MYSTERY OF A COFFIN.

Western Star, 11 September 1923, Page 4

MYSTERY OF A COFFIN.

THE VANMAN TALKS

On an empty case, a succession of sandwiches disappearing from his hand, the pantechnicon man talked during the lunch hour, whilst those whom he moved in more senses than one stood and listened. He told us of the house where the wonderful contents were merely faked from tsticks, cretonne, and stamped paper—of tlie House of mummied cats—of the queer goods that were shifted from the abode of a deceased hangman, and of others.

The queerest job I ever had to do (said he) was that from a house in Paddington.. Now, there was something fishy about the people from the very start, for they paid for the job before it was started 'on, adding ten bob over for drinks, asking the boss to put a clapper on our tongues so that no one would know where they were going;.

Well, while the boys were busy backing in and getting ready, I had a look over the place. The usual class of goods were there, till I got to the front room on the second floor, and there I came bang on the shock of my life, for, on trchtl&s, bound up with cords at top and bottom, was a long black coffin. Immediately it came to me why the people were so generous with drinks and their desire for secrecy, for I was sure that evil work had been done. My common sense told me that.

I backed from the room pretty quick, I can tell you, and shut the dcor as quietly as I could. Suddenly an old woman appeared fromi nowhere, grabbed me by the arm, and, in a screaming voice, asked me what I was doing in her room. I answered her quickly enough.

" Police business! " I cried, sharply, insinuatingly. "Wet out!" she returned, hastily. "No, you don't," I shouted, grabbing her now, "what have you got in that coffin, you devil ? " The old creature laughed in my face. '' Come and see," says she.

I hesitated, but sho managed to scramble us both into the and, quite helpless, I watched her undo the cords, fumble about, and finally fling open the lid of the coffin. "There!" cried she, with another

laugh. I looked, and saw that the coffin was divided into compartments—one for groceries, one for cooking utensils, one for odd rags, needier, and thread. " It's useful now," said the old woman, shaking her fist, " and when I'm dead I won't be beholden to that dog of a son-in-law of mine for a box to sleep in! "