Ripley Under Ground

by Patricia Highsmith

  4

  The Hotel Mandeville was rather plush, but by no means as expensive as the Dorchester. Tom arrived at 8:15 p.m. and registered, giving his address as Villeperce-sur-Seine. It had crossed his mind to give a false name and some English country address, because he might get into considerable difficulties with Mr. Murchison and have to disappear quickly, but there was also the possibility of inviting Murchison to France, in which case Tom might need his real name. Tom asked a bellhop to take his suitcase to his room, and then he looked into the bar, hoping Mr. Murchison might be there. Mr. Murchison was not there, but Tom decided to have a lager and wait a few moments.

  A ten-minute wait with a lager and an Evening Standard brought no Mr. Murchison. The neighborhood was full of restaurants, Tom knew, but he could hardly approach Murchison’s table and strike up an acquaintance on the strength of saying he had seen Murchison at the Derwatt show that day. Or could he—saying he had also seen Murchison going into the back room to meet Derwatt? Yes. Tom was just about to venture out to explore the local restaurants, when he saw Mr. Murchison coming into the bar, gesturing to someone to follow him.

  And to Tom’s surprise, horror even, he saw that the other person was Bernard Tufts. Tom slipped quickly out of the door on the other side of the bar, which opened onto the pavement. Bernard hadn’t seen him, Tom was fairly sure. He looked around for a telephone booth, for another hotel from which to telephone, and, finding none, he went back into the Mandeville by the main entrance and took his key for his room, number four eleven.

  In his room, Tom rang Jeff’s studio. Three rings, four, five, then to Tom’s relief, Jeff answered.

  “Hello, Tom! I was just going down the stairs with Ed when I heard the phone. What’s up?”

  “Do you happen to know where Bernard is now?”

  “Oh, we’re leaving him alone tonight. He’s upset.”

  “He’s having a drink with Murchison in the bar of the Mandeville.”

  “What?”

  “I’m ringing from my room. Now whatever you do, Jeff— Are you listening?”

  “Yes-yes.”

  “Don’t tell Bernard I saw him. Don’t tell Bernard I’m at the Mandeville. And don’t get in a flap about anything. That’s providing Bernard isn’t spilling the beans now, I don’t know.”

  “Oh, my God,” Jeff groaned. “No-no. Bernard wouldn’t spill the beans. I don’t think he would.”

  “Are you in later tonight?”

  “Yes, by— Oh, home before midnight, anyway.”

  “I’ll try to ring you. But don’t be worried if I don’t. Don’t try to ring me because—I just might have somebody in my room.” Tom said with a sudden laugh.

  Jeff laughed, but a bit sickly, “Okay, Tom.”

  Tom hung up.

  He definitely wanted to see Murchison tonight. Would Murchison and Bernard have dinner? That would be a bore to wait out. Tom hung up a suit and stuck a couple of shirts in a drawer. He splashed some more water on his face and looked in the mirror to make sure every bit of glue was gone.

  Out of restlessness, he left his room, his topcoat over his arm. He would take a walk, to Soho perhaps, and find a place for dinner. In the lobby, he looked through the glass doors of the Mandeville bar.

  He was in luck. Murchison sat alone, signing the bill, and the street door of the bar was just closing, perhaps even with Bernard’s departure. Still, Tom glanced around in the lobby, in case Bernard had slipped out to the men’s room and might be coming back. Tom did not see Bernard, and he waited until Murchison was actually standing up to leave before he went into the bar. Tom looked depressed and thoughtful, and in fact he felt that way. He looked twice at Murchison, whose eyes met his once, as if he were recalling Murchison from somewhere.

  Then Tom approached him. “Excuse me. I think I saw you at the Derwatt show today.” Tom had put on an American accent, midwestern with a hard r in Derwatt.

  “Why, yes, I was there,” Murchison said.

  “I thought you looked like an American. So am I. Do you like Derwatt?” Tom was being as naïve and straightforward as possible without seeming dim-witted.

  “Yes, I certainly do.”

  “I own two of his canvases,” Tom said with pride. “I may buy one of the ones in the show today—if it’s left. I haven’t decided yet. ‘The Tub.’”

  “Oh? So do I own one,” Murchison said with equal candor.

  “Y’do? What’s it called?”

