King Coffin: A Novel

by Conrad Aiken

  But suppose it turned out to be something really serious.

  He frowned, crossed the street, opened the taxi door with automatic hand, and said:

  —Cambridge. Over the Cambridge bridge. If you go fast enough, you’ll overtake the Independent Taxi that just left here. Keep a little way behind it and follow it: I’ll tell you when to stop.

  —Yes, sir!

  Yes, the action had become unexpectedly complicated, the action or his awareness of it, the thing was on several different planes all at once, and in the very act of deciding to take a taxi he had still been on the point—surprisingly—of going across the Common to see Gerta, or even, if she had happened to be out, of then proceeding to Sandbach’s. To see Gerta at this juncture was reasonable enough: for a moment it had seemed in fact perhaps desirable. To put in an appearance, and above all a cheerful one, to laugh loudly about the whole thing, discuss her queer picture with her, make plans for an expedition to New York in the following week, disarm her completely—the shape of this action had risen sharply before him, he had seen it vividly as he glanced across the Common toward the Frog Pond, had begun in advance to enjoy the simplicity of the deception. The words of the conversation were clear, the tone was precise, Gerta’s initial surprise gave way to relief, even to gayety. Come out and have a drink. And I’ll tell you the greatest joke yet. Come down to the Union Oyster House and have some little-necks. Or shall we go to that little bar at the end of Charles Street? I’ve made a very peculiar discovery, I’d like to tell you about it. The last dislocation!… But if Gerta was out, if Sandbach were there, or if he went to Sandbach’s room—this wasn’t quite so clear. Why? Why Sandbach? The image was repellent, the reality of Sandbach in Sandbach’s room was twisted and a little nauseating, the sound and shape of the interview was drawling and feverish, unnatural. No, the impulse was obscure and unpleasant, there was really no need to see Sandbach again, Sandbach was out of it for good. Sandbach had been defeated, even if he didn’t yet know it—and didn’t he actually know it? The tall shadow of Jasper Ammen was behind Gerta, Sandbach was aware of this and was angry about it, he struggled helplessly with it, knew that it would be useless. But just the same to stand before Sandbach now, in his own room, to smile down on him and patronize him, look idly at his books, ask casually about Breault, make no reference whatever to Gerta——

  He closed his eyes for a second as the taxi shot up the curve of the bridge, kept in mind for a moment the image of the lighted train which had rushed past them full of people, felt suddenly a little sick. As against all this, this jangle of Gerta and Sandbach and Toppan, the Jones situation was still comfortingly simple. It had the merit of a pure perfection, stood off by itself, was as clear and beautiful as a single flower. To hold this up for admiration was still the best possible of all realities, it kept its finality, and having admired it to destroy it——

  But exactly why, in the midst of this action, had he wanted to deviate from it, to see Gerta? With the revolver in his pocket, and Jones so close at hand, with the scene already so developed and so rich in potentialities, so rewardingly immediate, why step aside from it? The night was still young, the possibilities were immense, anything at all might yet happen. To intercept Jones might not be convenient, but to call him up by telephone, make an appointment, even to meet him later in the evening—what could prevent this, except of course this new development, his mysterious flight to Cambridge?

  He watched the swift dance of streetlights, counted them, one, two, three, four, was half-consciously aware presently that they had passed the Technology buildings, crossed Massachusetts Avenue, and that there was still no sign of the other taxi. Perhaps they had gone by Broadway; but it hardly mattered. It would be just as well to keep a discreet distance behind, there was no particular reason for remaining within sight: the odds against his going anywhere but Reservoir Street were tremendous. Moreover, to realize this was to realize also his motive for wishing, at this point, to deviate. It was based on a sense of complete confidence, the feeling that poor Jones was now completely in the bag. In effect, Jones was still as close to him as he had been in his box at the theater: just as near, just as unguarded, just as unsuspecting. The flight from the box, from the theater, the dash to the taxi-stand, and the ensuing swoop on Cambridge, all this was really nothing more than the circumscribed panic of the mouse: the dart from sofa-shadow to chair-shadow. The door was still closed, the mouse was still within the room.

