Ripley Under Ground

by Patricia Highsmith

  They said good-bye to Leonard—it was near closing time anyway—and took a taxi to Jeff’s studio. Tom felt they both looked at him as if he were some sort of magical personage: it amused Tom, yet in a way he did not like it. They might have imagined him a saint, able to cure a dying plant by touching it, able to erase a headache by waving a hand, able to walk on water. But Derwatt hadn’t been able to walk on water, or maybe hadn’t wanted to. Yet Tom was Derwatt now.

  “I want to ring Cynthia,” Tom said.

  “She works till seven. It’s a funny office,” Jeff said.

  Tom rang Air France first and booked a 1 p.m. flight for tomorrow. He could pick up his ticket at the terminus. Tom had decided to be in London tomorrow morning, in case any difficulties arose. It mustn’t look again as if Derwatt were fleeing the scene posthaste.

  Tom drank sugared tea and reclined on Jeff’s couch, without jacket and tie now, but still with the bothersome beard. “I wish I could make Cynthia take Bernard back,” Tom said musingly, as if he were God having a weak moment.

  “Why?” asked Ed.

  “I’m afraid Bernard may destroy himself. I wish I knew where he was.”

  “You mean really? Kill himself?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes,” Tom said. “I told you that—I thought. I didn’t tell Cynthia. I thought it wasn’t fair. It’d be like blackmail—to make her take him back. And I’m sure Bernard wouldn’t like that.”

  “You mean commit suicide somewhere?” Jeff said.

  “Yes, I do mean that.” Tom hadn’t been going to mention the effigy in his house, but he thought, why not? Sometimes the truth, dangerous as it was, could be turned to advantage to reveal something new, something more. “He hanged himself in my cellar—in effigy. I should say he hung himself, since he was a batch of clothes. He labeled it ‘Bernard Tufts.’ The old Bernard, you see, the forger. Or maybe the real one. It’s all muddled in Bernard’s mind.”

  “Wow! He’s off his rocker, eh?” Ed said, looking at Jeff.

  Both Jeff and Ed were wide-eyed, Jeff in his somewhat more calculating fashion. Were they only now realizing that Bernard Tufts was not going to paint any more Derwatts?

  Tom said, “I am speculating. No use getting upset before it’s happened. But you see—” Tom got up. He started to say, the important thing is that Bernard thinks he has killed me. Tom wondered, was it important? If so, how? Tom realized he had been glad no journalists had been on hand to write, tomorrow, “Derwatt is back,” because if Bernard saw it in any newspaper, he would know that Tom was out of the grave, somehow, alive. That, in a sense, might be good for Bernard, because Bernard might be less inclined to kill himself, if he thought he had not killed Tom Ripley. Or would this really count, in Bernard’s confused thinking just now? What was right and what was wrong?

  After seven, Tom rang Cynthia at a Bayswater number. “Cynthia—before I leave, I wanted to say—in case I see Bernard again, anywhere, can I tell him one small thing, that—”

  “That what?” Cynthia asked, brisk, so much more on the defensive, or at least on the protective, than Tom.

  “That you’ll agree to see him again. In London. It’d be wonderful, you see, if I could just say something positive like that to him. He’s very depressed.”

  “But I see no use in seeing him again,” Cynthia said.

  In her voice, Tom heard the bulwarks of castles, churches, the middle class. Gray and beige stones, impregnable. Decent behavior. “Under any circumstances, you just don’t want to see him again?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. It’s much easier if I don’t prolong things. Easier on Bernard, too.”

  That was final. Stiff upper-lip stuff. But it was also petty, bloody petty. Tom at least understood where he was now. A girl had been neglected, jilted, ousted, abandoned—three years ago. It was Bernard who had broken it off. Let Bernard, under the best of circumstances, try to remedy that. “All right, Cynthia.”

  Would it do her pride any good, Tom wondered, to know Bernard would hang himself again because of her?

  Jeff and Ed had been in Jeff’s bedroom talking, and had not heard any of the conversation, but they asked Tom what Cynthia had said.

  “She doesn’t want to see Bernard again,” Tom said.

  Neither Jeff nor Ed seemed to see the consequences of this.

  Tom said, to bring the matter to a conclusion, “Of course, I may never see Bernard again myself.”

