Ripley Under Ground

by Patricia Highsmith

  “They have no idea that you’re Derwatt?”

  Tom laughed a little again. “I don’t think they’re much interested in The Times or Arts Review or whatever.”

  “Have you missed London? How does it look to you?”

  “Was it just a whim that made you come back now?” young Perkins asked.

  “Yes. Just whim.” Tom smiled the worn, philosophic smile of a man who had gazed upon Mexican mountains, alone, for years.

  “Do you ever go to Europe—incognito? We know you like seclusion—”

  “Derwatt, I’d be most grateful if you could find ten minutes tomorrow. May I ask where you’re—”

  “I’m sorry, I haven’t yet decided where I’m staying,” Tom said.

  Jeff gently urged the reporters to take leave, and the cameras began to flash. Tom looked downward, then upward for one or two photographs on request. Jeff admitted a waiter in a white jacket with a tray of drinks. The tray was emptied in a trice.

  Tom lifted a hand in a gesture of shy, gracious farewell. “Thank you all.”

  “No more, please,” Jeff said at the door.

  “But I—”

  “Ah, Mr. Murchison. Come in, please,” Jeff said. He turned to Tom. “Derwatt, this is Mr. Murchison. From America.”

  Mr. Murchison was large, with a pleasant face. “How do you do, Mr. Derwatt?” he said, smiling. “What an unexpected treat to meet you here in London!”

  They shook hands.

  “How do you do?” Tom said.

  “And this is Edmund Banbury,” Jeff said. “Mr. Murchison.”

  Ed and Mr. Murchison exchanged greetings.

  “I’ve got one of your paintings—‘The Clock.’ In fact, I brought it with me.” Mr. Murchison was smiling widely now, staring with fascination and respect at Tom, and Tom hoped his gaze was dazzled by the surprise of actually seeing him.

  “Oh, yes,” Tom said.

  Jeff again quietly locked the door. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Murchison?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Murchison sat, on a straight chair.

  Jeff quietly began gathering empty glasses from the edges of bookshelves and the desk.

  “Well, to come to the point, Mr. Derwatt, I—I’m interested in a certain change of technique that you show in ‘The Clock.’ You know, of course, the picture I mean?” Murchison asked.

  Was that a casual or a pointed question, Tom wondered? “Of course,” Tom said.

  “Can you describe it?”

  Tom was still standing up. A slight chill went over him. Tom smiled. “I can never describe my pictures. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were no clock in it. Did you know, Mr. Murchison, I don’t always make up my own titles? And how anyone got ‘Sunday Noon’ out of the particular canvas is beyond me.” (Tom had glanced at the gallery program of twenty-eight Derwatts now on exhibit, a program which Jeff or someone had thoughtfully opened and placed on the blotter of the desk.) “Is that your effort, Jeff?”

  Jeff laughed. “No, I think it’s Ed’s. Would you like a drink, Mr. Murchison? I’ll get you one from the bar.”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine.” Then Mr. Murchison addressed Tom. “It’s a bluish-black clock held by— Do you remember?” He smiled as if he were asking an innocent riddle.

  “I think a little girl—who’s facing the beholder, shall we say?”

  “Hm-m. Right,” said Murchison. “But then you don’t do little boys, do you?”

  Tom chuckled, relieved that he’d guessed right. “I suppose I prefer little girls.”

  Murchison lit a Chesterfield. He had brown eyes, light-brown wavy hair, and a strong jaw covered with just a little too much flesh, like the rest of him. “I’d like you to see my picture. I have a reason. Excuse me a minute. I left it with the coats.”

  Jeff let him out the door, then locked the door again.

  Jeff and Tom looked at each other. Ed was standing against a wall of books, silent. Tom said in a whisper:

  “Really, boys, if the damned canvas has been in the coatroom all this time, couldn’t one of you’ve whisked it out and burnt it?”

  “Ha-ha!” Ed laughed, nervously.

  Jeff’s plump smile was a twitch, though he kept his poise, as if Murchison were still in the room.

  “Well, let us hear him out,” Tom said in a slow and confident Derwatt tone. He tried to shoot his cuffs, but they didn’t shoot.

