Ripley Under Ground

by Patricia Highsmith

  “All right.” Bernard’s face was a pale olive color. He did not look at Tom. His lips had a firm line, like lips that seldom smiled or spoke—and now his mouth looked disappointed.

  He looked betrayed, Tom thought. “I’ll take care of your shoes, too.” Tom picked them up.

  In his bathroom—his room door and bathroom door closed now, against Chris, possibly—Tom washed his own raincoat, and sponged Bernard’s suit. He rinsed Bernard’s desert boots and put them on a newspaper near the radiator in the loo. Mme. Annette, though she brought his coffee and did his bed, did not go into his bathroom except perhaps once a week to give it a tidying, and the serious cleaning woman, a Mme. Clusot, came once a week and was due today, in the afternoon.

  At last, Tom took care of his own hands, which were not as bad as they felt. He put Nivea on them. In a curious way, he felt that he had dreamed the last hour or so—gone through the motions of it somewhere, which had made his hands sore—and that what had happened was not real.

  The telephone gave an annunciatory ping. Tom leapt for it, catching it midway in its peal, which seemed shockingly loud.

  It was nearly 3 a.m.

  Beep-beep . . . burr-r-r-r . . . dup-dup-dup . . . beep?

  Submarine sounds. Where was this call coming from?

  “Vous êtes . . . ne quittez pas . . . Athènes vous appelle . . .”

  Heloise.

  “’Ello, Tome! . . . Tome!”

  That was all Tom could understand for a maddening several seconds. “Can you talk louder?” he said in French.

  Heloise was telling him, he barely gathered, that she was unhappy and bored, terriblement ennuyée. Something else, maybe someone, was absolutely disgusting also.

  “. . . this woman who is called Norita . . .” Lolita?

  “Come home, darling! I miss you!” Tom yelled in English. “To hell with those stinks!”

  “I don’t know what I should do.” This came clearly. “I was trying since two hours to reach you. Even the telephone does not work here.”

  “It’s not supposed to work anywhere. It’s just a device to extort money.” Tom was pleased to hear her laugh a little—like a siren laughing beneath the sea.

  “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I love you!”

  Just as audibility was improving, they were cut off. Tom was sure Heloise had not hung up.

  The telephone did not ring again. It was 5 a.m. in Greece, Tom supposed. Had Heloise rung from an Athens hotel? From that crazy yacht? He wanted very much to see her. He had grown used to her, and he missed her. Was that loving someone? Or marriage? But he wanted to clear away the present debris first. Heloise was rather amoral, but she would not be able to take all this. And of course she knew nothing about the Derwatt forgeries.

  13

  Tom awakened groggily at Mme. Annette’s tap at his door. She brought his cup of black coffee.

  “Good morning, M. Tome! It’s a beautiful day today!”

  The sun was indeed shining, a fantastic change from yesterday. Tom sipped his coffee, letting its black magic creep through him, then he got up and dressed.

  Tom knocked on Chris’s door. There was still time to catch the 9:52 train.

  Chris was in bed with a large map spread against his knees. “I decided to take the eleven thirty-two—if it’s all right. I so enjoy loafing in bed like this for a few minutes.”

  “Sure it’s all right,” Tom said. “You should’ve asked Mme. Annette to bring you some coffee.”

  “Oh, that’s too much.” Chris sprang out of bed. “I thought I’d take a quick walk.”

  “Okay. See you later, then.”

  Tom went downstairs. He reheated the coffee and poured another cup in the kitchen and stood looking out the window, sipping it. He saw Chris walking from the house, opening the big gates. He turned left in the direction of the town. He was probably going to pick up a café au lait and a croissant in a bar-café, French style.

  Evidently Bernard was still sleeping, which was all to the good.

  At ten past nine, the telephone rang. An English voice spoke carefully: “This is Detective-Inspector Webster, London Metropolitan Police. Is Mr. Ripley there?”

  Was this the theme song of his existence? “Yes, speaking.”

  “I’m ringing from Orly. I’d like very much to see you this morning, if possible.”

  Tom wanted to say that this afternoon would be more convenient, but his usual boldness was not with him just then, and he felt, too, that the inspector might suspect he would spend the morning trying to hide something. “This morning would be quite all right. Are you coming by train?”

