The first thing Derwatt’s friends, including Cynthia, had done was gather all his paintings and drawings and try to sell them. They had wanted to keep his name alive, had wanted the world to know and appreciate what he had done. Derwatt had had no relatives, and as Tom recalled, he had been a foundling without even known parents. The legend of his tragic death had helped instead of hindered; usually galleries were uninterested in paintings by a young and unknown artist who was already dead—but Edmund Banbury, a freelance journalist, had used his entrées and his talent for articles on Derwatt in newspapers, color supplements, and art magazines, and Jeffrey Constant had made photographs of Derwatt’s paintings to illustrate them. Within a few months of Derwatt’s death they found a gallery, the Buckmaster Gallery and moreover in Bond Street, which was willing to handle his work, and soon Derwatt’s canvases were selling for six and eight hundred pounds.
Then had come the inevitable. The paintings were all sold, or nearly, and this was when Tom had been living in London (he had lived for two years in a flat in S.W.1, near Eaton Square) and had run into Jeff and Ed and Bernard one night in the Salisbury pub. They had again been sad, because Derwatt’s paintings were coming to an end, and it had been Tom who had said, “You’re doing so well, it’s a shame to end like this. Can’t Bernard knock off a few paintings in Derwatt’s style?” Tom had meant it as a joke, or a half-joke. He hardly knew the trio, only knew that Bernard was a painter. But Jeff, a practical type like Ed Banbury (and not a bit like Bernard), had turned to Bernard and said, “I’ve thought of that, too. What do you think, Bernard?” Tom had forgot Bernard’s exact reply, but he remembered that Bernard had lowered his head as if in shame or plain terror at the idea of falsifying his idol, Derwatt. Months later, Tom had encountered Ed Banbury in a street in London, and Ed had said cheerfully that Bernard had brought off two excellent “Derwatts” and they had sold one at the Buckmaster as genuine.
Then still later, just after Tom had married Heloise, and was no longer living in London, Tom, Heloise, and Jeff were at the same party, a large cocktail party of the kind where you never meet or even see the host, and Jeff had beckoned Tom into a corner.
Jeff had said, “Can we meet somewhere later? This is my address,” handing Tom a card. “Can you come round about eleven tonight?”
So Tom had gone to Jeff’s alone, which had been simple, because Heloise—who at that time did not speak much English—had had enough after the cocktail party, and wanted to go back to their hotel. Heloise loved London—English sweaters and Carnaby Street, and the shops that sold Union Jack wastebaskets and signs that said things like “Piss off,” things that Tom often had to translate for her, but she said her head ached after trying to speak English for an hour.
“Our problem is,” Jeff had said that night, “we can’t go on pretending we’ve found another Derwatt somewhere. Bernard is doing fine but— Do you think we could dare dig up a big trove of Derwatts somewhere, like Ireland where he painted for a bit, and sell them and then call it quits? Bernard isn’t keen about going on. He feels he’s betraying Derwatt—in a way.”
Tom had reflected a moment, then said, “What’s the matter with Derwatt being still alive somewhere? A recluse somewhere, sending his paintings to London? That is, if Bernard can keep going.”
“Um-m. Well—yes. Greece, maybe. What a super idea, Tom! It can go on forever!”
“How about Mexico? I think it’s safer than Greece. Let’s say Derwatt’s living in some little village. He won’t tell anyone the name of the village—except maybe you and Ed and Cynthia—”
“Not Cynthia. She’s— Well, Bernard doesn’t see much of her anymore. Consequently neither do we. Just as well she doesn’t know too much about this.”
Jeff had rung up Ed that night to tell him the idea, Tom recalled.
“It’s just an idea,” Tom had said. “I don’t know if it’ll work.”
But it had worked. Derwatt’s paintings had begun coming from Mexico, it was said, and the dramatic story of Derwatt’s “resurrection” had been exploited to advantage by Ed Banbury and Jeff Constant in more magazine articles, with photographs of Derwatt and his (Bernard’s) latest paintings, though not of Derwatt himself in Mexico, because Derwatt permitted no interviewers or photographers. The paintings were sent from Vera Cruz and not even Jeff or Ed knew the name of his village. Derwatt was perhaps mentally sick to be such a recluse. His paintings were sick and depressed, according to some critics. But were now among the highest priced paintings of any living artist in England or on the Continent or in America. Ed Banbury wrote to Tom in France, offering him ten percent of the profits, the loyal little group (now numbering only three, Bernard, Jeff, and Ed) being the sole beneficiaries of Derwatt’s sales. Tom had accepted, mainly because he considered it, his acceptance, rather a guarantee of his silence about the duplicity. But Bernard Tufts was painting like a demon.
Jeff and Ed bought the Buckmaster Gallery. Tom was not sure if Bernard owned any part of it. Several Derwatts were in a permanent collection of the gallery, and the gallery showed the paintings of other artists as well, of course. This was more Jeff’s job than Ed’s, and Jeff had hired an assistant, a sort of manager for the gallery. But this step up, the purchase of the Buckmaster Gallery, had come after Jeff and Ed had been approached by an art materials manufacturer called George Janopolos or some such, who wanted to start a line of goods to be labeled “Derwatt,” which would include everything from erasers to oil paint sets, and for which he offered Derwatt a royalty of one percent. Ed and Jeff had decided to accept for Derwatt (presumably with Derwatt’s consent). A company had then been formed called Derwatt Ltd.
All this Tom recollected at four in the morning, shivering a little despite his princely dressing gown. Mme. Annette always thriftily turned the central heating down at night. He held the cup of cold sweet tea between his hands and stared unseeing at a photograph of Heloise—long blonde hair on either side of a slender face, a pleasant and meaningless design to Tom just now rather than a face—and he thought of Bernard working in secret on his Derwatt forgeries in a closed, even locked room in his studio apartment. Bernard’s place was pretty crummy, as it always had been. Tom had never seen the sanctum sanctorum where he painted his masterpieces, the Derwatts that brought in thousands of quid. If one painted more forgeries than one’s own paintings, wouldn’t the forgeries become more natural, more real, more genuine to oneself, even, than one’s own painting? Wouldn’t the effort finally go out of it and the work become second nature?
At last Tom curled up on the yellow sofa, slippers off and feet drawn under his robe, and slept. He did not sleep long before Mme. Annette arrived and awakened him with a shriek, or a shrill gasp, of surprise.
“I must have fallen asleep reading,” Tom said, smiling, sitting up.
Mme. Annette hurried off to make his coffee.
Copyright © 1955 by Patricia Highsmith
Copyright renewed 1983 by Patricia Highsmith
Copyright © 1993 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich
First published as a Norton edition 2008
Originally published by Coward-McCann, Inc., New York, in 1955
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Highsmith, Patricia, 1921–1995.
The talented Mr. Ripley / Patricia Highsmith.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-393-33214-8 (pbk.)
1. Ripley, Tom (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Serial murderers—Fiction.
3. Psychopaths—Fiction. 4. Criminals—Fiction.
5
. Italy—Fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.I366T33 2008
813’.54—dc22
x2007049426
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The Talented Mr. Ripley Page 30