  Murchison came back carrying a brown-paper-wrapped picture under one arm. It was a medium-sized Derwatt, perhaps two feet by three. “I paid ten thousand dollars for this,” he said, smiling. “You may think it careless of me to leave it in the cloakroom, but I’m inclined to trust people.” He was undoing the wrapping with the aid of a penknife. “Do you know this picture?” he asked Tom.

  Tom smiled at the picture. “Of course I do.”

  “You remember painting it?”

  “It’s my picture,” Tom said.

  “It’s the purples in this that interest me. The purple. This is straight cobalt violet—as you can probably see better than I.” Mr. Murchison smiled almost apologetically for a moment. “The picture is at least three years old, because I bought it three years ago. But if I’m not mistaken, you abandoned cobalt violet for a mixture of cad red and ultramarine five or six years ago. I can’t exactly fix the date.”

  Tom was silent. In the picture Murchison had, the clock was black and purple. The brushstrokes and the color resembled those of “Man in Chair” (painted by Bernard) at home. Tom didn’t know quite what, in the purple department, Murchison was hammering at. A little girl in a pink-and-apple-green dress was holding the clock, or rather resting her hand on it, as the clock was large and stood on a table. “To tell you the truth, I’ve forgot,” Tom said. “Perhaps I did use straight cobalt violet there.”

  “And also in the painting called ‘The Tub’ outside,” Murchison said, with a nod toward the gallery. “But in none of the others. I find it curious. A painter doesn’t usually go back to a color he’s discarded. The cad red and ultramarine combination is far more interesting—in my opinion. Your newer choice.”

  Tom was unworried. Ought he to be more worried? He shrugged slightly.

  Jeff had gone into the little bathroom and was fussing about with glasses and ashtrays.

  “How many years ago did you paint ‘The Clock’?” Murchison asked.

  “That I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Tom said in a frank manner. He had grasped Murchison’s point, at least in regard to time, and he added, “It could have been four or five years ago. It’s an old picture.”

  “It wasn’t sold to me as an old one. And ‘The Tub.’ That’s dated only last year, and it has the same straight cobalt violet in it.”

  The cobalt for the purpose of shadow, one might say, was not dominant in ‘The Clock.’ Murchison had an eagle eye. Tom thought ‘The Red Chairs’—the earlier and genuine Derwatt—had the same straight cobalt, and he wondered if it had a fixed date? If he could say ‘The Red Chairs’ was only three years old, prove it somehow, Murchison could simply go to hell. Check with Jeff and Ed later on that, Tom thought.

  “You definitely remember painting ‘The Clock’?” Murchison asked.

  “I know it’s my picture,” Tom said. “I might have been in Greece or even Ireland when I painted it, because I don’t remember dates, and the dates the gallery might have are not always the dates when I painted something.”

  “I don’t think ‘The Clock’ is your work,” Murchison said with good-natured American conviction.

  “Good heavens, why not?” Tom’s good nature matched Murchison’s.

  “I have a nerve sticking my neck out like this, I know. But I’ve seen some of your earlier work in a museum in Philadelphia. If I may say so, Mr. Derwatt, you’re—”

  “Just call me Derwatt. I like it better.”

  “Derwatt. You’re so prolific, I think you might forget—I should say not remember a painting. Granted ‘The Clock’ is in your style and the theme is typical of your
—”

  Jeff, like Ed, was listening attentively, and in this pause Jeff said, “But after all this picture came from Mexico along with a few others of Derwatt’s. He always sends two or three at a time.”

  “Yes. ‘The Clock’ has a date on the back. It’s three years old, written in the same black paint as Derwatt’s signature,” Murchison said, swinging his painting round so all could see it. “I had the signature and the date analyzed in the States. That’s how carefully I’ve gone into this,” Murchison said, smiling.

  “I don’t quite know what the trouble is,” Tom said. “I painted it in Mexico if the date’s three years old in my own writing.”

  Murchison looked at Jeff. “Mr. Constant, you say you received ‘The Clock’ along with two others, perhaps, in a certain shipment?”

  “Yes. Now that I recall—I think the other two are here now lent by London owners—‘The Orange Barn’ and— Do you recall the other, Ed?”

  “I think it’s ‘Bird Specter’ probably. Isn’t it?”

  From Jeff’s nod, Tom could see it was true, or else Jeff was doing well at pretending.

  “That’s it,” said Jeff.

