Ripley Under Water

  “No, the opposite,” Tom said, shaking his head. He had thought of David Pritchard: was anything, any idea, more unpleasant than Pritchard? Not to Tom, at the moment. He looked down again at Cynthia’s flat black slippers, at her black stockings, Italian-style. Chic but also grim. “I’m thinking of David Pritchard, who could do Bernard quite a bit of harm.”

  “What do you mean? How?” Cynthia was jostled by a passerby behind her.

  Tom put his hand out to steady her, and Cynthia recoiled from him. “It’s hellish talking here,” Tom said. “I mean, Pritchard means nobody any good, neither you, nor Bernard, nor—”

  “Bernard is dead,” Cynthia said before Tom could utter the pronoun “me.” “The damage is done.” Thanks to you, she might have added.

  “It isn’t all done. I have to explain it—in two minutes. Can’t we sit down somewhere? There’s a place just around the corner!” Tom tried his best to be both polite and adamant.

  With a sigh, Cynthia yielded, and they walked around the corner. It was not too big a pub, consequently not so noisy, and they even found a small round table. Tom didn’t care when or if anyone came to wait on them, and he was sure Cynthia didn’t.

  “What is Pritchard up to?” Tom asked. “Besides being a prowler—a peeping Tom—and I strongly suspect a sadist in regard to his wife?”

  “Not, however, a murderer.”

  “Oh? I’m glad to hear that. Are you writing to David Pritchard, talking with him on the telephone?”

  Cynthia took a deep breath and blinked. “I thought you had something to say about Bernard.”

  Cynthia Gradnor was in pretty close touch with Pritchard, Tom thought, though perhaps she was wise enough not to put anything on paper. “I have. Two things. I—but first, may I ask why you associate with such crud as Pritchard? He’s sick in the head!” Tom gave a smile, sure of himself.

  Cynthia said slowly, “I don’t care to talk about Pritchard—whom I’ve never seen or met, by the way.”

  “Then how do you know his name?” Tom asked in a polite tone.

  Again an inhalation; she glanced down at the tabletop, then looked back at Tom. Her face suddenly looked thinner and older. She was forty by now, Tom supposed.

  “I don’t care to answer that question,” Cynthia said. “Can you get to the point? Something about Bernard, you said.”

  “Yes. His work. I saw Pritchard and wife, you see, because they’re my neighbors now—in France. Perhaps you know that. Pritchard mentioned Murchison—the man who strongly suspected forgeries.”

  “And who mysteriously disappeared,” said Cynthia, attentive now.

  “Yes. At Orly.”

  She smiled a bit cynically. “Just took a different plane? To where? Never got in touch again with his wife?” She paused. “Come on, Tom. I know you did away with Murchison. You may have taken his luggage to Orly—”

  Tom remained calm. “Just ask my housekeeper, who saw us leave the house that day—saw Murchison and me. Heading for Orly.”

  Cynthia probably had no instant rejoinder for what he had just said, Tom thought.

  Tom stood up. “What may I get you?”

  “Dubonnet with a slice of lemon, please.”

  Tom went to the bar, put in Cynthia’s order and his for a gin and tonic, and after some three minutes was able to pay and carry the drinks away.

  “Back to Orly,” Tom continued as he sat down. “I remember I dropped Murchison at a curb. I didn’t park. We didn’t stand having a stirrup cup.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  But Tom believed himself, now at any rate. He would go on believing, until any undeniable evidence was put in front of him. “How do you know what his relationship with his wife was? How do I know?”

  “I thought Mrs. Murchison came to see you,” Cynthia said sweetly.

  “She did. In Villeperce. We had tea at my house.”

  “And did she say anything about a bad relationship between herself and her husband?”

  “No, but why should she have? She came to see me because I was the last person who’d seen her husband—as far as anybody knows.”

  “Yes,” said Cynthia smugly, as if she had information that Tom hadn’t.

  Well, if so, what was the information? He waited, and Cynthia didn’t go on. Tom did. “Mrs. Murchison—I suppose—could bring up the forgery matter again. Any time. But when I saw her, she admitted that she didn’t understand her husband’s reasoning or his theory about the later Derwatts being forgeries.”

  Now Cynthia pulled a packet of filter cigarettes from her handbag, and took one out delicately, as if she rationed them.

