The Black House

by Patricia Highsmith

  “Maybe he deserves Magda,” Anita said, and the others laughed.

  “Maybe he doesn’t like us either,” said Peter.

  “Oh, but he does,” Lucienne said. “Remember, Charles, how pleased he was when—we sort of accepted him—at that first dinner party I asked Edmund and Lillian to here at my place. One of my birthday dinners, I remember. Edmund and Lillian were beaming because they’d been admitted to our charmed circle.” Lucienne’s laugh was disparaging of their circle and also of Edmund.

  “Yes, Edmund did try,” said Charles.

  “His clothes are so boring even,” Anita said.

  “True. Can’t some of you men give him a hint? You, Julian.” Lucienne glanced at Julian’s crisp cotton suit. “You’re always so dapper.”

  “Me?” Julian settled his jacket on his shoulders. “I frankly think men pay more attention to what women say. Why should I say anything to him?”

  “Magda told me Edmund wants to buy a car,” said Ellen.

  “Does he drive?” Peter asked.

  “May I, Lucienne?” Tom Strathmore reached for the scotch bottle which stood on a tray. “Maybe what Edmund needs is to get thoroughly soused one night. Then Magda might even leave him.”

  “Hey, we’ve just invited the Quasthoffs for dinner at our place Friday night,” Charles announced. “Maybe Edmund can get soused. Who else wants to come?—Lucienne?”

  Anticipating boredom, Lucienne hesitated. But it might not be boring. “Why not? Thank you, Charles—and Ellen.”

  Peter Tomlin couldn’t make it because of a Friday night deadline. Anita said she would love to come. Tom Strathmore was free, but not the Markuses, because it was Julian’s mother’s birthday.

  It was a memorable party in the Forbeses’ big kitchen which served as dining room. Magda had not been to the penthouse apartment before. She politely looked at the Forbeses’ rather good collection of framed drawings by contemporary artists, but seemed afraid to make a comment. Magda was on her best behavior, while the others as if by unspoken agreement were unusually informal and jolly. Part of this, Lucienne realized, was meant to shut Magda out of their happy old circle, and to mock her stiff decorum, though in fact everyone went out of his or her way to try and get Edmund and Magda to join in the fun. One form that this took, Lucienne observed, was Charles’s pouring gin into Edmund’s tonic glass with a rather free hand. At the table, Ellen did the same with the wine. It was especially good wine, a vintage Margaux that went superbly with the hot-oil-cooked steak morsels which they all dipped into a pot in the center of the round table. There was hot, buttery garlic bread, and paper napkins on which to wipe greasy fingers.

  “Come on, you’re not working tomorrow,” Tom said genially, replenishing Edmund’s wine glass.

  “I—yam working tomorrow,” Edmund replied, smiling. “Always do. Have to on Saturdays.”

  Magda was giving Edmund a fixed stare, which he missed, because his eyes were not straying her way.

  After dinner, they adjourned to the long sun parlor which had a terrace beyond it. With the coffee those who wanted it had a choice of Drambuie, Bénédictine or brandy. Edmund had a sweet tooth, Lucienne knew, and she noticed that Charles had no difficulty in persuading Edmund to accept a snifter of Drambuie. Then they played darts.

  “Darts’re as far as I’ll go toward exercising,” said Charles, winding up. His first shot was a bull’s-eye.

  The others took their turns, and Ellen kept score.

  Edmund wound up awkwardly, trying to look amusing, they all knew, though still making an effort to aim right. Edmund was anything but limber and coordinated. His first shot hit the wall three feet away from the board, and since it hit sideways, it pierced nothing and fell to the floor. So did Edmund, having twisted somehow on his left foot and lost his balance.

  Cries of “Bravo!” and merry laughter.

  Peter extended a hand and hauled Edmund up. “Hurt yourself?”

  Edmund looked shocked and was not laughing when he stood up. He straightened his jacket. “I don’t think—I have the definite feeling—” His eyes glanced about, but rather swimmily, while the others waited, listening. “I have the feeling I’m not exactly well liked here—so I—”

  “Oh-h, Edmund!” said Lucienne.

  “What’re you talking about, Edmund?” asked Ellen.

  A Drambuie was pressed into Edmund’s hand, despite the fact that Magda tried gently to restrain the hand that offered it. Edmund was soothed, but not much. The darts game continued. Edmund was sober enough to realize that he shouldn’t make an ass of himself by walking out at once in a huff, yet he was drunk enough to reveal his gut feeling, fuzzy as it might be to him just then, that the people around him were not his true friends any more, that they really didn’t like him. Magda persuaded him to drink more coffee.

  The Quasthoffs took their leave some fifteen minutes later.

  There was an immediate sense of relief among all.

  “She is the end, let’s face it,” said Anita, and flung a dart.