  “They’re not in this technique. There’s purple in them, but made by mixed colors. The two you’re talking about are genuine—genuinely later pictures at any rate.”

  Murchison was slightly wrong, they were phonies as well. Tom scratched his beard, but very gently. He kept a quiet, somewhat amused air.

  Murchison looked from Jeff to Tom. “You may think I’m being bumptious, but if you’ll excuse me, Derwatt, I think you’ve been forged. I’ll stick my neck out farther, I’ll bet my life that ‘The Clock’ isn’t yours.”

  “But Mr. Murchison,” Jeff said, “that’s a matter of simply—”

  “Of showing me a receipt for a certain number of paintings in a certain year? Paintings received from Mexico which might not be even titled? What if Derwatt doesn’t give them a title?”

  “The Buckmaster Gallery is the only authorized dealer for Derwatt’s work. You bought that picture from us.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Murchison. “And I’m not accusing you—or Derwatt. I’m just saying, I don’t think this is a Derwatt. I can’t tell you what happened.” Murchison looked at all of them in turn, a bit embarrassed by his own outburst, but still carried along by his conviction. “My theory is that a painter never reverts to a single color which he once used or any combination of colors once he has made a change to another color as subtle and yet as important as lavender is in Derwatt’s paintings. Do you agree, Derwatt?”

  Tom sighed and touched his mustache with a forefinger. “I can’t say. I’m not so much of a theoretician as you, it seems.”

  A pause.

  “Well, Mr. Murchison, what would you like us to do about ‘The Clock?’ Refund your money?” Jeff asked. “We’d be happy to do that, because—Derwatt has just verified it, and frankly it’s worth more than ten thousand dollars now.”

  Tom hoped Mr. Murchison would accept, but he was not that kind of man.

  Murchison took his time, pushed his hands into his trousers pockets and looked at Jeff. “Thank you, but I’m more interested in my theory—my opinion, than in the money. And since I’m in London, where there’re as good judges of painting as anywhere in the world, maybe the best, I intend to have ‘The Clock’ looked at by an expert and compared with—certain indisputable Derwatts.”

  “Very well,” said Tom amiably.

  “Thank you very much for seeing me, Derwatt. A pleasure to meet you.” Murchison held out his hand.

  Tom shook it firmly. “A pleasure, Mr. Murchison.”

  Ed helped Murchison wrap up his painting, and provided more string, as Murchison’s string would no longer tie.

  “Can I reach you through the gallery here?” Murchison said to Tom. “Say tomorrow?”

  “Oh, yes,” Tom said. “They’ll know where I am.”

  When Murchison had left the room, Jeff and Ed gave huge sighs.

  “Well—how serious is it?” Tom asked.

  Jeff knew more about pictures. He spoke first, with difficulty. “It’s serious if he drags in an expert, I suppose. And he will. He may have a point about the purples. One might call it a clue that could lead to worse.”

  Tom said, “Why don’t we go back to your studio, Jeff? Can you whisk me out the back door again—like Cinderella?”

  “Yep, but I want to speak to Leonard.” Jeff grinned. “I’ll drag him in to meet you.” He went out.

  The hum from the gallery was less now. Tom looked at Ed, whose face was a bit pale. I can disappear, but you can’t, Tom thought. Tom squared his shoulders, and lifted his fingers in a V. “Chin up, Banbury. We’ll see this one through.”

  “Or that’s what they’ll do to us,” Ed replied, with a more vulgar gesture.

  Jeff came back with Leonard, a smallish, neat young man in an Edwardian suit with many buttons and velvet facings. Leonard burst into laughter at the sight of Derwatt, and Jeff shushed him.

  “It is marvelous, marvelous!” Leonard said, looking Tom over with a genuine admiration. “I’ve seen so many pictures, you know! I haven’t seen anything so good since I did Toulouse-Lautrec with my feet tied up behind me! That was last year.” Leonard stared at Tom. “Who are you?”

  “That,” Jeff said, “you are not to know. Suffice it to say—”

  “Suffice it to say,” Ed said, “Derwatt has just given a brilliant interview to the press.”

  “And tomorrow Derwatt is no more. He will return to Mexico,” Jeff said in a whisper. “Now back to your duties, Leonard.”

  “Ciao,” said Tom, raising a hand.