  Tom extended his lighter. “Do you hear anything from Mrs. Murchison? In Long Island, I think it was?”

  “No.” Cynthia shook her head slightly, calm still, and appearing uninterested.

  Cynthia showed no sign of connecting him, Tom, with the telephone call from the French police asking Cynthia for Mrs. Murchison’s address. Or could Cynthia possibly be putting on a good act?

  “I asked you that,” Tom continued, “because—in case you’re not aware—Pritchard is trying to make trouble in regard to Murchison. Pritchard has it in for me especially. Very odd. He doesn’t know beans about painting, certainly doesn’t care about the arts—you should see the furniture in his house and the stuff on the walls!” Tom had to laugh. “I was there for a drink. Not a friendly atmosphere.”

  Cynthia reacted with a tiny, pleased smile, as Tom had expected. “Why are you worried?”

  Tom kept his pleasant expression. “Not worried, annoyed. He took several photographs of my house, the exterior, one Sunday morning. Would you like that from a stranger, without a by-your-leave? Why does he want pictures of my house?”

  Cynthia said nothing, and sipped her Dubonnet.

  “Are you encouraging Pritchard in his anti-Ripley game?” Tom asked.

  At that moment, the table behind Tom gave a clap of laughter like an explosion.

  Cynthia hadn’t flinched, as had Tom, but pushed a hand lazily against her hair, in which Tom now saw some gray. Tom tried to imagine her apartment—modern but with homey touches from her family, probably—an old bookcase, a quilt. Her clothes were good-looking and conservative. He dared not ask if she was happy. She’d sneer or throw her glass at him. Would she have a painting or a drawing by Bernard Tufts on a wall?

  “Look, Tom, do you think I don’t know that you killed Murchison and got rid of him—somehow? That—that it was Bernard who went over the cliff in Salzburg and whose body or ashes you passed off as Derwatt’s?”

  Tom was silent, silenced in the face of her intensity, at least for the moment.

  “Bernard died for this rotten game,” she went on. “Your idea, the forgeries. You ruined his life—almost ruined mine. But what did you care as long as the paintings kept coming, signed Derwatt?”

  Tom lit a cigarette. A prankster standing at the bar was banging his heel against the brass rail, laughing, adding to the noise. “I never forced Bernard to paint—to keep painting,” Tom said softly, although they were out of anybody’s hearing. “That would’ve been beyond my powers, anybody’s powers, you know that. I hardly knew Bernard when I suggested the forging. I asked Ed and Jeff if they knew anybody who might be able to do it.” Tom wasn’t sure that was true, that he hadn’t straight away suggested Bernard, because Bernard’s painting, what little Tom had seen of it, wasn’t drastically different from or at odds with Derwatt’s style. Tom went on, “Bernard was more a friend of Ed’s and Jeff’s.”

  “But you encouraged—all of it. You applauded!”

  Now Tom was irked. Cynthia was only partly right. He was getting into enraged female territory, which scared Tom. Who could deal with it? “Bernard could’ve quit any time, you know, quit painting Derwatts. He loved Derwatt as an artist. You mustn’t forget the personal in all this—between Bernard and Derwatt. I—I honestly think what Bernard was doing was out of our hands finally—even pretty soon, when Bernard began assuming
Derwatt’s style.” Tom added with conviction, “I’d like to know who could’ve stopped him.” Certainly Cynthia hadn’t, he thought, and she’d known about Bernard’s forging from the start, because she and Bernard had been very close, both living in London, and intending to marry.

  Cynthia kept silent, and drew on her cigarette. Her cheeks looked hollow for an instant, like those of someone dead or ill.

  Tom looked down at his drink. “I know there’s no love lost between you and me, Cynthia, so it doesn’t matter to you how much Pritchard annoys me. But is he going to start talking about Bernard?” Again Tom had lowered his voice. “Just to hit at me—it seems? It’s absurd!”

  Cynthia’s gaze was fixed on him. “Bernard? No. Whoever mentioned Bernard in all this? Who’s going to bring him in now? Did Murchison even know his name? I don’t think so. And what if he did? Murchison’s dead. Did Pritchard mention Bernard?”