  20

  They went to Michael’s party. Michael who? They arrived around midnight. Half the guests were tiddly, and Tom could not see anyone who looked of any importance, as far as he was concerned. Tom sat in a deep chair, actually rather under a lamp, with a long scotch and water, and chatted with a few people who seemed a little in awe of him, or at least respectful. Jeff was keeping an eye on him from across the room.

  The decor was pink and full of huge tassels. Chairs resembled white meringues. Girls wore skirts so short that Tom’s eye—unused to such gear—was drawn to intricate seaming of tights of various colors—then repelled. Goony, Tom thought. Absolutely nuts. Or was he seeing them as Derwatt would? Was it possible for anybody to imagine approachable flesh under those tights that showed nothing but fortified seams and sometimes more panties under them? Breasts were visible when the girls bent for cigarettes. Which half of the girl was one supposed to look at? Looking higher, Tom was startled by brown-rimmed eyes. A colorless mouth below the eyes said:

  “Derwatt—can you tell me where you live in Mexico? I don’t expect a real answer, but a half-real answer will do.”

  Through his undistorting glasses, Tom regarded her with contemplative puzzlement, as if he were devoting half his great brain to the question she had asked, but in fact he was bored. How he preferred, Tom thought, Heloise’s skirts to just above the knee, no makeup at all, and eyelashes that didn’t look like a handful of spears pointed at him. “Ah, well,” Tom said, ruminating on nothing. “South of Durango.”

  “Durango, where is that?”

  “North of Mexico City. No, of course I can’t tell you the name of my village. It’s a long Aztec name. Ah-hah-hah.”

  “We’re looking for something unspoilt. We meaning my husband, Zach, and we have two kids.”

  “You might try Puerto Vallarta,” Tom said, and was rescued, or at least beckoned by Ed Banbury from a distance. “Excuse me,” said Tom, and hauled himself up from the white meringue.

  Ed thought it was time they slipped out. So did Tom think so. Jeff was circulating smoothly, maintaining his easy smile, chatting. Commendable, Tom thought. Young men, older men regarded Tom, perhaps not daring to approach, perhaps not wanting to.

  “Shall we blow?” Tom said as Jeff joined them.

  Tom insisted on finding his host, whom he had not met or seen for the hour he had been there. Michael the host was the one in a black bear parka with the hood not pulled over his head. He was not very tall and had crew-cut black hair. “Derwatt, you’ve been the jewel in my carcanet tonight! I can’t tell you how pleased I am and how grateful I am to these old . . .”

  The rest was lost in noise.

  Handshakes, and at last the door closed.

  “Well,” Jeff said over his shoulder when they were safely down a flight of stairs. He whispered the rest. “The only reason we went to the party is because the people are of no importance.”

  “And yet they are, somehow,” Ed said. “They’re still people. Another success tonight!”

  Tom let it go. It was true, nobody had ripped off his beard.

  They dropped Ed off somewhere in their taxi.

  In the morning, Tom breakfasted in bed, Jeff’s idea of a small consolation for having to eat through the beard. Then Jeff went out to pick up something from a photographer’s supply shop, and said he would be back by 10:30—though of course he couldn’t accompany Tom to the West Kensington Terminus. It became 11. Tom went into the bathroom and started carefully removing the gauze of his beard.

  The telephone rang.

 
Tom’s first thought was not to answer it. But wouldn’t that look just a little odd? Maybe evasive?

  Tom braced himself for Webster and answered it, in Derwatt’s voice. “Yes? Hello?”

  “Is Mr. Constant there? . . . Or is that Derwatt? . . . Oh, good. Inspector Webster. What are your plans, Mr. Derwatt?” Webster asked in his usual pleasant voice.

  Tom had no plans, for Inspector Webster. “Oh—I expect to leave this week. Back to the salt mines.” Tom chuckled. “And quietude.”

  “Could you—perhaps give me a ring before you go, Mr. Derwatt?” Webster gave his number, plus an extension, and Tom wrote it down.

  Jeff came back. Tom had almost his suitcase in his hand, so eager was he to be off. Their good-byes were brief, even perfunctory on Tom’s part, though they knew, each knew, that their welfare depended on each other.

  “Good-bye. God bless.”

  “Good-bye.”

  To hell with Webster.