  “Hommage,” said Leonard, bowing. He backed toward the door, and added, “The crowd’s nearly all gone. So’s the booze.” He slipped out.

  Tom was not quite so cheerful. He very much wanted out of his disguise. The situation was a problem, not yet solved.

  Back at Jeff’s studio, they found that Bernard Tufts had gone. Ed and Jeff seemed surprised. And Tom was a little uneasy, because Bernard ought to know what was going on.

  “You can reach Bernard, of course,” Tom said.

  “Oh, sure,” said Ed. He was making some tea for himself in Jeff’s kitchen. “Bernard’s always chez lui. He’s got a telephone.”

  It crossed Tom’s mind that even the telephone might not be safe to use for long.

  “Mr. Murchison is going to want to see you again probably,” Jeff said. “With the expert. So you’ve got to disappear. You’ll leave for Mexico tomorrow—officially. Maybe even tonight.” Jeff was sipping a Pernod. He looked more confident, perhaps because the press interview and even the Murchison interview had gone reasonably well, Tom thought.

  “Mexico my foot,” Ed said, coming in with his cup of tea. “Derwatt will be somewhere in England staying with friends, and even we won’t know where. Let some days pass. Then he’ll go to Mexico. By what means? Who knows?”

  Tom removed his baggy jacket. “Is there a date for ‘The Red Chairs?’”

  “Yes,” Jeff said. “It’s six years old.”

  “Printed here and there, I suppose?” Tom asked. “I was thinking of updating it—to get over this purple business.”

  Ed and Jeff glanced at each other, and Ed said quickly, “No, it’s in too many catalogues.”

  “There’s one way out, have Bernard do several canvases—two anyway—with the plain cobalt violet. Sort of prove that he uses both kinds of purple.” But Tom felt discouraged as he said it, and he knew why. Tom felt that it might be Bernard that they couldn’t count on any longer. Tom looked away from Jeff and Ed. They were dubious. He tried standing up, straight, feeling confident of his Derwatt disguise. “Did I ever tell you about my honeymoon?” Tom asked in Derwatt’s monotone.

  “No, tell us about your honeymoon!” Jeff said, ready for a laugh and grinning already.

  Tom assumed Derwatt’s stoop. “It was—most inhibiting—the atmosphere. In Spain. We’d taken a h
otel suite, you see, and there I was with Heloise, and downstairs in the patio a parrot sang Carmen—badly. And every time we— Well, there it came: ‘Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!’ People leaned out windows yelling in Spanish, ‘Shut your filthy beak! Who taught that—unmentionable object to sing Carmen? Kill it! Boil it in soup!’ It is impossible to make love while laughing. Have you ever tried it? Well—they say laughter distinguishes the human from the animal. And—the other thing certainly doesn’t. Ed, can you get me out of this foliage?”

  Ed was laughing, and Jeff rolling on the sofa in relief—which Tom knew would be temporary—from the recent strain.

  “Come in the loo.” Ed turned on the hot water in the basin.

  Tom changed into his own trousers and shirt. If he could lure Murchison to his house somehow, before Murchison spoke to the expert he was talking about, perhaps something—Tom didn’t know what—could be done about the situation. “Where’s Murchison staying in London?”

  “Some hotel,” Jeff said. “He didn’t say which.”

  “Can you ring a few hotels and see if you can find him?”

  Before Jeff got to the telephone, it rang. Tom heard Jeff telling someone that Derwatt had taken a train north, and Jeff did not know where he was going. “He’s very much a loner,” Jeff said. “Another gentleman of the press,” Jeff said when he had hung up, “trying to get a personal interview.” He opened a telephone book. “I’ll try the Dorchester first. He looks like a Dorchester type.”

  “Or a Westbury type,” Ed said.

  It took a lot of delicately applied water to remove the gauze of the beard. Afterward came a shampoo to get the rinse out of his hair. Tom finally heard Jeff say in a cheerful tone, “No, thank you, I’ll ring back later.”

  Then Jeff said, “It’s the Mandeville. That’s off Wigmore Street.”

  Tom put on his own pink shirt from Venice. Then he went to the telephone and booked a room at the Mandeville under the name Thomas Ripley. He would arrive by 8 p.m. or so, he said.

  “What’re you going to do?” Ed asked.

  Tom smiled a little, “I don’t know just yet,” he said, which was true.