  “Not to me,” Tom said. He watched her drink the last red drops in her glass, as if she were calling their meeting concluded. “Would you have another?” he asked, glancing at her empty glass. “I will if you will.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Tom tried to think, and fast. A pity that Cynthia knew—or was so convinced—that Bernard Tufts’s name hadn’t ever been mentioned in connection with the forgeries. Tom had uttered Bernard’s name to Murchison (as Tom recalled) when trying to persuade Murchison to stop his forgery inquiry. But as Cynthia had said, Murchison was dead, because Tom had killed him a few seconds after that vain conversation. Tom could hardly appeal to Cynthia’s desire—he assumed she had such a desire—to keep Bernard’s name clean, if his name had never been mentioned in the newspapers. Still, he tried.

  “You surely wouldn’t want Bernard’s name dragged in—in case loony Pritchard keeps on and learns it from someone.”

  “From whom?” Cynthia asked. “You? Are you joking?”

  “No!” Tom could see that she had taken his question as a threat. “No,” he repeated, seriously. “In fact, quite another—a happier turn of thought crossed my mind, if it came to attaching Bernard’s name to the paintings.” Tom bit his underlip, and looked down at the humble glass ashtray, which made him recall his equally dismal conversation with Janice Pritchard in Fontainebleau, where the ashtray had held butts from strangers’ cigarettes.

  “And what’s that?” Now Cynthia gathered her handbag, and sat up straight with an air of departure.

  “That—Bernard was at this for so long—six, seven years?—that he developed and improved—and in a way became Derwatt.”

  “Didn’t you say this before? Or was it Jeff repeating to me what you’d said?” Cynthia was unimpressed.

  Tom persisted. “More important—what would the catastrophe be, if the last half or more of Derwatt productions were revealed as those of Bernard Tufts? Are they worse as paintings?

  I’m not talking about the value of good forgeries—in the news these days, and even a fad or a new industry. I’m talking about Bernard as a painter who developed from Derwatt—went on, I mean.”

  Cynthia stirred restlessly, almost stood up. “You never seem to realize—you and Ed and Jeff also—that Bernard was most unhappy with what he was doing. It broke us up. I—” She shook her head.

  The table behind Tom was on a roar again, wild laughter. How could he state to Cynthia, in the next half-minute, that Bernard had also loved and respected his work, even when doing “forgeries”? What Cynthia objected to was the dishonesty in Bernard’s trying to imitate Derwatt’s style.

  “Artists have their destinies,” Tom said. “Bernard had his. I did my best to—to keep him alive. He was at my house, you know, I talked with him—before he went off to Salzburg. Bernard was confused at the end, thinking he’d betrayed Derwatt—somehow.” Tom moistened his lips, quickly drank the last of his glass. “I said, ‘Very well, Bernard, quit the forgeries, but shake off the depression.’ I kept hoping he’d speak with you again, that you two would get back—” Tom stopped.

  Cynthia looked at him with thin lips parted. “Tom, you are the most evil man I’ve ever met—if you consider that a favorable distinction. You probably do.”

  “No.” Tom got up, because Cynthia was rising from her chair, throwing her handbag strap over one shoulder.

  Tom followed her out, knowing she would be delighted to say goodbye as soon as possible. Tom judged from the address in the telephone book that she might be able to walk to her flat from here, if she was going there, and he was sure she did not want him to accompany her to the door. Tom had the feeling that she was living alone.

  “Goodbye, Tom. Thank you for the drink,” Cynthia said when they were outside.

  “A pleasure,” Tom replied.

  Then suddenly he was alone, facing the King’s Road, then turning again to watch Cynthia’s tall figure in the beige sweater disappear among the others on the pavement. Why hadn’t he asked more questions? What did she intend to get out of egging Pritchard on? Why hadn’t he asked her outright if she telephoned the Pritchards? Because Cynthia wouldn’t have answered, Tom thought. Or if Cynthia had ever met Mrs. Murchison?

  Chapter 13

  Tom got a taxi, after several minutes’ effort, and asked the driver please to aim for Covent Garden, and gave Ed’s address. Seven twenty-two by Tom’s watch. His eyes jumped from shop sign to rooftop, to a pigeon, to a dachshund on a leash crossing the King’s Road. The driver had to turn and head in the other direction. Tom was thinking that, if he had asked Cynthia if she was in frequent touch with Pritchard, she might have replied with her catlike smile: “Certainly not. What’s the need?”

  And this might have meant that a type like Pritchard would keep going under his own momentum, without even further ammo, though she’d given him some, because he had decided to hate Tom Ripley.