  “I thought I’d take a taxi,” the voice said casually. “It doesn’t seem all that far. How long should it take by taxi?”

  “About an hour.”

  “I’ll see you in about an hour then.”

  Chris would still be here. Tom poured another cup of coffee and took it up for Bernard. He would have preferred to keep Bernard’s presence a secret from Inspector Webster, but under the circumstances, and also not knowing what Chris might blurt out, Tom thought it wisest not to try to conceal Bernard.

  Bernard was awake, lying on his back, with his head propped on two pillows and his fingers interlaced under his chin. He might have been in the middle of some matutinal meditation.

  “Morning, Bernard. Like some coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “There’s a man from the London police arriving in an hour. He may want to talk with you. It’s about Murchison, of course.”

  “Yes,” Bernard said.

  Tom waited until Bernard had had a sip or two of coffee. “I didn’t put any sugar in it. I didn’t know if you liked it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That’s excellent coffee.”

  “Now Bernard, it’s obviously best if you say you never met Murchison, never saw him. You never had that talk with him in the Mandeville bar. Do you understand?” Tom hoped it was penetrating.

  “Yes.”

  “And also, you never even heard of Murchison, even through Jeff and Ed. As you know, you’re not supposed to be a very close friend of Jeff or Ed now. You all know one another, but Jeff and Ed wouldn’t have troubled to tell you there was an American who—suspected ‘The Clock’ wasn’t genuine.”

  “Yes,” Bernard said. “Yes, of course.”

  “And—the easiest thing to remember, because it’s true,” Tom continued, as if he were talking to a class of schoolchildren who were not listening very carefully, “is that you arrived here yesterday afternoon, a good twenty-four hours after Murchison left to go to London. Naturally, you never saw him or heard of him. All right, Bernard?”

  “All right,” Bernard said. He was propped on one elbow.

  “Want something to eat? Eggs? I can bring you a croissant. Mme. Annette’s been out and bought some.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Tom went downstairs.

  Mme. Annette was coming in from the kitchen. “M. Tome, look.” She showed him the front page of her newspaper. “Is this not the gentleman, the M. Murcheeson who visited Thursday? It says they are looking for M. Murcheeson!”

  A la recherche de M. Murcheeson. . . . Tom looked at the two-column-wide photograph of Murchison, full face, faintly smiling, in the lower left corner of Le Parisien—Edition Seine et Marne. “Yes, it is,” Tom said. It read:

  Thomas F. Murchison, 52, American, has been declared missing since Thursday afternoon, October 17th. His suitcase was found at the departure door at Orly airport, but he did not board his airplane for London. M. Murchison is a business executive of New York, and had been visiting a friend in the region of Melun. His wife Harriet in America has begun inquiries with the aid of French and English police.

  Tom was thankful that they had not mentioned his name.

  Chris came in the front door, with a couple of magazines in his hand, but not a newspaper. “Hello, Tom! Madame! It’s a beautiful day!”

  Tom greeted him, then said
to Mme. Annette, “I had thought by now he would have been found. But in fact—an Englishman is coming this morning to ask me some questions.”

  “Oh, yes? This morning?”

  “In half an hour or so.”

  “What a mystery!” she said.

  “What’s a mystery?” Chris asked Tom.

  “Murchison. A picture of him in today’s paper.”

  Chris looked at the photograph with interest, and slowly read aloud some of the phrases underneath it, translating. “Gosh! Still missing!”

  “Madame Annette,” Tom said, “I am not sure if the Englishman will stay for lunch. Could you manage four?”

  “But yes, M’sieur Tome.” She went off to the kitchen.

  “What Englishman?” Chris asked. “Another one?”

  Chris’s French was improving rapidly, Tom thought. “Yes, he’s coming to ask about Murchison. You know—if you want the eleven-thirty train—”

  “Well—could I stay? There’s a train just after twelve, and of course some trains this afternoon. I’m curious about Murchison, what they’ve found out. Naturally—I wouldn’t stay in the living room when you spoke with him, if you want to be alone.”

  Tom was irked, but he said, “Why not? No secrets.”

