The Black House by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page B

else I’d get a decent job.”
    They talked until late, getting nowhere, really. Peter left before Edmund did. Peter found that the memory of Edmund depressed him: a tall, hunched figure in limp clothes, looking at the floor as he strolled around Anita’s living room with a glass in his hand.
    Lucienne was home in bed reading when the telephone rang at one in the morning. It was Edmund, and he said he was going to get a divorce from Mag.
    â€œShe just walked out—just now,” Edmund said in a happy but a bit drunk-sounding voice. “Said she was going to stay in a hotel tonight. I don’t even know where.”
    Lucienne realized that he wanted a word of praise from her, or a congratulation. “Well, dear Edmund, it may be for the best. I hope it can all be settled smoothly. After all, you haven’t been married long.”
    â€œNo. I think I’m doing—I mean she’s doing—the right thing,” said Edmund heavily.
    Lucienne assured him that she thought so too.
    Now Edmund was going to look for another job. He didn’t think Mag would make any difficulties, financial or otherwise, about the divorce. “She’s a young woman w-who likes her privacy quite a bit. She’s surprisingly . . . independent , y’know?” Edmund hiccuped.
    Lucienne smiled, thinking any woman would want independence from Edmund. “We’ll all be wishing you luck, Edmund. And let us know if you think we can pull strings anywhere.”
    Charles Forbes and Julian Markus went to Edmund’s apartment one evening, to discuss business, Charles later said to Lucienne, as Charles had an idea of Edmund’s becoming a freelance accountant, and in fact Charles’ publishing house needed such a man now. They drank hardly anything, according to Charles, but they did stay up quite late. Edmund had been down in the dumps, and around midnight had lowered the scotch bottle by several inches.
    That was on a Thursday night, and by Tuesday morning, Edmund was dead. The cleaning woman had come in with her key and found him asleep in bed, she thought, at nine in the morning. She hadn’t realized until nearly noon, and then she had called the police. The police hadn’t been able to find Magda, and notifying anybody had been much delayed, so it was Wednesday evening before any of the group knew: Peter Tomlin saw an item in his own newspaper, and telephoned Lucienne.
    â€œA mixture of sleeping pills and alcohol, but they don’t suspect suicide,” Peter said.
    Neither did Lucienne suspect suicide. “What an end,” she said with a sigh. “Now what?” She was not at all shocked, but vaguely thinking about the others in their circle hearing the news, or reading it now.
    â€œWell—funeral service tomorrow in a Long Island—um—funeral home, it says.”
    Peter and Lucienne agreed they should go.
    The group of friends, Lucienne Gauss, Peter Tomlin, the Markuses, the Forbeses, Tom Strathmore, Anita Ketchum, were all there and formed at least a half of the small gathering. Maybe a few of Edmund’s relatives had come, but the group wasn’t sure: Edmund’s family lived in the Chicago area, and no one had ever met any of them. Magda was there, dressed in gray with a thin black veil. She stood apart, and barely nodded to Lucienne and the others. It was a nondenominational service to which Lucienne paid no attention, and she doubted if her friends did—except to recognize the words as empty rote and close their ears to it. Afterwards, Lucienne and Charles said they didn’t wish to follow the casket to the grave, and neither did the others.
    Anita’s mouth looked stony, though it was fixed in a pensive, very faint smile. Taxis waited, and they straggled towards them. Tom Strathmore walked with his head down. Charles Forbes looked up at the late summer sky. Charles walked between his wife, Ellen, and Lucienne, and suddenly he said to