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Murchison was standing, but indicated the chair opposite him. “Would you care for a drink?”

  “Thanks, I don’t mind if I do.”

  Murchison sat down. “My picture is called ‘The Clock.’ How nice to run into someone who owns a Derwatt, too—or a couple of them!”

  A waiter came.

  “Scotch for me, please. And you?” he asked Tom.

  “A gin and tonic,” Tom said. He added, “I’m staying here at the Mandeville, so these drinks are on me.”

  “We’ll argue about that later. Tell me what pictures you have.”

  “‘The Red Chairs,’” Tom said, “and—”

  “Really? That’s a gem! ‘The Red Chairs.’ Do you live in London?”

  “No, in France.”

  “Oh,” with disappointment. “And what’s the other picture?”

  “‘Man in Chair.’”

  “I don’t know that,” Murchison said.

  For a few minutes, they discussed Derwatt’s odd personality, and Tom said he had seen Murchison go into a back room of the gallery where he had heard Derwatt was.

  “Only the press was let in, but I crashed the gate,” Murchison told Tom. “You see, I’ve got a rather special reason for being here just now, and when I heard Derwatt was here this afternoon at the gallery, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip.”

  “Yes? What’s your reason?” Tom asked.

  Murchison explained. He explained his reasons for thinking Derwatt might be being forged, and Tom listened with rapt attention. It was a matter of Derwatt using a mixture of ultramarine and cadmium red now, for the past five years or so (since before his death, Tom realized, so Derwatt had begun this, not Bernard), and of having in “The Clock” and in “The Tub” gone back to his early simple cobalt violet. Murchison himself painted, he told Tom, as a hobby.

  “I’m no expert, believe me, but I’ve read almost every book about painters and painting that exists. It wouldn’t take an expert or a microscope to tell the difference between a single color and a mixture, but what I mean is, you’ll never find a painter going back to a color that he has consciously or unconsciously discarded. I say unconsciously, because when a painter chooses a new color or colors it is usually a decision made by his unconscious. Not that Derwatt uses lavender in every picture, no indeed. But my conclusion is that my ‘Clock’ and possibly some other pictures, including ‘The Tub’ that you’re interested in, by the way, are not Derwatts.”

  “That’s interesting. Very. Because as it happens my ‘Man in Chair’ sort of corresponds to what you’re saying. I think. And ‘Man in Chair’ is about four years old now. I’d love you to see it. Well, what’re you going to do about your ‘Clock’?”

  Murchison lit one of his Chesterfields. “I haven’t finished my story yet. I just had a drink with an Englishman whose name is Bernard Tufts, a painter also, and he seems to suspect the same thing about Derwatt.”

  Tom frowned hard. “Really? It’s pretty important if someone’s forging Derwatts. What did the man say?”

  “I have the feeling he knows more than he’s saying. I doubt if he’s in on any of it. He’s not a crooked type, and he doesn’t look as if he has much money, either. But he seems to know the London art scene. He simply warned me, ‘Don’t buy any more Derwatts, Mr. Murchison.’ Now what do you think of that?”

  “Hm-m. But what’s he got to go on?”

  “As I say, I don’t know. I couldn’t get anything out of him. But he took the trouble to look me up here, a
nd he said he called eight London hotels before he found me. I asked him how he knew my name, and he said, ‘Oh, word gets around.’ Very strange, since the Buckmaster Gallery people are the only people I’ve spoken to. Don’t you think? I have an appointment with a man from the Tate Gallery tomorrow, but even he doesn’t know it’s in regard to a Derwatt.” Murchison drank some of his scotch and said, “When paintings start coming from Mexico— Do you know what I’m going to do tomorrow besides showing ‘The Clock’ to Mr. Riemer at the Tate Gallery, I’m going to ask if I or he has the right to see the receipts or books of the Buckmaster Gallery people in regard to Derwatt paintings sent from Mexico. It’s not the titles I’m so interested in, and Derwatt told me he doesn’t always title them, it’s the number of paintings. Surely they’re let in by the customs or something, and if some paintings aren’t recorded, there’s a reason. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Derwatt himself were being hoodwinked and a few Derwatts—well, some said to be four or five years old, for instance—were being painted right here in London?”