  The taxi driver slid back the glass panel and said, without turning his head:

  —That’ll be Connor now—yes, that’s him all right. How near will I tail him?

  —Just keep him in sight, that’s all. If you lose him, never mind, take me to the corner of Sparks Street and Huron Avenue.

  —Sparks Street and Huron Avenue, okay.… Boy, is he stepping on it! You’d think he was going to a fire.

  A hundred yards behind, they followed dizzily the bobbing tail-light, lost it for a few minutes when they were held up by the signals at River Street bridge, caught it again as it slowed with glowing brake-light to turn left into Mount Auburn Street. Everything was going like clockwork, there could no longer be any doubt that Jones was on his way to Reservoir Street in response to a telephone call. He had arranged it with the usher, had given his name, and then waited: but presumably he had not really expected to be called, or he would not have come. And all this being the case, what did it mean? Either of two things: either that the child was being born, if that supposition was correct; or, if there was already a child, and the child was ill, that it had taken a sudden turn for the worse. Or was there just a chance—also—that it might be a question of the wife, the mother?

  In any case, it could have no bearing on the situation. What had been decided was decided.

  The only regrettable feature was that it indicated new avenues for exploration, which, with this sudden increase of pressure—if indeed it was pressure—from Gerta and Sandbach and Toppan, would have to be neglected. If life itself, or destiny, was about to take a hand, and tighten the screws on Jones, it was unfortunate not to be able to take advantage of the enhanced entertainment, even if the enhancement was purely adventitious. To watch his antics in this new predicament, whatever it was, and to observe what changes it might bring about in his habits—this would be of the finest essence of the experience. It would add the last fillip to the thing-in-itself, the perfect chiaroscuro for the projected image, the right silence for the hearing of the cry. And perhaps even now there would be time, it might be managed—the notion of seeing Gerta was not, on second thought, so bad, or even of seeing Sandbach. If too abrupt a transition was avoided, so that they didn’t suspect him of merely acting, of playing a part, they could even now be lulled into inaction and inertia, put off the track. The little ritual with Jones would be by so much deepened and prolonged, yield just so much more of its vital juice. And the further fact that their intervention was actually impending, that they stood there, in the background, ready to protect and save Jones, and only prevented from timely action by their stupidity, this too would add its deliciousness: it would be worth trying. A telephone call to Gerta, perhaps an invitation to S, and the first soundings could at least be taken. And if the signs were propitious, then the time problem would once more have become elastic. He and Jones could proceed with due leisure and affection to their profound little collaboration.…

  And this was odd. He saw it against the swift palings of a white fence, the lighted windows of a house, the turning headlamps of a car—he saw it concretely, and with an almost horrible vividness—the form of his sick hatred for that ridiculous trio of people, the three of them plotting while they smiled, bowing while they whispered behind their hands. It was odd, it was loathsome, but it was true, and also it was funny; he began, in the swaying taxi, to laugh a little, then stopped, then laughed again. What it came down to was simply this—that he and Jones were now actually in alliance against Gerta and Sandbach and Toppan: had their private plan, their c
onspiracy, which those three, bowing among the elm-trees, were attempting to frustrate. He saw them this minute, separately and together; Gerta in the lunchroom at the Museum, talking earnestly with red-haired Toppan; Gerta pausing before the Kwannon with S, Sandbach’s fat little hand on her arm, the sharp tooth showing at the corner of his mouth; Gerta saying at Belmont “then we shall have to do something.” The images came together, fused, lost their identity only to separate again, their nearness so oppressive, and so actual, that he put out his hand toward the taxi window as if to destroy them. But he and Jones together—he and Jones together would defeat them.

  The brakes began squeaking rhythmically, eek, eek, eek, eek, they had stopped in the silent emptiness of Wyman Square, the driver was saying:

  —Do you want to stop here, Mister? He’s just turning the corner up there. There he goes now.

  —Yes. This is all right.

  —Baby, was that a ride! I didn’t know old Connor had it in him.