  Soon, Tom was in the cocoon of the airplane, the synthetic, strapped-in atmosphere of smiling hostesses, stupid yellow and white cards to fill out, the unpleasant nearness of elbows in business suits, which made Tom twitch away. He wished he had traveled first class.

  Would he have to say to anyone where, as Tom Ripley, he had been in Paris? At least last night, for instance? Tom had a friend who would vouch, but he didn’t want to involve another person, because there were enough people already involved.

  The plane took off, standing on its tail. How boring, Tom thought, to be jetting at a few hundred miles an hour, hearing very little, letting the unfortunate people who lived below suffer the noise. Only trains excited Tom. The nonstop trains from Paris rocketing by on smooth rails past the platform in Melun—trains going so fast, one couldn’t read the French and Italian names on their sides. Once Tom had almost crossed a track where it was forbidden to cross. The tracks had been empty, the station silent. Tom had decided not to risk it, and fifteen seconds later, two chromium express trains had passed each other going like hell, and Tom had imagined being chewed up between them, his body and his suitcase strewn for yards in either direction, unidentifiable. Tom thought of it now and winced in the jet airplane. He was glad, at least, that Mrs. Murchison was not on the plane. He had even glanced around for her when he boarded.

  21

  France now, and as the plane descended, the tops of trees began to look like dark green and brown knots embroidered in a tapestry, or like the ornate frogs on Tom’s dressing gown at home. Tom sat in his ugly new raincoat. At Orly, the passport control glanced at him and at the picture in his Mackay passport, but did not stamp anything—nor had they when he had left Orly for London before. Only London inspectors stamped, it seemed. Tom went through the “nothing to declare” aisle, and hopped into a taxi for home.

  He was at Belle Ombre just before 3 p.m. In the taxi, he had put the parting in his hair back in its usual place, and he carried the raincoat over his arm.

  Heloise was home. The heat was working. The furniture and floors gleamed with wax. Mme. Annette took his bag upstairs. Then Tom and Heloise kissed.

  “What did you do in Greece?” she asked a bit anxiously. “And then in London?”

  “I looked around,” Tom said, smiling.

  “For that fou. Did you see him? How is your head?” She turned him around by the shoulders.

  It was barely hurting. Tom was much relieved that Bernard hadn’t turned up to alarm Heloise. “Did the American woman telephone?”

  “Ah, yes. Mme. Murchison. She speaks some French, but very fon-ny. She telephoned this morning from London. She arrives at Orly this afternoon at three, and she wants to see you. Ah, merde, who are these people?”

  Tom looked at his wristwatch. Mrs. Murchison’s plane should be touching down in ten minutes.

  “Darling, do you want a cup of tea?” Heloise led him toward the yellow sofa. “Did you see this Bernard anywhere?”

  “No. I want to wash my hands. Just a minute.” Tom went into the downstairs loo and washed his hands and face. He hoped Mrs. Murchison would not want to come to Belle Ombre, that she would be satisfied with seeing him in Paris, although Tom hated the idea of going to Paris today.

  Mme. Annette was coming downstairs as Tom went into the living room. “Madame, how goes the famous tooth? Better, I hope?”

  “Yes, M. Tome. I went to the dentist in Fontainebleau this morning and he took out the nerve. He really took it out. I must go again on Monday.”

  “Would we could all have our nerves taken out! All of them! No more pain now, you can count on that!” Tom was hardly aware of what he was saying. Should he have rung Webster? It had seemed to Tom a better idea not to ring him before leaving, because ringing might have looked too much as if he were trying to obey police orders. An innocent man wouldn’t have rung, had been Tom’s reasoning.

  Tom and Heloise had tea.

  “Noëlle wants to know if we can come to a party Tuesday night,” Heloise said. “Tuesday is her birthday.”

  Noëlle Hassler, Heloise’s best friend in Paris, gave delightful parties. But Tom had been thinking about Salzburg, about going there at once, because he had decided that Bernard might have chosen Salzburg to go to. The home of Mozart, another artist who had died young. “Darling, you must go. I am not sure I’ll be here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—now I may have to go to Salzburg.”

  “In Austria? Not to look for this fou again! Soon it will be China!”

  Tom glanced nervously at the telephone. Mrs. Murchison was going to ring. When? “You gave Mrs. Murchison a telephone number in Paris where she could ring me?”

