Ripley Under Water

  Jeff was probably stronger than Ed, Tom thought, because he was taller and heavier. On the other hand, Ed looked as if he could be fast-moving, if necessary. “We must all keep in condition, n’est-ce pas? Now who’s for a nice gooey dessert?”

  Jeff wanted to pay the bill. Tom invited them to a Calvados.

  “Who knows when we’ll meet again—like this?” Tom said.

  The proprietress told them that the Calvados was on the house.

  Tom awakened to the sound of rain pattering against the window panes, not hard but determined. He put on his new dressing-gown, price tag still dangling, washed in the bathroom, and went to Ed’s kitchen. It seemed Ed was not yet up. Tom boiled some water, and made a filter coffee for himself, strong. Then a quick shower and a shave, and Tom was tying his tie when Ed surfaced.

  “Lovely day! Good morning!” Ed said, smiling. “You see I’m sporting the new dressing-gown.”

  “I see.” Tom’s mind was on ringing Mme Annette, and the happy thought that it was an hour later in France, and that in about twenty minutes she might be back from shopping. “I made coffee, if you’d like some. What’ll I do with my bed?”

  “Make it for the time being. Then we’ll see.” Ed went on to the kitchen.

  Tom was glad that Ed knew him well enough to know that he would either want to make the bed or take the sheets off, and to say make the bed was a welcome to stay another night, if need be. Ed put some croissants into the oven for warming, and there was also orange juice. Tom drank the juice, but was too tense to eat anything.

  “I’m supposed to ring Heloise at noon, or try to,” Tom said. “Forgot if I told you.”

  “You’re most welcome, as ever, to my telephone.”

  Tom was thinking that he might not be here at noon. “Thank you. We’ll see.” Then Tom jumped at the sound of Ed’s telephone ringing.

  After a few words from Ed, Tom knew it was a business call, something about a caption.

  “Okay, sure, easy,” Ed said. “I’ve got the carbon here … I’ll ring you back before eleven. No problem.”

  Tom looked at his watch, and saw that the minute hand had hardly moved since the last time he had glanced at it. He was thinking that he might borrow an umbrella from Ed and spend some of this morning walking about, and perhaps look in at the Buckmaster Gallery to choose a drawing for possible purchase. A drawing by Bernard Tufts.

  Ed was back, silent, and he headed for the coffeepot.

  “I’ll try my house now,” Tom said, and got up from the kitchen chair.

  In the living room, Tom dialed the Belle Ombre number, and let it ring eight times, then twice more before he gave up.

  “She’s out shopping. Maybe gossiping,” Tom added to Ed with a smile. But Mme Annette was growing a bit deaf, too, he had noticed.

  “Try later, Tom. I’m getting dressed.” Ed went off.

  Tom did in a very few minutes, and Mme Annette answered on the fifth ring.

  “Ah, M’sieur Tome! Where are you?”

  “London still, madame. And I spoke with Madame Heloise yesterday. She is well. In Casablanca.”

  “Casablanca! And when is she coming home?”

  Tom laughed. “How can I say? I am telephoning to ask how things are at Belle Ombre.” Tom knew Mme Annette would report a prowler, if any, or M. Pritchard and by name, if he had possibly had time to return and snoop.

  “All goes well, M’sieur Tome. Henri was not here, but all the same.”

  “And do you know by chance if M’sieur Preechard is at home in Villeperce?”

  “Not yet, m’sieur, he has been away, but he returns today. I have just learned that from Genevieve this morning in the bakery, and she learned it from the wife of M’sieur Hubert the electrician, who did some work for Madame Preechard only this morning.”

  “Really,” Tom said, with respect for Mme Annette’s information service. “Returns today.”

  “Oh, yes, that is sure,” said Mme Annette calmly, as if she were talking about the sun rising or setting.

  “I shall telephone again before—before—well, before I go anywhere else, Madame Annette. Now, you keep well yourself!” He hung up, then gave a great sigh.

  Tom thought he should go back home today, so booking his reservation for the return to Paris was his next job. He went to his bed and began removing the sheets, when he thought of the possibility that he might return before Ed had another guest, so he remade the bed as it was.

  “I thought you’d finished that,” said Ed, entering the room.

  Tom explained. “Old Preekhard’s coming back to Villeperce today. So I’ll meet him there next. And if need be, I’ll lure him to London, where”—Tom threw a smile at Ed, because he was talking fantasy now—“the streets are numerous and dark at night, and Jack the Ripper did all right, didn’t he? What he’d—” Tom paused.

  “What he’d what?”

  “What Pritchard would get out of ruining me, I don’t know. Sadistic satisfaction, I suppose. He might not be able to prove anything, you know, Ed? But it would look bad for me. Then if he managed to kill me, he could see Heloise an unhappy widow, going back to Paris to live, perhaps, as I can’t see her living in our house alone—or even marrying another man and living there.”

  “Tom, stop your dreaming!”

  Tom stretched his arms, trying to relax. “I don’t understand cracked people.” But he had understood Bernard Tufts fairly well, he realized. “Now I’ll see about a plane, if I may, Ed.”

  Tom rang up the Air France reservation, and found he could get on a flight leaving Heathrow at 1:40 that afternoon. Tom so informed Ed.

  “I shall take my knapsack and drift off,” Tom said.

  Ed was about to sit down at his typewriter, and had some work laid out on his desk. “I’ll be hoping to see you soon, Tom. I loved seeing you here. My thoughts will be with you.”

  “Are there any Derwatt drawings for sale? I gathered that in principle they’re not for sale.”

  Ed Banbury smiled. “We are hanging on—but for you—“

  “How many are there? And at what price—about?”

  “Fifty or so? Prices maybe from two thousand up to—fifteen, perhaps. Some Bernard Tufts’s, of course. If they’re good drawings, the price goes higher. Doesn’t always depend on size.”

  “I’d pay the normal price, of course. Be happy to.”

  Ed almost laughed. “If you’re fond of a drawing, Tom, you deserve it as a gift! Who gets the profit after all, finally? All three of us!”

  “I may have time to look into the gallery today. Haven’t you anything here?” Tom asked, as if Ed must have.

  “One in my bedroom, if you want to have a look.”

  They went to the room at the end of the short hall. Ed lifted a framed drawing which had been leaning, face inward, against his chest of drawers. The conte crayon and charcoal drawing showed vertical and slanting lines that might have depicted an easel, and behind it a suggestion of a figure just a bit taller than the easel. Was it a Tufts or a Derwatt?

  “Nice.” