King Coffin: A Novel

by Conrad Aiken

  There was no answer to his perfunctory knock at Toppan’s door, he stood for a moment looking at the visiting card, Julius Shaw Toppan, into which some one had inserted, with a carat, the pencilled name Diogenes: a reference to Toppan’s reputation for unmitigated honesty; then entered, switching on the light. A tray was on the piano bench, a half-filled bottle of gin, a bottle of ginger ale, two glasses. Toppan was expecting him. This was annoying, but it could be permitted to pass. He sat down in the swivel chair by the flat-topped mission desk, pulled out the middle drawer, and removed the loose-leaf diary. Beside it, in the drawer, lay five or six new letters, one of them in an unfamiliar handwriting and postmarked Chicago, these would be interesting, but they could wait. There was also a theater-ticket envelope, which he found contained two tickets for the ballet. Was he taking Gerta?

  “April 22. April 23. April 24. Chaste and epicene.

  “April 27. Am resolved in future to make this not so much a diary as a journal; but when I pause to reflect why I should make this decision I am not so sure whether in the future such a record would really be as interesting as a record of facts? More amusing to know, ten years from now, that today I walked round the Pond with Gerta, on her suggestion, and just as I imagined it was because she wanted to talk about the great Jasper. Not very flattering. Any fool could see she is in love with him. But why pick on me? Because she knows he interests me, which he does. She thinks he is behaving more queerly of late, but good God Almighty how could he? The people in this apartment house are frightened to death of him, those who don’t just hate his guts. And no wonder. Just the same, a part of his fascination for Gerta (and for me) is in the very fact that he knows he is fascinating and uses it so deliberately and conceitedly. You can’t help admiring the perfection of his technique. Gerta seemed to think he was changing. Said he was more “morose.” I confess I hadn’t noticed it, but maybe there’s something in it. I told her about his call the other night (Thursday) when he came in, walked once round the room, looking at each picture on the wall in turn, and then went out without a word. The trouble about that is, it’s hard to say whether he knows his behavior is odd or not. I give him credit for knowing that it is: Gerta says she isn’t so sure, and particularly just in the last month or two. I could see she was dying to ask me whether I thought he was insane or not, but I decided quite rightly to keep out of that mess and didn’t give her any help. Personally, I don’t think he is. I think it’s all a belated sort of adolescent pose, the business of playing genius. Especially when you consider all the esthetic stuff as well, the vague hints thrown out now and then of his mysterious “writings” and so on, which no one has ever seen and never will. My diagnosis is spoiled child, but that’s only half of it: more than any person I ever knew he has something like genius, but God knows what it is—the only way I can define it is to say that he is or has the appearance of being terribly concentrated. Not that that butters any parsnips. Or that it will help Gerta. I’d like to warn Gerta to clear out, but what business is it of mine? She’s free, white and twenty-one and prides herself on her independence, you can’t tell these Lucy Stoners anything.

  “April 28. Law Society, Hempy talking for an hour on torts, sheer waste of time, I could have done it better myself—

  “April 29. Queer mixup with Ammen about tea. He left a note in my box, asking me, I scribbled an answer on the back of it and put it into his, a little later I found it in my box again and thinking it a mistake put it back into his, and this happened twice more. I began to be a little mad about it. And when I went to his room at half past four he wasn’t in. God deliver me from these geniuses. I feel sorry for them. Signet for lunch, and Peters brought——

  “April 30.… what Gerta said. I can’t make out Gerta. Of course I don’t suppose she is quite what they call a lady, she’s knocked around a little, she’s not one of that Beacon Hill crowd for nothing. But you feel that what the others do because they’re unprincipled, she does because of an idea. You can’t help respecting her—and you can’t help feeling sorry for her either, especially this attachment of hers for J—good God what a burden that must be. Bad luck that she should have attached herself to him, who so obviously cares only for himself.… Sandbach came in for a minute and said J was resigning from the little anarchist group and making an unnecessary amount of stink about it. Wanted to know if I knew what was behind it. I told him J hadn’t discussed it with me and wasn’t likely to. Sandbach says he is behaving very queerly about it. It’s certainly damned funny how his peculiarities and oddities lend a curious sort of importance to his actions—whatever the reason may be he keeps every one interested, not to say angry. Maybe because you never know which way he’ll jump. Which of course is one of the difficulties of dealing with a deliberate egoist. And he has brains.”

  And he has brains.

  Ten-thirty-five.

  He returned the diary to its drawer, had a look at the Chicago letter, which turned out to be merely a business note with regard to the sale of a stamp collection, with reference also to a mandolin (apparently a former roommate at school in Connecticut), then went to the open window and filled and lit his pipe. Toppan was intelligent, but not intelligent enough—he could easily be kept at the right distance, he was also sufficiently good company, and his own peculiarities were themselves sufficiently interesting. That business of the safety-razor blades, for instance, and the episode of the girl’s hair at Mechanic’s Hall after the relay race. It had been put down as an aberration due to overwork and overtraining, but the fact remained that Toppan had always been fooling with knives and razor blades and scissors, always carried them round with him and was obviously in some abnormal way fascinated by them. It was a weak spot, one could exert pressure upon it, the odd thing was that Toppan had weathered the business without a further or deeper collapse of some sort.

  The difficulties of dealing with a delicate egoist. Insane?

  He was looking closely at the color print of the Chinese painting, Lychees and Birds, which of course Toppan had bought in sedulous imitation of his own taste for Chinese art, when Toppan came in. As usual he blushed: the signal of inferiority: as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He said, putting a book down beside the tray:

  —I hoped you would be here.

  —Why do you always blush?

  Toppan gave an uneasy laugh, the blush deepening into the roots of his reddish hair, and it was also noticeable that his hand trembled as he held a match for his cigarette, but in spite of this he looked back steadily enough, the blue eyes timid but sharp behind rimless round glasses.

  —Ah, that’s my innocence. Have a drink?

  —No, thanks. You’ve been talking to Gerta, haven’t you.

  —How did you know.

  —I saw her tonight.

  —Yes.

  —That’s all right, it’s your own affair, but I want to say that I’m quite satisfied with things as they are and don’t want any complications of an accidental or external nature. Do you see what I mean.

  —Certainly.

  —I’ve got a project of a very important and private sort which I don’t want jeopardized. I can’t discuss it with you now, I may later.

  —I see.

  Toppan, standing sideways, said this into the glass as he poured himself a drink: he was very self-conscious in his obvious attempt to make it apparent that he was intelligent, that he understood. He was perhaps a little frightened.

  —Gerta doesn’t mean to be disloyal and it might not matter if she were, but her present situation is difficult, she may be tempted to ask questions, and I think it advisable that they shouldn’t be answered. I’m not asking a favor—I’m merely putting a choice before you. You can do as you like.

  He smiled a little, watching the shape of Toppan’s decision, watching Toppan’s desire for importance in Jasper Ammen’s eyes rise delightedly to the surface. He was as easy to handle as Gerta, and as translucent, there was even something to be said for making Toppan the victi
m, for then it would be possible to watch the record of the “closing in” in the diary, an extra turn of the screw. But no, this would sacrifice the notion of purity——

  —Also I want to put a supposititious case before you. It was suggested by your passion for pure detection, detection for the sake of detection——

  —Oh, I wouldn’t say it was a passion——

  —what is valuable in such an experience is the unsuspected mastery of another person’s life: you know all about him, while he doesn’t even guess your existence, much less that you are following him. Suppose you pushed it to its logical extreme, and took his life. That’s all right, it’s quite understandable if you had a contempt, like the Orientals, for the value of human life, it might for people like you and me be actually an essential accomplishment on the way to becoming completely realized. I’m not discussing that, we can take it for granted, we both agree about it. Beyond values and so on.

  He directed at Toppan a look of deliberate openness, and paused. He wanted to feel the edges of what he had just said, to feel quite sure of its shape and direction, its weight and its speed, and he wanted also to give Toppan plenty of time for a flurried conjecture that it was now precisely the secret “project” which was being discussed. It was to be dangled before him just like that, dangled but not defined or named or admitted. He would be allowed to draw his own breathless conclusions and then, in turn, to doubt them. Toppan took a sip of his drink and put down the glass very guardedly, his hand remained on the glass, with his forefinger he was tapping the rim reflectively, he had nothing to say; the situation had already become too precarious for him. He was simply waiting.

  —All right. Now suppose it was you who decided to do this, suppose you picked out some one, me or Sandbach or Gottlieb or Taber, and began planning your murder.

  He stood still, with his back to the open window, looking downward at Toppan. The quarter bells of Saint Paul’s Church began their melodious and lazy cycle in the still air, then the hour was struck, and before it was quite finished Memorial Hall began striking on the same tone, but farther away. Eleven o’clock. He listened intently till the last note had sounded, waited for the neutral returning silence to lift them once more into isolation, then pointed with his pipestem for emphasis.

  —Suppose you decide there is a sublime rightness in the idea, that it is true to yourself and to nature, a deep principle vested in you and nature, as natural as being born, or eating, or loving: you might even say it is a profound obligation if you are to become complete, and just as inevitable as exploitation—exploitation is the natural order of things. To injure or destroy is natural, it’s life itself: to deny that is to deny life. Well, you know it’s right, and I know it’s right, but society won’t agree with us, will it? Consequently what? Consequently what ought to be a public action, and done openly, has to be private or secret: unless you make up your mind to go the whole hog and do it openly and take the social consequences. That’s the way it ought to be, to be perfect, it ought to take place in sunlight.

  He narrowed his eyes as he stared at Toppan, and Toppan narrowed his own a little in answer, but made no reply beyond a slight nod. A mere reflex, a mere automatism, he was hardly listening, or at any rate not listening intelligently, he had simply become a fascinated mirror.

  —All right, suppose for whatever reasons you decide that your action has to be secret, even though this takes away some of its virtue: you pick out your victim and you make your plans; but then it occurs to you that although you can’t tell every one about it, and do it with nobility, you can at least tell one or two trusted persons. Can’t you?

  —I suppose you could.

  —You suppose you could. Suppose then you decided to tell me. In that case do I become an accessory before the fact, and am I criminally liable if you are caught?

  —Certainly. That is, if I gave you away. But if you kept your mouth shut——

  —It would be to my interest to keep my mouth shut.

  —Good God, yes. But why——

  —That’s all I wanted to know. I’m thinking of writing a story about it. I’ve even got the title for it—King Coffin.

  —King Coffin. That’s a swell title. Real up-to-the-hilt nihilism.

  —Not at all.

  —I don’t get you, then.

  —It’s just life, it’s just hatred. The essential thing in life is hate!

  He put his pipe quickly into his pocket, walked to the door without looking again at Toppan, and as he let himself out said without turning——

  —Bear in mind what I said about Gerta.

  Toppan’s uneasy “of course” was cut off by the closing door, and the sound of his chair being pushed back, he had been interrupted in the very middle of his unhappy vision, he would now have time to pace to and fro in his empty room and to allow, in the silence, the nocturnal conjecture to pile itself to heaven in all its true horror. It was already beginning, the smaller shadows were grouping themselves about his feet and in the corners, the crazy shape was hinting itself first here and then there, and horribly against his will it would curse his sleep.

  So much for Toppan, the seed of the vision had been securely planted, but what about his own vision?

  Noiselessly and swiftly, and with a queer kind of exultation, he took the stairs three steps at a time, the vision grew like a tree, the immense whirl was once more above him, the sense of speed and hurry returned, it was almost as if something threatened to stop his breathing. But he must take it calmly, the thing must be thought out with precision: the tempo must be slowed down. The vision was all right, but it must not become too possessive or emotional; calculated or uncalculated, there must be an interruption. At the bend of the corridor, in the shadow beside the professor’s door, the professor’s cat was sitting, it watched his approach without moving, looked up at him when he paused, rose and arched its back when he spoke to it.

  —Little cat, you can be the interruption. Come in.

  He opened his door and stood aside. The cat preceded him into the room, advanced into the center of the rug with cautious dignity, and sat down, looking towards the window. The spiked seashell on the window sill was white and sharp against the darkness outside, the little glass bird cage sparkled, in the stillness of the room he could hear the voices of two students from Plympton Street below.

  —All right, start her up.

  —Wait till I get this thing under the back here——

  —Well, go ahead——

  As the self-starter began its rhythmic skirling he sat by the red table and drew towards him a sheet of paper and a silver pencil. On the paper in a straight small column he wrote quickly the names Toppan, Gerta, Sandbach, Taber, Gottlieb. But no—no! At once he drew a precise line through each name in turn, crumpled the paper into a ball, and rolled it along the floor to the cat, who, with a neat hook of the paw, skittled it under the table.

  The terribleness of the deed must be kept pure: the problem had become a problem in art-form.

  V But Perhaps a Stranger

  The Angelus was striking in the campanile of Saint Paul’s as he turned off the shower, the three urgent bells, and three others after a pause, and three more, and then the rapid complexion of the nine, as if the bell ringer had triumphantly added his significant sum; eight o’clock; no doubt some pious sort of hugger mugger was going on there at this minute, fellows in white surplices—or was it chasubles—shaking mysterious cocktails over a kind of holy bar, or waving red lanterns up and down; and all for the benefit of a few housemaids and nursemaids. It might be a good thing to go there: to drop in on the way to breakfast, stand at the back for a moment, look over the little audience, or even observe more particularly, and for a particular purpose. He stepped out of the pools of water which his feet had left on the oilcloth floor, slid into the red slippers, then leaned from the little window. Clouds and a wind, the skylight was gray, he could hear the humming. Looking downward, he could see into the bathroom of the apartment on the floor be
low: the fair-haired girl, Mrs. Finden, was leaning against the wash-bowl, naked, her hands thrust forward into the water. Her husband came and stood beside her, rested for a moment one hand on her hip, squeezed it, then took some small object from the shelf and disappeared.

  It was like that, of course; it ought to be just like that. The unknown eye from above, the God’s eye view, the death ray directed downward when least suspected. Like The Crimson editor on the roof, Mrs. Finden was now dead without knowing it; the thing was completely pure, completely motiveless: the anonymous tree stump had been struck by anonymous lightning. He watched Mrs. Finden dry her hands and arms, she turned her head to say something over her shoulder while still manipulating the blue towel, the muscles of her small upper arms trembling slightly, then she picked up two rings from the marble slab, slid them on to the fourth finger of her left hand, and vanished. Finden was laughing at something, then after a moment the bath was turned on, a masculine arm reached up and closed the ground-glass window.

  In his own room, the curtain still lowered, he ran it up and let go of the cord so that it flapped round and round. Clouds and a wind. The man at the window of the room in Fairfax, a block away, was there as usual, in his B.V.D.’s, as close to the window as he could get, holding a mirror in his hand to preen himself. He stooped slightly, turned the mirror this way and that to get a better light, then put something that looked like a nightcap over his hair and went away for a moment only to return and resume his peculiar occupation. This too. The same thing. A dead man.

  Yes: but these were a little too close, too immediate, to put one’s hand on them was too easy. What was wanted——