  “Well, we got him soused,” said Tom Strathmore. “So it’s possible.”

  Somehow they had all tasted blood on seeing Edmund comically sprawled on the floor.

  Lucienne that night, having had more to drink than usual, mainly in the form of two good brandies after dinner, telephoned Edmund at four in the morning with an idea of asking him how he was. She knew she was calling him also in order to disturb his sleep. After five rings, when Edmund answered in a sleepy voice, Lucienne found she could not say anything.

  “Hello?—Hello? Qu-Quasthoff here . . .”

  When she awakened in the morning, the world looked somehow different—sharper edged and more exciting. It was not the slight nervousness that might have been caused by a hangover. In fact Lucienne felt very well after her usual breakfast of orange juice, English tea and toast, and she painted well for two hours. She realized that she was busy detesting Edmund Quasthoff. Ludicrous, but there it was. And how many of her friends were feeling the same way about Edmund today?

  The telephone rang just after noon, and it was Anita Ketchum. “I hope I’m not interrupting you in the middle of a masterstroke.”

  “No, no! What’s up?”

  “Well—Ellen called me this morning to tell me Edmund’s birthday party is off.”

  “I didn’t know any was on.”

  Anita explained. Magda last evening had invited Charles and Ellen to a birthday dinner party for Edmund at her and Edmund’s apartment nine days from now, and had told Ellen she would invite “everybody” plus some friends of hers whom everybody might not have met yet, because it would be a stand-up buffet affair. Then this morning, without any explanation such as that Edmund or she were ill with a lingering ailment, Magda had said she had “decided against” a party, she was sorry.

  “Maybe afraid of Edmund’s getting pissed again,” Lucienne said, but she knew that wasn’t the whole answer.

  “I’m sure she thinks we don’t like her—or Edmund much—which unfortunately is true.”

  “What can we do?” asked Lucienne, feigning chagrin.

  “Social outcasts, aren’t we? Hah-hah. Got to sign off now, Lucienne, because someone’s waiting.”

  The little contretemps of the canceled party seemed both hostile and silly to Lucienne, and the whole group got wind of it within a day or so, even though they all might not as yet have been invited.

  “We can also invite and disinvite,” chuckled Julian Markus on the telephone to Lucienne. “What a childish trick—with no excuse such as a business trip.”

  “No excuse, no. Well, I’ll think of something funny, Julian dear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A little smack back at them. Don’t you think they deserve it?”

  “Yes, my dear.”

 
Lucienne’s first idea was simple. She and Tom Strathmore would invite Edmund out for lunch on his birthday, and get him so drunk he would be in no condition to return to his office that afternoon. Tom was agreeable. And Edmund sounded grateful when Lucienne rang him up and extended the invitation, without mentioning Magda’s name.

  Lucienne booked a table at a rather expensive French restaurant in the East 60s. She and Tom and three dry martinis were waiting when Edmund arrived, smiling tentatively, but plainly glad to see his old friends again at a small table. They chatted amiably. Lucienne managed to pay some compliments in regard to Magda.

  “She has a certain dignity,” said Lucienne.

  “I wish she weren’t so shy,” Edmund responded at once. “I try to pull her out of it.”

  Another round. Lucienne delayed the ordering by having to make a telephone call at a moment when Tom was able to order a third round to fill the time until Lucienne got back. Then they ordered their meal, with white wine to be followed by a red. On the first glass of white, Tom and Lucienne sang a soft chorus of “Happy Birthday to You” to Edmund as they lifted their glasses. Lucienne had rung Anita, who worked only three blocks away, and Anita joined them when the lunch ended just after three with a Drambuie for Edmund, though Lucienne and Tom abstained. Edmund kept murmuring something about a three o’clock appointment, which maybe would be all right for him to miss, because it really wasn’t a top-level appointment. Anita and the others told him it would surely be excusable on his birthday.

  “I’ve just got half an hour,” Anita said as they went out of the restaurant together, Anita having partaken of nothing, “but I did want to see you on this special day, Edmund old thing. I insist on inviting you for a drink or a beer.”

  The others kissed Edmund’s cheek and left, then Anita steered Edmund across the street into a corner bar with a fancy decor that tried to be an old Irish pub. Edmund fairly fell into his chair, having nearly slipped a moment before on sawdust. It was a wonder he was served, Anita thought, but hers was a sober presence, and they were served. From this bar, Anita rang Peter Tomlin and explained the situation, which Peter found funny, and Peter agreed to come and take over for a few minutes. Peter arrived. Edmund had a second beer, and insisted upon a coffee, which was ordered, but the combination seemed to make him sick. Anita had left minutes before. Peter waited patiently, prattling nonsense to Edmund, wondering if Edmund was going to throw up or slip under the table.