  In another moment the striped taxi was reversing sharply to go back to Boston, he listened to the retreating sound, stood with his pipestem against his teeth and stared alternately west and north along Huron Avenue. There was no one in sight. Leaning over a fence at his elbow, almost touching him, a lilac bush was in bloom, the blossoms smoke-blue and artificial in the cold lamplight. The heavy fragrance sickened him, he began walking quickly towards Vassal Lane, debouched from Huron Avenue, looked over his shoulder as he did so to make certain that he was not being followed, and in half a minute had passed the willow tree and was approaching Jones’s house. The taxi, of course, had gone. Instead, the doctor’s car stood before the entrance: just as he had expected. The street was otherwise deserted, everything was quiet, he walked calmly up to the car and touched the radiator-cap with the palm of his hand. It was quite cool. The doctor had been here for some time, perhaps an hour—must have arrived very soon after Jones had set off to Boston. Stepping back, then, to the middle of the street, he looked up at the house.

  All the windows on the second floor were lighted, and also the two windows at the right-hand corner of the top floor. None of the curtains had been drawn.

  The three bow windows on the second floor were obviously the sitting room. Three bell-shaped lamp shades of ground glass hung from the plain brass chandelier in the middle of the ceiling, all of them lighted. Against the wall at the left the top of a bookcase was visible, with nothing on it but a glass vase, which was empty. Above this on the yellow wallpaper hung an oak-framed color-print—it looked like a single large face with a background of red flowers. Nothing else was to be seen, the room seemed to be deserted, and its quiet, under the three bells of light, took on a queer sort of significance.

  The room to the right of this was not so easy to examine, for the white railing of the porch roof cut off what would otherwise have been an excellent view, through the glass door (which opened on to the improvised veranda), and the window, which, unlike all the others, was wide open. Through the door it was possible to see a table, on which was the telephone. Beyond this was an open door, which presumably led into the hall. Probably the room—as he had in fact concluded before—was Jones’s “den,” his office. In this room, too, there seemed to be no sign of activity; any one present would have been visible.

  Of the room at the top, nothing could be seen, of course, but the ceiling and a fragment of wall: but these were eloquent. It was obvious at once that the entire life of the little house was now concentrated here. As in the sitting room, there was a brass chandelier, with three lights, but there must also be another light as well, somewhere lower down, for across the ceiling, and the visible portion of wall, shadows went and came with astonishing variety and rapidity, and not one shadow, but several. There were at least two persons moving about in the room, perhaps three,—the shadows moved separately, diverged, enlarged, blended; now and then altogether disappeared. Once, it seemed to be the light itself which had moved; for all the shadows shifted concertedly, and as if concentrically. Perhaps some one had moved a table lamp—for instance—from the table towards the bed. There was then a moment when none of the shadows moved at all. Everything was motionless, everything was silent. If only the windows had been left open——

  He noticed again, what he had noticed before, but only casually, the ash can which stood by the curb just behind the doctor’s car. Of course, it was Tuesday, Jones would have put it out the night before, had not yet got round to taking it in again. It had been emptied this morning, was waiting, but Jones had been too busy or too anxious to remember it. And if Jones was too busy to attend to it, if they all, up there, were so occupied with whatever it was they were doing——

