The Comfortable Coffin

by Richard S. Prather

  “Is it not?” agreed Mr. Portway, blinking up at me under the strong light. I could read in his Chelonian face neither fear nor anger. Rather a sardonic amusement at the turn of affairs. “Are you a private detective, by any chance?”

  I told him who I was.

  “You have been admiring my little machine?”

  “My only real surprise is that no one has thought of it before.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s very useful. To a practicing solicitor, of course. I used to find it a permanent source of irritation that my clients should pay more to the government—who, after all, hadn’t raised a finger to earn it—than they did to me. Do you realize that if I act for the purchase of a London house for £5,000, I get about £43, whilst the government’s share is £100?”

  “Scandalous,” I agreed. “And so you devised this little machine to adjust the balance. Such a simple and foolproof form of forgery, when you come to think of it.” The more I thought of it the more I liked it. “Just think of the effort you would have to expend—to say nothing of stocks of special paper—if you set out to forge a hundred one-pound notes. Whereas with this machine—a small die—a simple pressure.”

  “Oh, there’s more to it than that,” said Mr. Portway. “A man would be a fool to forge treasury notes. They have to be passed into circulation, and each one is a potential danger to its maker. Here, when I have stamped a document, it goes into a deed box. It may not be looked at again for twenty years. Possibly never.”

  “As a professional accountant,” I said, “I am not sure that that angle is not the one that appeals to me most. Let me see. Take that purchase you were talking about. Your client would give you two cheques, one for your costs, which goes through the books in the ordinary way, and a separate one for the stamp duty.”

  “Made out to cash.”

  “Made out to cash, of course. Which you would yourself cash at the bank. Then come back here—”

  “I always took the trouble to walk through the Stamp Office in case anyone should be watching me.”

  “Very sound,” I said. “Then you came back here, stamped the document yourself that evening, and put the money in your pocket. It never appeared in your books at all.”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Portway. He seemed gratified at the speed with which I had perceived the finer points of his arrangements.

  “There’s only one thing I can’t quite see,” I said. “You’re a bachelor, a man with simple tastes. Could you not—I don’t want to sound pompous—by working a little harder, have made sufficient money legitimately for your reasonable Reeds?”

  Mr. Portway looked at me for a moment, his smile broadening.

  “I see,” he said, “that you have not had time to examine the rest of my strong room. My tastes are far from simple, and owing to the scandalous and confiscatory nature of modem taxation—oh, I beg your pardon. I was forgetting for the moment—”

  “Don’t apologize,” I said. “I have often thought the same thing myself. You were speaking of expensive tastes.”

  Mr. Portway stepped over to a large, drop-fronted deed box, labelled Lord Lampeter’s Settled Estate, and unlocked it with a key from a chain. Inside was a rack, and in the rack I counted the dusty ends of two dozen bottles.

  “Chateau Margaux. The 1934 vintage. I shouldn’t say that even now it has reached its peak. Now here—” he unlocked The Dean of Melchester. Family Affairs, “—I have a real treasure. A Mouton Rothschild of 1924.”

  “1924!”

  “In Magnums. I know that you appreciate a good wine. Since this may perhaps be our last opportunity—”

  “Well—”

  Mr. Portway took a corkscrew, a decanter, and two glasses from a small cupboard labelled Estate Duty Forms. Miscellaneous, drew the cork of the Mouton Rothschild with care and skill, and decanted it with a steady hand. Then he poured two glasses. We both held them up to the single unshaded light to note the dark, rich, almost black colour, and took our first, ecstatic mouthful. It went down like oiled silk.

  “What did you say you had in the other boxes?” I enquired reverently.

  “My preference has been for the clarets,” said Mr. Portway. “Of course, as I only really started buying in 1945, I have nothing that you could call a museum piece. But I picked up a small lot of 1927 Chateau Talbot which has to be tasted to be believed. And if a good burgundy was offered, I didn’t say no to it.” He gestured towards The Marchioness of Gravesend in the corner. “There’s a 1937 Romance Conti —but your glass is empty…”

  As we finished the Mouton Rothschild in companionable silence, I looked at my watch. It was two o’clock in the morning.