  “Mag’s got people coming at six,” Edmund mumbled. “Gotta be home—little before—or else.” He tried in vain to read his watch.

  “Mag you call her? . . . Finish your beer, chum.” Peter lifted his first glass of beer, which was nearly drained. “Bottoms up and many happy returns!”

  They emptied their glasses.

  Peter delivered Edmund to his apartment door at 6:25 and ran. A cocktail party was in swing chez Magda and Edmund, Peter could tell from the hum of voices behind the closed door. Edmund had been talking about his “boss” being present, and a couple of important clients. Peter smiled to himself as he rode down in the elevator. He went home, put in a good report to Lucienne, made himself some instant coffee, and got back to his typewriter. Comical, yes! Poor old Edmund! But it was Magda who amused Peter the more. Magda was the stuffy one, their real target, Peter thought.

  Peter Tomlin was to change his opinion about that in less than a fortnight. He watched with some surprise and gathering alarm as the attack, led by Lucienne and to a lesser extent Anita, focused on Edmund. Ten days after the sousing of Edmund, Peter looked in one evening at the Markuses’ apartment—just to return a couple of books he had borrowed—and found both smirking over Edmund’s latest mishap. Edmund had lost his job at Babcock and Holt and was now in the Payne-Whitney for drying out.

  “What?” Peter said. “I hadn’t heard a word!”

  “We just found out today,” said Frieda. “Lucienne called me up. She said she tried to call Edmund at his office this morning, and they said he was absent on leave, but she insisted on finding out where he was—said it concerned an emergency in his family, you know how good she is at things like that. So they told her he was in the Payne-Whitney, and she phoned there and talked with Edmund personally. He also had an accident with his car, he said, but luckily he didn’t hurt himself or anyone else.”

  “Holy cow,” said Peter.

  “He always had a fondness for the bottle, you know,” Julian said, “and a thimble-belly to go with it. He really had to go on the wagon five or six years ago, wasn’t it, Frieda? Maybe you didn’t know Edmund then, Peter. Well, he did, but it didn’t last long. Then it got worse when Lillian walked out. But now this job—”

  Frieda Markus giggled. “This job!—Lucienne didn’t help and you know it. She invited Edmund to her place a couple of times and plied him. Made him talk about his troubles with Mag.”

  Troubles. Peter felt a twinge of dislike for Edmund for talking about his “troubles” after only three months or so of marriage. Didn’t everyone have troubles? Did people have to bore their friends with them? “Maybe he deserved it,” Peter murmured.

  “In a way, yes,” Julian said forcefully, and reached for a cigarette. Julian’s aggressive attitude implied that the anti-Edmund campaign wasn’t over. “He’s weak,” Julian added.

  Peter thanked Julian for the loan of the two books, and took his leave. Again he had work to do in the evening, so he couldn’t linger for a drink. At home, Peter hesitated between calling Lucienne or Anita, decided on Lucienne, but she didn’t answer, so he tried Anita. Anita was home and Lucienne was there. Both spoke with Peter, and both sounded merry. Peter asked Lucienne about Edmund.

  “Oh, he’ll be sprung in another week or so, he said. But he won’t be quite the same man, I think, when he comes out.”

  “How do you mean that?”

  “Well, he’s lost his job and this story isn’t going to make it easier for him to get another one. He’s probably lost Magda too, because Edmund told me she’d leave him if they didn’t move out of New York.”

  “So . . . maybe they will move,” said Peter. “He told you he’d definitely lost his job?”

  “Oh yes. They call it a leave of absence at his office, but Edmund admitted they’re not taking him back.” Lucienne gave a short, shrill laugh. “Just as well they do move out of New York. Magda hates us, you know. And frankly Edmund never was one of us—so in a way it’s understandable.”

  Was it understandable, Peter wondered as he got down to his own work. There was something vicious about the whole thing, and he’d been vicious plying Edmund with beers that day. The curious thing was that Peter felt no compassion for Edmund.

  One might have thought that the group would leave Edmund alone, at least, even make some effort to cheer him up (without drinks) when he got out of the Payne-Whitney, but it was just the opposite, Peter observed. Anita Ketchum invited Edmund for a quiet dinner at her apartment, and asked Peter to come too. She did not ply him with drink, though Edmund had at least three on his own. Edmund was morose, and Anita did not make his mood any better by talking against Magda. She fairly said that Edmund could and should do better than Magda, and that he ought to try as soon as possible. Peter had to concur here.

  “She doesn’t seem to make you very happy, Ed,” Peter remarked in a man-to-man way, “and now I hear she wants you to move out of New York.”

  “That’s true,” Edmund said, “and I dunno where 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.

  “Sh
e 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.”

  “No. 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.

  “A 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.