  The idea was perfectly sound, he glanced rapidly north and south along the street to make quite sure that it was still deserted, then more carefully examined the houses behind him and those that adjoined number 85. There were lights in all of them, but in all of them, also, the shades had been drawn, there was no sign of any activity anywhere, no one was watching, or very likely to see him. There would be a certain amount of risk in it, certainly, but not much,—not more, at any rate, than could be easily bluffed out of. Accordingly, he pulled his hat down over his eyes, said softly to himself the words “briefly done,” and walked with careful but quick nonchalance along the cement path which led beside a privet hedge to the back of the house. It was necessary to act as if the action were customary: he must look as if he belonged there, had every right there, and he turned boldly at the corner to survey what he had found. The revolving clothesline lifted bare arms in the half-light from the street beyond, like some queer sort of desert tree, spiny and sterile; and before this, leading down to an open door, were the red brick steps which gave entrance to Jones’s cellar. There was no light below; and thinking to himself that he must show no sign of hesitation, and complementarily also no sign of undue haste, he ran lightly down the steps, feeling the slight grit of ashes beneath his feet, and stooped through the low doorway. Striking a match, he found a switch at the foot of a wooden stairway, turned on the light, saw that the cellar was divided into two sections by a wooden partition—one for each of the tenants—and that while one of these was padlocked the door to the Jones cellar was ajar, and the cellar itself in darkness. To find the swinging electric light bulb, with a help of another match, was quite simple: he turned it on, and discovered that he was standing immediately in front of a furnace. Above, the half-dozen asbestos-jacketed furnace pipes seemed, like an octopus, to be exploring the grimy and cobwebbed rafters of the ceiling: so low that he had to stoop to avoid hitting his head. The furnace itself, of course, was not lighted: the door was open, the interior was dark and cold, and at the edge of the ash door was a neat little pile of clinkers. One cigarette stub lay among them.

  He stood still, listened; footsteps were crossing the floor overhead, in the apartment of the other tenants; they crossed the floor and returned again, slowly and without urgency, it was nothing to be alarmed about; some one traversing the room for a paper, or a box of matches. When the steps had ceased, there was no other sound—the silence was profound; and it occurred to him that not impossibly something—from the Jones apartment—might be audible through the pipes. But no. He listened and heard nothing, the upper rooms were of course too far away. What they were doing there remained a secret.

  Revolving slowly on his heel where he stood, he looked to all corners of the little cellar, saw the divided coal bins at the front, the shovel leaning against the coal-blackened wall, the wooden soapbox half full of kindling with a short-handled ax laid across the corner, a newspaper on the cement floor, a wooden snow shovel, a pair of worn-out galoshes. Under the little cellar window at the side there was a hole in the cement floor, where the surface had for some reason cracked and crumbled, it had been scratched away and showed the earth beneath it: it occurred quickly to him that if anyone should come—if Jones himself should come—he could say that he was there on behalf of the landlord to examine the floor with a vie
w to repairs. But all this was nothing. It was gratifying enough to step thus closer than ever to the small and secret life of Jones, to know his furnace and his shovels; but for any immediate or practical purpose it came to nothing. The newspaper, when he went nearer, turned out to be a week-old American: the headline simply said CARNEY ORDERS ERA “CHISELER PROBE.” The question was——

  Considering it, and noticing also that his heart had begun beating rather rapidly, with the odd effect of giving him a sensation of suffocation in the left side of his throat, he walked slowly back to the door and regarded the wooden stairs which led up—presumably—to the Jones kitchen. The question was, if he should wait here, secret himself here, where all sounds would be muffled, or even completely inaudible, and whence escape would be so easy and so quick——

  Why not?…

  It would be the simplest thing in the world. No one would hear a thing.…

  But how likely was Jones to come down? or to come down soon?

  A curious pain was beating in each of his forearms, throbbing down into his hands, which felt swollen; the sudden intensity of his vision seemed in effect to glaze or dull his eyes; and it was only after a moment or two that he noticed the brown wicker wastebasket half way up the stairs. He reached over the railing for it, lifted it down, stooped and spread out the fragments of paper on the floor. Torn envelopes, one of them with the business address of the Acme Advertising Agency in the upper left-hand corner, the receipted bill of a news agent, the crumpled page for the month of April torn from a calendar, a nest of dead matches, a tiny hairpin, a pasteboard milk-bottle top slightly bent, a fluff of hair combings, a few torn fragments of paper which looked like shopping lists. Vegetables, groceries, cheesecloth—the items written in a small backward-leaning hand—but suddenly, from another list, written more boldly and coarsely, he noticed a single item—1 baby’s folding tub—and rose with it to go nearer the light. There could no longer be any doubt of it. “3 papers small safety pins. 3 papers large safety pins. 2 large agate pails with covers. 1 large agate basin. 1 bath thermometer. ¼ pound boric crystals. 4 oz. olive oil. 1 can baby powder. 1 kitchen scales with weights—avoid springs. 1 bathing apron.”