  The detective-inspector arrived by taxi around 10:30. Tom had forgot to tell him how to find the house, but he said he had asked at the post office for the house of M. Ripley.

  “What a lovely place you have!” said the inspector cheerfully. He was about forty-five, in plain clothes. He had black, thinning hair and a slight paunch, and wore black-rimmed glasses through which he peered alertly and courteously. In fact his pleasant smile appeared to be fixed. “Been living here long?”

  “Three years,” Tom said. “Won’t you sit down?” Tom had opened the door, since Mme. Annette had not seen the taxi come up, and Tom now took the inspector’s coat.

  The inspector carried a neat slender black case of the kind that could hold a suit, and this he took with him to the sofa, as if he were not in the habit of parting with it. “Well—first things first. When did you last see Mr. Murchison?”

  Tom sat down on a straight chair. “Last Thursday. About three-thirty in the afternoon. I took him to Orly. He was going to London.”

  “I know.” Webster opened his black case a little and took a notebook from it, then pulled a pen from his pocket. He wrote notes for a few seconds. “He was in good spirits?” he asked, smiling. He reached for a cigarette from his jacket pocket, and lit it quickly.

  “Yes.” Tom started to say he had just made him a present of a nice Margaux, but he didn’t want to refer to his cellar.

  “And he had his picture with him. Called ‘The Clock,’ I think.”

  “Yes. Wrapped in brown paper.”

  “Apparently stolen at Orly, yes. This was the picture Mr. Murchison thinks is a forgery?”

  “He said he suspected it—at first.”

  “How well do you know Mr. Murchison? For how long?”

  Tom explained. “I remembered seeing him go into the back office at the gallery, where Derwatt was, I’d heard. So—when I saw Mr. Murchison in the bar of my hotel that evening, I spoke to him. I wanted to ask him what Derwatt was like.”

  “I see. And then?”

  “We had a drink together, and Murchison told me his idea that a few of Derwatt’s paintings were being forged—lately. I said I had a couple of Derwatts in my house in France, and I asked if he wanted to come over and see them. So we came over together Wednesday afternoon and he spent the night here.”

  The detective-inspector was making a note or two. “You went over to London especially for the Derwatt show?”

  “Oh, no.” Tom smiled a little. “For two things. Half for the Derwatt show, I admit, and the other half because my wife’s birthday is in November, and she likes things from England. Sweaters and trousers. Carnaby Street. I bought something in the Burlington Arcade—” Tom glanced at the stairway and thought of going up to fetch it, the gold monkey pin, but checked himself. “I didn’t buy a Derwatt this time, but I was thinking of buying ‘The Tub.’ Just about the only one not sold then.”

  “Did you—uh—ask Mr. Murchison over with an idea that your paintings could be forgeries also?”

  Tom hesitated. “I admit I was curious. But I never doubted mine. And after seeing my two, Mr. Murchison thought they were genuine.” Tom certainly wasn’t going to go into Murchison’s lavender theory. And Inspector Webster did not seem much interested in Tom’s Derwatts, not enough to do more than turn his head to look for a few seconds at “The Red Chairs” behind him, and then at “Man in Chair” in front of him.

  “Not my forte, I’m afraid. Modern painting. You live by yourself, Mr. Ripley? You and your wife?”

  “Yes, except for my housekeeper, Mme. Annette. My wife’s in Greece just now.”

  “I’d like to meet your housekeeper,” said the inspector, still smiling.

  Tom made a start toward the kitchen to fetch Mme. Annette, but just then Chris came down the stairs. “Ah, Chris. This is Detective-Inspector Webster. From London. My guest, Christopher Greenleaf.”

  “How do you do?” Chris said, extending a hand and looking awed at meeting a member of the London police.

  “How do you do?” Webster said pleasantly, leaning forward to shake Chris’s hand. “Greenleaf. Richard Greenleaf. He was a friend of yours, was he not, Mr. Ripley?”

  “Yes. And Chris is his cousin.” Webster must have looked that up recently, Tom thought, must have delved into files to see if Tom Ripley had any record, because Tom couldn’t imagine anyone remembering Dickie’s name over a period of six years. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll call Mme. Annette.”