  Yes, Tom thought. Amazing. “But you said you spoke with Derwatt. Did you talk to him about your painting?”

  “I showed it to him! He said it was his, but he wasn’t dead sure of it in my opinion. He didn’t say, ‘By God, that’s mine!’ He looked at it for a couple of minutes and said, ‘Of course, it’s mine.’ It was maybe presumptuous of me, but I said to Derwatt I thought it was possible he could forget a canvas or two, an untitled canvas that he’d done years ago.”

  Tom frowned as if he doubted this, which he did. Even a painter who did not give titles to his paintings would remember a painting, Tom thought, less a drawing, perhaps. But he let Murchison continue.

  “And for another thing, I don’t quite like the men at the Buckmaster Gallery. Jeffrey Constant. And the journalist Edmund Banbury, who’s obviously a close friend of Constant’s. They’re old friends of Derwatt’s, I realize that. I get The Listener and Arts Review and also the Sunday Times in Long Island where I live. I see articles by Banbury quite often, usually with a plug for Derwatt, if the article isn’t on Derwatt. And do you know what occurred to me?”

  “What?” Tom asked.

  “That—just maybe Constant and Banbury are putting up with a few forgeries in order to sell more Derwatts than Derwatt can produce. I don’t go so far as to say Derwatt’s in on it. But wouldn’t that be a funny story, if Derwatt’s so absentminded he can’t even remember how many pictures he’s painted?” Murchison laughed.

  It was funny, Tom supposed, but not hilarious. Not as funny as the truth, Mr. Murchison. Tom smiled. “So you’re going to show your picture to the expert tomorrow?”

  “Come up and see it now!”

  Tom tried to take the bill, but Murchison insisted upon signing.

  Tom went with him in the lift. Murchison had his painting in a corner of his closet, wrapped as Ed had wrapped it that afternoon. Tom looked at it with interest.

  “It’s a handsome picture,” Tom said.

  “Ah, no one can deny that!”

  “You know—” Tom propped it on the writing desk and was now looking at it from across the room with all the lights turned on. “It does have a similarity to my ‘Man in Chair.’ Why don’t you come over and look at my picture? I’m very near Paris. If you think my picture might be forged, too, I’ll let you take it back with you to show in London.”

  “Hum,” said Murchison, thinking. “I could.”

  “If you’ve been taken in, so have I, I think.” It would only be insulting to offer to pay for Murchison’s flight, Tom thought, so he did not. “I’ve a pretty big house and I’m alone at the moment, except for my housekeeper.”

  “All right, I will,” said Murchison, who hadn’t sat down.

  “I intend to leave tomorrow afternoon.”

  “All right, I’ll postpone that Tate Gallery appointment.”

  “I’ve lots of other paintings. Not that I’m a collector.” Tom sat down in the largest chair. “I’d like you to have a look at them. A Soutine. Two Magrittes.”

  “Really?” Murchison’s eyes began to look a little dreamy. “How far are you from Paris?”

  Ten minutes later, Tom was in his own room one floor below. Murchison had proposed that they have dinner together, but Tom had thought it best to say he had an appointment at 10 p.m. in Belgravia, so there was hardly time. Murchison had entrusted Tom with booking their plane tickets for tomorrow afternoon to Paris, a round-trip for Murchison. Tom picked up the telephone and booked two seats on a flight that left tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday, at 2 p.m. for Orly. Tom had his own return ticket. He left a message downstairs for Murchison in regard to the flight. Then Tom ordered a sandwich and a half bottle of Médoc. After this, he napped until eleven, and put in a telephone call to Reeves Minot in Hamburg. This took nearly half an hour.

  Reeves was not in, a man’s German-accented voice said.

  Tom decided to chance it, because he was fed up with Reeves, and said, “This is Tom Ripley. Has Reeves any message for me?”

  “Yes. The message is Wednesday. The Count arrives in Milan tomorrow. Can you come to Milan tomorrow?”

  “No, I cannot come to Milan tomorrow. Es tut mir leid.” Tom didn’t, as yet, want to say to this man, no matter who he was, that the count already had an invitation to visit him when he next came to France. Reeves couldn’t expect him to drop everything all the time—Tom had done so on two other occasions—to fly to Hamburg or Rome (much as Tom enjoyed little excursions), pretend to be in those cities by accident, and invite the “host,” as Tom always thought of the carrier, to his Villeperce house. “I think there’s no great complication,” Tom said. “Can you tell me the Count’s address in Milan?”

