something like ‘well, if you don’t want to talk I can’t make you’ but just the same was very nice about it, as she always is. A damned fine person, I admire her reticence, why in God’s name must she throw herself away on that incomparable egoist! It certainly is odd that neither of us has seen Jasper all week: I wonder if by any chance he’s gone to work on that fantastic Coffin idea: and I wonder what the analyst would make of that! Lordy, but wouldn’t he get his teeth into it.

  “May 9.——Could it possibly be J I saw in a Buick on Concord Avenue? If he’s bought a car, that would account for a great deal—it’ll be a load off Gerta’s mind, anyway. Asked Jack
, the janitor, if he knew anything about Jasper’s getting a car but he said d-d-d-didn’t know, M-m-m-mister Ammen hadn’t been around much. What next?”

  What next?

  Replacing the fountain pen in the loose-leaf diary, he went to the bedroom door, opened it quickly, looked around the edge of it and saw the dark shape on the bed in the corner, waited for it to stir. As it did not move, he said:

  —Hi. Are you awake?

  Kicking the door so that it swung open widely to the wall, the light falling across the brass bedrail, he returned and unlocked the inlaid tantalus by the piano. He took out the bottle of Haig, and while he was stooping to see if there were any glasses he heard Toppan’s voice, a little curt, behind him.

  —Oh, it’s you.

  Not turning, he said:

  —Yes. I couldn’t sleep.

  —What time is it—isn’t it a little late?

  —Not three yet. Haven’t you got any glasses?

  —You want a drink?

  —I want a drink and I want to talk to you.

  Toppan’s blue eyes seemed larger than usual, without his spectacles, his red hair stood up straight in a sort of point, he looked gnome-like. He was in pajamas.

  —All right. Wait.

  He got the glasses, and his dressing-gown, came back a little sheepishly, it was obvious that he was angry but wasn’t going to say so. He put the glasses on the piano-bench, ran his hands through his hair.

  —Help yourself, Ammen. I won’t join you.

  —You’re angry, aren’t you?

  —Not at all.

  —But it doesn’t matter—I want your advice.

  —Advice? about what.

  —That story I was telling you about. The question is—how much can I trust you—how discreet are you?

  Toppan, putting on his spectacles, with very carefully raised hands, sat down in the mission rocking chair and smiled uneasily, ingratiatingly. He looked slightly silly, his transparency was too obvious, he had that almost offensive emotional nakedness which often goes with red hair; but also he was intelligent, he must be watched and controlled. He said, looking up obliquely through his spectacles:

  —Ask and it shall be given unto you.

  ——Don’t be an ass. The point is this. For ten days I’ve been watching a man—I won’t mention his name, or say where he lives—just as I planned, it’s a complete stranger, the—as you might say—corpus vile of my experiment. For the sake of convenience, we’ll call him Kazis.

  —It’s a good name.

  —All right. I’ve learned a lot about him. I know where he lives, what he does, that he is probably married, somewhat hard up. I know a lot of his habits. Technically, too, as you would say yourself—I’m thinking, of course, of your observation of that osteopath in Brookline—it’s been interesting. But now I’ve come to a sort of impasse, don’t know quite what to do next: you can give me some advice.

  —Oh, well, I don’t pretend to be an expert—but if you’ll give me an outline of how you’ve gone about it——

  —Very simple. I saw him first in the subway, followed him to his office in town. Then perhaps I made a mistake. His office door had two names on it—Kazis and another. I wanted to find out which one was his, so I sent up a Western Union messenger with a message addressed to Kazis: the messenger boy came back and described him to me, and of course it was Kazis.

  —I see. I don’t see anything wrong with that. I assume Kazis hadn’t seen you.

  —Certainly not.

  —And presumably the boy didn’t say who he brought the message from?

  —No. You miss the point. It isn’t Kazis I’m thinking of, it’s the messenger. Don’t you see, in this novel, King Coffin, if ultimately my hero kills Kazis that messenger boy might remember the incident, remember the man who gave him the message—remember me. Of course, in the present instance it doesn’t matter, as naturally I don’t intend to commit any murder.

  —Naturally!

  —Naturally. But for the novel I want a foolproof method—do you understand? Unless you think this might be reasonably safe.

  Toppan reflected, a little embarrassed, his eyes downcast.

  —But I thought, in your novel, it didn’t matter if the hero was found out—that a part of the virtue of your pure murder would be in the very fact that—

  —No. What I said was that in the circumstances it would have to be secret—only ideally could it be done with complete indifference to risks. For the purpose of my story, I want the detection itself completely foolproof.