  “You will scarcely find any transport to get you home now,” said Mr. Portway. “Might I suggest that the only thing to follow a fine claret is a noble burgundy?”

  “Well—” I said.

  I was fully aware that I was compromising my official position, but it hardly seemed to matter. Actually, I think my mind had long since been made up. As dawn was breaking, and the Romanee Conti was sinking in the bottle, we agreed on provisional articles of partnership.

  The name of the firm is Portway and Gilbert of 7 Lombards Inn.

  If you are thinking, by any chance, of buying a house…

  Fin de Siècle

  William O’Farrell

  At seventy-two, Miss Alice Murchison still lived by the standards of conduct considered proper for girls of good family in the years immediately preceding and following the turn of the century. In effect, she was the same prim child: fragile, timid and incredibly innocent, blushing whenever the more worldly members of her budding generation teased her by humming “Alice Ben Bolt,” a song about a shy young lady who was given to bursting into tears at the slightest of provocations.

  This they had done on every possible occasion. It had been particularly painful because Miss Alice had loved the song and still did, favoring it even above “Glow, Little Glow Worm” and half a dozen others which she played correctly, with feeling indicated rather than expressed, on a harp which had been given her on her thirteenth birthday.

  The harp had now come to its final resting place in a corner of her immaculate living room in a rented house overlooking the sea in Southern California. Miss Alice, growing a little feeble, knew herself to be incapable of another major move. She wanted to be left in peace, and she carefully avoided any friction with her landlady, Mrs. Myra Lambert, who lived across the street.

  This was not always easy because Myra was figuratively a drowning woman. She floated precariously in a sea of apprehension and frustration, keeping her head above the surface by grabbing hold of anything—houses, mortgages, people, even empty Coca-Cola bottles—that, when and if it ever became necessary, could be turned into life-sustaining cash. She was a confirmed and energetic remodeler, one of those people who no sooner have a house built and the furniture suitably arranged than they must tear down walls and build again, cramming two rental units into a space formerly occupied by one.

  The house across the street had originally been a private residence. Its position on a hillside, however, had suggested the possibility of turning it into a duplex, one fairly large apartment above the other. Having done this, Myra had immediately seen another angle by which her income could be increased. She was now splitting the lower apartment in two, and the noise and litter attendant on construction had for months been fraying Miss Alice’s nerves. The very thought of complaining made her slightly ill but, if the situation continued, she would have to. And she was afraid of what might happen if she did.

  One morning in July, Miss Alice was having her tea and toast when the telephone rang. The instrument was at her side. She picked it up.

  The strident voice of her landlady crackled in her ear. “That you, Alice? Listen, dear—I’m at my place down in the canyon. The tenant’s moving out today, and he owes me twenty-eight dollars. Do me a favor, will you? Feed Antoine.”

  Antoine was Myra Lambert’s cat, a white Angora t
he size of a small goat, and with a goat’s malicious eyes. Miss Alice was afraid of him.

  “But Mrs. Lambert,” she said, “I don’t know where—”

  “Key’s in the window box and you’ll find plenty of tuna in the kitchen cupboard. Give him half a can and put the rest in the refrigerator.”

  “Well—”

  “Thanks, dear. Bye now,” Myra said.

  “Mrs. Lambert—” Miss Alice was gratified to hear the firmness that had come into her voice. “That pile of rubbish, old cement and boards—it’s most unsightly. I do wish you’d have it taken away.”

  “The sanitation people will pick it up.”

  “Oh, but they won’t! They collect garbage every Monday and Thursday, combustible materials every Tuesday, and cans every third Friday. They won’t touch cement. The man told me so.”

  “Did you offer him a tip?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Well, do that, dear. Give him a couple of dollars. He’ll probably pick it up a week from Friday.”