  “Grand Hotel,” said the voice brusquely.

  “Would you tell Reeves I’ll be in touch, tomorrow probably. Where can I reach him?”

  “Tomorrow morning at the Grand Hotel in Milan. He is taking a train to Milan tonight. He does not like airplanes, you know.”

  Tom hadn’t known. It was odd, a man like Reeves not liking airplanes. “I’ll ring him. And I’m not in Munich now. I’m in Paris.”

  “Paris?” with surprise. “I know Reeves tried to ring you in Munich at the Vierjahreszeiten.”

  That was too bad. Tom hung up politely.

  The hands of his wristwatch moved toward midnight. Tom puzzled about what to tell Jeff Constant tonight. And what to do about Bernard. A speech of reassurance sprang full-blown to Tom’s mind, and there was time to see Bernard before he left tomorrow afternoon, but Tom was afraid Bernard might be more upset and negative, if anybody made an obvious effort to reassure him. If Bernard had said to Murchison, “Don’t buy any more Derwatts,” it sounded as if Bernard wasn’t going to paint any more Derwatts, and that, of course, was going to be very bad for business. A still worse possibility, which Bernard might be on the brink of, was a confession to the police or to one or several purchasers of phony Derwatts.

  What state of mind was Bernard really in, and what was he up to?

  Tom decided he should not say anything to Bernard. Bernard knew that he, Tom, had proposed his forging. Tom took a shower and began to sing:

  Babbo non vuole

  Mamma nemmeno

  Come faremo

  A far all’ amor . . .

  The Mandeville’s walls gave a feeling—maybe an illusion—of being soundproof. Tom had not sung the song in a long time. He was pleased that it had come to him out of the blue, because it was a happy song, and Tom associated it with good luck.

  He got into pajamas and rang Jeff’s studio.

  Jeff answered at once. “Hello. What’s up?”

  “I spoke with Mr. M. tonight, and we got along fine. He’s coming to France with me tomorrow. So that will delay things, you see.”

  “And—you’ll try to persuade him or something, you mean.”

  “Yes. Something like that.”

  “Want me to come to your hotel, Tom? You’re probably too tired to pop ov
er here. Or are you?”

  “No, but there’s no need. And you might just run into Mr. M. if you came here, and we don’t want that.”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear from Bernard?” Tom asked.

  “No.”

  “Please tell him—” Tom tried to find the right words. “Tell him that you—not me—happen to know Mr. M. is going to wait a few days before he does anything about his painting. I’m mainly concerned that Bernard doesn’t blow up. Will you try to take care of that?”

  “Why don’t you speak to Bernard?”

  “Because it would be wrong,” Tom said somewhat crossly. Some people had no inkling of psychology!

  “Tom, you were marvelous today,” Jeff said. “Thank you.”

  Tom smiled, gratified by Jeff’s ecstatic tone. “Take care of Bernard. I’ll ring you before I take off.”

  “I expect to be in my studio all morning tomorrow.”

  They said good night.

  If he had told Jeff about Murchison’s intention to ask for receipts, the records of paintings sent from Mexico, Jeff would have been in a tizzy, Tom thought. He must warn Jeff about that tomorrow morning, ring him from a pavement telephone booth, or from a post office. Tom was wary of hotel switchboard listeners. Of course, he hoped to dissuade Murchison from his theory, but if he couldn’t, it would be just as well if the Buckmaster Gallery made some records that looked authentic.

  5

  The next morning, breakfasting in bed—a privilege for which one paid a few Puritan shillings extra in England—Tom rang Mme. Annette. It was only eight o’clock, but Tom knew she would have been up for nearly an hour, singing as she went about her chores of turning up the heat (a little gauge in the kitchen), making her delicate infusion (tea), because coffee in the morning made her heart beat fast, and adjusting her plants on various windowsills so they would catch the most sun. And she would be mightily pleased by a coup de fil from him in Londres.

  “’Allo!— ’Allo—’allo!” Operator furious.

  “’Allo?” Quizzical.

  “’Allo!”