  —I see. Actually, there needn’t as a matter of fact be much risk in the way you did it. I suppose you didn’t sign any name?

  —What do you think I am?

  —Well then, assuming for the sake of argument that you eventually did kill Kazis, but not, say, for a month or two, the chances of your being found through the messenger boy would be practically nil. He’ll remember the episode of course, and tell about it, and give a fairly good description of you, especially as you happen to be of somewhat striking appearance, owing to your height, but that would hardly be enough to go on. You’d be safe as a church, as long as he didn’t happen to see you again—which you could easily avoid—or unless, of course, some other person or persons happened to have reasons to connect you with the crime: in which case you’d be brought before the messenger for identification. Without that, his mere description of the mysterious person as a tall man who wore a black velours hat would hardly be enough, would it?

  —You think not?

  —No.

  Holding the green glass in his hand, he smiled down at Toppan, who smiled back. Toppan was on his guard: he must be on guard himself. The question about King Coffin’s indifference to discovery, for example, had not been quite ingenuous—or had it? But if Toppan was fascinated by the possibility, clearly he didn’t really believe in it: he speculated, he was a little frightened, but that was all.

  You speak of other persons who might have reason to connect him—what do you mean?

  Toppan laughed, drawing the dressing gown over his crossed knees.

  —Why nothing special—it all depends.

  —Depends on what!

  —Well, to be frank, in the present case, assuming for the moment that you are King Coffin——

  —You can assume as much as you like. It’s your own assumption, isn’t it?

  —Of course. I mean, there’s myself. I know about it.

  —Do you?

  —Don’t I?

  —You mean you’re an accessory before the fact?

  —Oh, I could wriggle out of that!

  —In other words, my hero had better not discuss it—even with those who share his views.

  —Perhaps not,—there’s also Gerta.

  —No—you can leave her out of it.

  —Very well.

  He crossed to the mantel, lifted the hat from the corner where it hung, looked inside it to see the maker’s mark, replaced it. Revolving his glass on the varnished ledge, he examined the delicate white flowers in the color-print, the cluster of rose-tinted lychee nuts, the blue-breasted birds. The bird not quite sufficiently stylized. Leaning closer to this, his back still turned to Toppan, he said:

  —It’s a useful suggestion.… You know, I actually talked with him for ten minutes.

  —Good Lord. How was that?

  —Quite simple. In my message I asked him to ring me up—at a certain number—giving no name of course—and talked with him, pretending I wanted some work done. Discussed it with him, and told him I’d ring him again.

  —And did you?

  —Yes. At his house.

  There was a pause, and as Toppan said nothing in reply to this, he turned and looked at him. His hand was over his eyes, his head was bowed a little forward. Perhaps he was tired—perhaps he was playing ’possum. The right foot, slippered, the veined instep showing below the green pajama leg, jigged up and down, mechanically, slightly, with the beating of his heart. Otherwise he was motionless. L
ooking down on him like this, one could see the white scalp through the disordered red hair: the hand across the forehead, by contrast, looked very living, very vital. Toppan’s consciousness was perhaps in his hand.

  —But never mind that. Are you awake?

  —Of course.

  —What I want to know is, what can I do next.

  While Toppan pondered this, kneading his forehead with his fingers, Ammen filled and lit his pipe: he watched Toppan over the flame, began to wonder whether the whole thing wasn’t a mistake, a miscalculation. Toppan was being a little too wary, and, as his diary had made clear, he perhaps now suspected a shade too much for comfort. He had begun to step out of his role as mere satellite, wanted to enjoy detecting the detective. If he and Gerta should now, as seemed not impossible, put their heads together——

  —I said, what can I do next.

  —It depends on what you want. And of course on how much you’ve already got. I take it you’ve already observed all that can be superficially observed——

  —Yes. I know his daily habits, as I’ve told you, his clothes, his shoes, the papers he reads, the day he puts out the ash can, and so on. I know what he’s like. A thoroughly commonplace and somewhat conceited little person, a sort of unconvinced failure. Certainly nobody you’d want to waste five minutes with, otherwise. You ought to see the house, for instance—a dreary two-family thing, one of millions, you know without going into it exactly what it will be like—cheap carpets that look as if they’d been designed in vomit, bead curtains, a wallpaper in the bathroom meant to look like tiles, a mission clock, a gas log fire. But all this is general—I want now the specific. You understand? And of course without meeting him.