  “But in the meantime—” Miss Alice was unable to cope with the brazen suggestion that she pay to have her landlady’s trash carted away. Her firmness was fast evaporating.

  “Yes, dear?” Myra prompted.

  Miss Alice drew a long breath. “In the meantime, it’s on my lawn. Couldn’t you tell your man, that Joe something-or-other, to keep it on your side of the street?”

  “Well, you know Joe,” Myra said a little vaguely. “It’s hard to reason with him. If I were you, I’d just call the Department of Sanitation and take a firm stand.” A click broke the connection and after a moment Miss Alice hung up, too.

  She rose and went slowly to the door. She opened it and crossed the lawn to the street, averting her eyes from the litter on both sides of the sidewalk. The key to Myra Lambert’s house was in the window box, and Miss Alice unlocked the front door and entered a haphazardly furnished living room. There was no sign of Antoine. It wasn’t until she had entered the kitchen that the huge cat leaped unexpectedly through the open window and sat on the sink glaring at her with yellow, evil eyes. Miss Alice, who had stifled a scream at the animal’s sudden appearance, found her hands trembling so violently that she could hardly open the cupboard door.

  The inside of the cupboard was a mess. The only food she could find was tins and tins of tuna, and these had been jumbled in among cans of paint and fly spray, bottles of weed killer and various types of disinfectant. She washed a can opener and used it on a tin of tuna. Half of the fish she put on a plate and placed on the floor; the other half she put in the refrigerator. Then she left the house as quickly as she could.

  It was while she was returning the key to the window box that indignation began to build in her. Why, I’m being imposed upon. It isn’t fair! she thought. I pay Mrs. Lambert an exorbitant rental to be left alone, and she bullies me into doing things I don’t want to do!

  She paused to look over a waist-high wall at the construction under way in the downstairs apartment. Directly below where she stood, the roof of what had been a bedroom had been tom off; it was Myra Lambert’s intention to cement the floor, screen the room and make a lanai of it. Some of the bedroom furniture was still there and Miss Alice, looking straight down, saw a couch in its accustomed corner. Joe something-or-other was a slow worker; she estimated that he would be on the job at least another month. Thirty more days of Mrs. Lambert’s loud directing voice trying to outshout the roar of a cement mixer and all the other grating noises people make when they remodel houses that would have been better left alone. Miss Alice turned back toward her own house. Again, she saw the litter on her lawn.

  Joe had packed the broken cement and lumber into cardboard cartons, and it didn’t look too bad from Mrs. Lambert’s place. That made Miss Alice even more indignant. She stood for thirty seconds letting her anger grow—and then, without having reached a conscious decision to do so, she went to work. One minute she was standing by the wall above the roofless bedroom, the next she was on the far side of the street—her side—tugging at heavy cartons, dragging them away. She was panting heavily, but the last of the debris had been planted on her landlady’s lawn when a car driven by George Lambert, Mrs. Lambert’s divorced husband, stopped at the curb.

  “Seen Myra, Miss Murchison?”

  “She’s at the canyon house, Mr. Lambert. I just talked to her on the telephone.”

  “Thanks.” George Lambert slipped the gears of his old car into low and chugged away. He reflected on the curious laws of the State of California as he headed for the road that would take him down into the canyon.

  California is a community-property state with a difference. The difference lies in the stipulation that, if one of the parties to a marriage is proved guilty of adultery, all bets are off. The other, presumably injured, party is awarded all property formerly held in common. And in some cases, as in that of Myra’s suit against George, alimony as well. Laws like this, enacted with the noblest of intentions, like the Volstead Act often lead to disaster. Laid head to upturned feet, the trail of corpses that has been the result of this particular statute would stretch from Pershing Square to Forest Lawn.

  George swung his car into the canyon road and parked behind Myra’s white Cadillac which stood beside a well-remembered driveway gate. He had good reason to remember the gate. Under Myra’s personal supervision he had made and hung the thing himself. George had fought in two wars and been decorated five times; he was, or had been, an excellent businessman. His courage and hard-headedness—call it ruthlessness if you like—had been proved. But something had gone out of him when he had married Myra. He had slipped in stature, become a taker-of-orders, an unpaid servant, a silently resentful hanger of driveway gates. He sighed and got out of the car. Then he paused, hearing the voice of his ex-wife.