  Mme. Annette was peeling something at the sink. Tom asked if she could come in and meet the gentleman from London. “He probably speaks French.”

  Then, as Tom went back into the living room, Bernard was coming downstairs. He wore Tom’s trousers, and a sweater without a shirt. Tom introduced him to Webster. “Mr. Tufts is a painter. From London.”

  “Oh,” said Webster. “Did you meet Mr. Murchison while you were here?”

  “No,” Bernard said, sitting on one of the straight yellow-upholstered chairs. “I only arrived yesterday.”

  Mme. Annette came in.

  Detective-Inspector Webster stood up, smiled, and said, “Enchanté, madame.” He continued in perfect French though with a determined British accent, “I am here to inquire about Mr. Thomas Murchison who has disappeared.”

  “Ah, yes! I read about it only this morning in the newspaper,” Mme. Annette said. “He has not been found?”

  “No, madame.” Another smile, as if he were talking about something much more amusing. “It seems that you and M. Ripley were the last people to see him. Or were you here, Mr. Greenleaf?” he asked Chris in English.

  Chris stammered, but was indisputably sincere. “I never met Mr. Murchison, no.”

  “What time did M. Murchison leave the house on Thursday, Mme. Annette? Do you remember?”

  “Ooh, perhaps— It was just after lunch. I prepared lunch a little early. Let us say two-thirty he left.”

  Tom remained silent. Mme. Annette was correct.

  The inspector said to Tom, “Did he mention any friends at all in Paris? Excuse me, madame, I can just as well speak in French.”

  But the conversation went on in both languages, sometimes Tom, sometimes Webster translating for Mme. Annette, because Webster wanted her contributions, if she had any.

  Murchison had not mentioned anyone in Paris, and Tom said he did not think Murchison had intended to meet anyone at Orly.

  “You see, the disappearance of Mr. Murchison and his painting—this might be connected,” Inspector Webster said. (Tom explained to Mme. Annette that a painting Murchison had had with him had been stolen at Orly, and Mme. Annette, happily remembered seeing it standing against the gentleman’s suitcase in the hall before he left. She must have had a very brief glimpse, Tom th
ought, but it was a piece of luck. Webster might have suspected that Tom had destroyed it.) “The Derwatt corporation, as I think I have every reason to call it, is a large one. There’s more to it than Derwatt himself, as a painter. Derwatt’s friends, Constant and Banbury, own the Buckmaster Gallery as a sort of sideline to their own work, journalism and photography respectively. There’s the Derwatt art supplies company. There’s the Derwatt Art School in Perugia. If we throw forgery into all this, then we’ve really got something!” He turned to Bernard. “I think you know Mr. Constant and Mr. Banbury, don’t you, Mr. Tufts?”

  And Tom felt another sink of alarm, because Webster really must have dug for that one: for years Ed Banbury hadn’t mentioned Bernard’s name in his articles as being one of the original group of Derwatt’s friends.

  “Yes, I know them,” Bernard said in a somewhat dazed manner, but at least he was unruffled.

  “Did you speak to Derwatt in London?” Tom asked the inspector.

  “He can’t be found!” Inspector Webster said, positively beaming now. “Not that I was particularly trying to find him, but one of my colleagues was—after Mr. Murchison’s disappearance. What is even more curious—” here he switched to French to include Mme. Annette—“there’s no record that Derwatt entered England lately from Mexico or anywhere else. Not just in the last days, when presumably he arrived in England, but for years back. In fact the last record of the Emigration Bureau says that Philip Derwatt left the country six years ago bound for Greece. We have no record that he ever returned. As you perhaps know, Derwatt was believed to have drowned or committed suicide somewhere in Greece.”

  Bernard sat forward, forearms on his knees. Was he rallying to the challenge, or about to blurt out all?

  “Yes. I’ve heard that.” Tom said to Mme. Annette, “We speak about Derwatt the painter—his presumed suicide.”

  “Yes, madame,” Webster said courteously, “excuse us for a moment. Anything important, I shall say in French.” Then to Tom, “So it means Derwatt entered and maybe even left England like the Scarlet Pimpernel or a ghost.” He chuckled. “But you, Mr. Tufts, you knew Derwatt in the old days, I understand. Did you see him in London?”