Conrad Aiken - King Coffin

“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.