  Tom was pleased to find both Jeff and Ed in the flat when he arrived. They were in Ed’s workroom.

  “How was your day?” asked Ed. “What did you do? Besides buying me that handsome dressing-gown. I showed it to Jeff.”

  “Oh, I—looked in at the Buckmaster this morning, talked with Nick, whom I like more and more.”

  “Isn’t he nice,” said Ed, rather mechanically in his English way.

  “First, Ed, are there any telephone messages for me? I gave your number to Heloise, you know.”

  “No, I checked when I came in around half-past four,” Ed replied. “If you want to try Heloise now—”

  Tom smiled. “Casablanca? At this hour?” But Tom was a bit worried, thinking of Meknes or perhaps Marrakesh next, inland towns that evoked visions of sand, distant horizons, camels that walked with ease while men sank in the softness which in Tom’s imagination took on the evil powers of quicksand. Tom blinked. “I’ll—maybe try her late again tonight, if that’s all right with you, Ed.”

  “My house is your house!” said Ed. “Like a gin and tonic, Tom?”

  “In a minute, thanks. I saw Cynthia today.” Tom saw Jeff’s attention focus.

  “Where? And how?” Jeff gave a laugh on the last question.

  “Stood in wait outside her office building. Six o’clock,” Tom said. “With some difficulty, I persuaded her to join me for a glass at a local pub.”

  “Really!” said Ed, impressed.

  Tom sat down in the armchair to which Ed had gestured. Jeff looked comfortable on Ed’s slightly sagging sofa. “She hasn’t changed. She’s pretty grim. But—”

  “Relax, Tom,” said Ed. “Back in a flash.” He went off to the kitchen, and was indeed back in a flash with an iceless gin and tonic with a slice of lemon.

  Meanwhile Jeff had asked, “Is she married—do you think?” Jeff was serious, but he looked as if he realized that Cynthia would not have answered yes or no, if Tom had posed the question.

  “I have the feeling no. Just a feeling,” Tom said, and accepted his glass. “I thank you, Ed. Well, it seems to be my problem and not yours—either of you—and not the

  Buckmaster Gallery’s or—D
erwatt’s.” Tom lifted his drink. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” they echoed.

  “By problem, I mean, Cynthia having got a message through to Preechard—whom she says she’s never met, by the way—to try to investigate the Murchison business. That’s what I mean by my problem.” Tom grimaced. “Pritchard is still in my neighborhood. At least his wife is, at this moment.”

  “What can he do—or she, exactly?” Jeff asked.

  Tom said, “Heckle me. Keep on ingratiating himself with Cynthia. Find Murchison’s corpse. Ha! But—at least Miss Gradnor does not seem to want to spill the beans about the forgeries.” Tom sipped his drink.

  “Does Pritchard know about Bernard?” Jeff asked.

  “I’d say no,” Tom replied. “Cynthia said, ‘Who said anything about Bernard in all this?’ Meaning nobody has. She’s got a defensive attitude about Bernard—thanks be to God, and lucky for all of us!” Tom leaned back in the comfortable chair. “In fact—I tried again to do the impossible.” As he had with Murchison, Tom thought, tried and failed. “I asked Cynthia, quite seriously, weren’t Bernard’s paintings at the last as good as or better than what Derwatt might have produced? Also in Derwatt’s same style? What’s the horror if the name Derwatt were to be changed to Tufts?”

  “Oof,” Jeff said, and rubbed his forehead.

  “I can’t see it,” said Ed, arms folded. He was standing at the end of the sofa where Jeff sat. “As to the value of the paintings, I can’t see it—as to their quality though—”

  “Which ought to be the same thing but isn’t,” said Jeff with a glance at Ed, and gave a mocking laugh.

  “True,” Ed conceded. “Did you talk with Cynthia about this?” he asked, looking a bit worried.

  “Not profoundly,” Tom said. “More a rhetorical question or two. I was trying to take the steam out of her attack, if she had any, but in fact she hadn’t. She told me that I’d ruined Bernard’s life and almost ruined hers. True, I suppose.” Now Tom rubbed his forehead and stood up. “Mind if I go wash my hands?”

  Tom went to the bathroom between his library-bedroom and Ed’s bedroom. He was thinking of Heloise, wondering what she was doing now, wondering if Pritchard had followed her and Noelle to Casablanca.