  “Yes,” Heloise said. “An invented number.” She was still speaking French, and becoming a bit annoyed with him.

  Tom wondered how much he could dare explain to Heloise? “And you told her I would be home—when?”

  “I said I did not know.”

  The telephone rang. If it was Mrs. Murchison, she was ringing from Orly.

  Tom stood up. “The important thing,” he said quickly in English, because Mme. Annette was coming in, “is that I was not in London. Very important, darling. I was only in Paris. Don’t mention London, if we have to see Mrs. Murchison.”

  “Is she coming here?”

  “I hope not.” Tom picked the telephone up. “Hello. . . . Yes . . . How do you do, Mrs. Murchison?” She wanted to come to see him. “That would be quite all right, of course, but wouldn’t it be easier for you if I came to Paris? . . . Yes, it is some distance, farther than from Orly to Paris . . .” He was having no luck. He might have discouraged her with difficult directions, but he didn’t want to inconvenience the unfortunate woman any further. “Then the easiest is to take a taxi.” Tom gave her the directions to the house.

  Tom tried to explain to Heloise. Mrs. Murchison would arrive in an hour, and would want to talk to him about her husband. Mme. Annette had left the room, so Tom was able to speak in French to Heloise, though Mme. Annette could have listened for all he cared. It had crossed Tom’s mind, before Mrs. Murchison rang, to tell Heloise why he had gone to London, to explain to her that he had twice impersonated Derwatt the painter, who was now dead. But this moment was not the time to spring all that on her. If they got through Mrs. Murchison’s visit successfully, that was all Tom could demand of Heloise.

  “But what happened to her husband?” Heloise asked.

  “I don’t know, darling. But she has come to France and naturally she wants to speak to—” Tom didn’t want to say to the last person who had seen her husband. “She wants to see the house, because her husband was last here. I took him to Orly from here.”

  Heloise stood up with a twist of impatience in her body. But she was not stupid enough to make a scene. She was not going to be uncontrollable, unreasonable. That might come later.

  “I know what you’re going to say. You don’t want her here for the evening. All right. She will not be invited for dinner. We can say we have an engagement. But I must
offer her tea or a drink or both. I would estimate—she will be here not more than an hour, and I’ll handle everything politely. And correctly.”

  Heloise subsided.

  Tom went upstairs to his room. Mme. Annette had emptied his suitcase and put it away, but there were some things not quite in their usual place, so Tom put them back as they were when he stayed at Belle Ombre for weeks on end. Tom had a shower, then put on gray flannels, a shirt and sweater, and he took a tweed jacket from his closet, in case Mrs. Murchison might want to take a stroll on the lawn.

  Mrs. Murchison arrived.

  Tom went to the front door to meet her, and to make sure the taxi was settled correctly. Mrs. Murchison had French currency and overtipped the driver, but Tom let it go.

  “My wife, Heloise,” Tom said. “Mrs. Murchison—from America.”

  “How do you do?”

  “How do you do?” said Heloise.

  Mrs. Murchison agreed to a cup of tea. “I hope you’ll excuse me for inviting myself so abruptly,” she said to Tom and Heloise, “but it’s a matter of importance—and I wanted to see you as soon as possible.”

  They were all seated now, Mrs. Murchison on the yellow sofa, Tom on a straight chair, like Heloise. Heloise had a marvelous air of not being much interested in the situation, but of being polite enough to be present. But she was quite interested, Tom knew.

  “My husband—”

  “Tom, he told me to call him,” Tom said, smiling. He stood up. “He looked at these pictures. Here on my right, ‘Man in Chair.’ Behind you, ‘The Red Chairs.’ It’s an earlier one.” Tom spoke boldly. Carry it off or not, and to hell with propriety, ethics, kindness, truth, the law, or even fate—meaning the future. Either he brought it off now, or he did not. If Mrs. Murchison wanted a tour of the house, it could even include the cellar as far as Tom was concerned. Tom waited for Mrs. Murchison to ask a question, perhaps, about what her husband had thought about the validity of the paintings.

  “You bought these from the Buckmaster?” Mrs. Murchison asked.

  “Yes, both of them.” Tom glanced at Heloise, who was smoking an unaccustomed Gitane maïs. “My wife understands English,” Tom said.