  It came brassily from the far side of the gate. She was talking to her tenant, a young man named Vince Terhune. “I’m disappointed, Vince. I never thought you’d try to run out on a debt. You owe me twenty-eight dollars for two months’ utilities.”

  “I don’t owe you a cent,” her tenant said. “You promised me thirty-five dollars for installing that shower bath. Well, you can forget the seven bucks I have coming. I just want out.”

  “Nothing’s holding you.” George could picture Myra’s shrug. “But I hope you won’t force me to attach your car.”

  “Try to find it.”

  There was a crackle of paper as Myra produced and read an address on Euclid Avenue. “Your new home. You paid a month’s rent yesterday. I’m sorry for you, Vince. I know your boss. He doesn’t approve of deadbeats.”

  “Okay, you win.” The young man sounded tired and desperate. “I’ll get the money somewhere. You’ll have it this afternoon.”

  “Fine. Two-thirty at my house? Joe and I have to cement the new lanai. And Vince—”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll feel ever so much better after you’ve paid me. Dishonesty only breeds unhappiness. We all get exactly what’s coming to us in this life.”

  “You have my sympathy, Myra, in that case,” he said.

  George opened the gate. Vince Terhune was climbing into his car. Only a few years before, Myra’s tenant had played tackle for U.C.L.A. and his nickname had been more than a sportswriter’s exercise in obvious alliteration. “Terrible” Terhune had plowed through three years of college football as destructively as a Sherman tank.

  But Myra had licked him. He looked at George and flushed, and quickly looked away. “Hi, George,” he said. Myra swung around.

  “What do you want, George?” she asked.

  He waited until Vince had backed out of the drive. “A man served me a paper. It says I owe you alimony for three months.”

  “True.”

  “How do you expect me to give you money when you’ve taken all the money I need to make money with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve got exactly two dollars and ten cents to my name.”

&nbs
p; She shrugged. “You realize it’s out of my hands, of course?”

  “I don’t realize anything of the kind. Give me a break, Myra. I need a chance to get back on my feet.’’

  Myra looked thoughtful. If George had not known her so well, he might have been fooled. But Myra never thought. She reacted to stimuli, that was all. She was a huskily built woman who once had had a certain peasant-like prettiness. But time and circumstances had worn it away, leaving the skeletal bones of her character exposed. Myra was convinced the world was out to skin her. She was determined to get her licks in first.

  “I’m sorry, George. The court awarded me a hundred dollars a month,” she said. “You shouldn’t ask me to ignore the decision of the court.”

  “So I owe you three hundred, and there’s another hundred due next week. How do you expect me to raise it?”

  “That’s your problem, dear. But I’m not unreasonable. Bring me half of it this afternoon, and I’ll let the balance ride a couple of days.”

  “Suppose I don’t? Suppose I can’t?”

  “What a silly question!” she said. “You know what the consequences would be.”

  George knew very well. “Myra, you’re a vicious, selfish woman.”

  “If you really knew me, George, you wouldn’t be so rude. It’s just that other people are always trying to take advantage of me. Don’t you try it, dear.” Myra’s eyes flicked past him. “I’ll be home about two-thirty. You’re late, Joe.”

  George turned to see Joe Cramm, Myra’s handyman, shuffling toward them. Joe was a lanky, cadaverous man who looked as though he’d been thrown together on a badly organized assembly line. He was subject to fits of garrulousness which alternated with moods of gloomy introspection, and this may have been one of the factors which once had saved him from a term in San Quentin for manslaughter. A kindly judge had committed him to a State hospital instead; and the end result was that, work being hard for him to find, he was willing to put in long hours for sub-standard pay. This made him, for Myra, the ideal employee.