The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith Page A

bookcase. He could see her brownish blue eyes in the dim light: they were smiling as if she adored him. “Maybe I’ll never get it straight. I told you I liked disorder.”
    He walked slowly towards her. “I’ll call you.”
    â€œNice of you,” she said.
    Smiling, he took her by the wrist and pulled her towards him. They kissed, and he could have started all over again, but he opened the door. “Good night,” he said, and went out. Going down the stairs, his body felt loose-jointed and young, as if every cell in it had somehow changed. He was smiling.
    He woke Clara up as he went into the bedroom.
    â€œWhere’ve you been?” she asked sleepily.
    â€œDrinking. With Bill Ireton.” He didn’t care if she found out he hadn’t been with Bill. He didn’t care if she found out he had been with Ellie.
    Clara evidently went back to sleep, because she did not say anything more.
    Walter called Ellie on Monday morning and asked if she could have dinner with him. He was going to tell Clara that he had a date with Jon in New York. He was not going to go home after work. But Ellie said that she had to practice her violin all that evening, absolutely had to, because of a new group of music appreciation selections for her class. Walter thought she sounded very cool. He felt that she had decided to break it off, and perhaps would never agree to see him again at all.
    During his lunch hour on Monday Walter went into the Public Library and looked up the Kimmel story in the Newark newspaper for August. There was a picture of the body on the scene. The woman looked stocky and dark, but the face was averted and he could see very little except a bloodstained light dress, half covered with a blanket. He was most curious as to Kimmel’s alibi. He found only one statement, repeated in various ways: “Melchior Kimmel stated that he was in Newark on the night of the crime, and had attended a movie from 8 to 10 p.m.” Walter assumed that he had a witness to substantiate it and that it had never been challenged.
    But neither had the murderer ever been found. Walter looked over the Newark papers for several days following the murder. There were no further clues. Walter left the library feeling frustrated and rather angry.

11
    â€œI’ ve got to see you,” Walter said. “Even if it’s just a few minutes.”
    Ellie finally agreed.
    Walter hurried to Lennert. It was only seven o’clock. Clara was out for dinner with the Philpotts, Claudia had told him. He hoped Ellie was free the whole evening. He heard her violin from the sidewalk below the house. He waited until she had played a phrase over three times, rang the bell, and heard her strike a loud chord. The release bell buzzed.
    She was standing in the doorway of her apartment again.
    He started to kiss her, but she said: “Do you mind if we go out?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    The apartment had completely changed: there was a rose-colored rug on the floor, some pictures were up, and the books were in the bookshelf. Only the stack of music books, still topped by Scarlatti, remained to remind him of the other evening. She came back from the closet with her coat.
    He decided to take her to the Old Millhouse Inn, near Huntington, because he was not likely to see anyone he knew there. In the car she talked about her school. Walter felt she was worlds away from him, that she had not missed him at all.
    They ordered martinis at their table. Walter would have preferred to drink in the more secluded bar, but the bar was taken over by a noisy group of men, either a club meeting or a stag party, carousing so loudly they could hear them from where they sat. Ellie had stopped talking. She seemed shy with him.
    â€œI love you, Ellie,” he said.
    â€œNo, you don’t. I love you.”
    It hit him right in the heart, a sweet pain like an adolescent’s. “Why do you say I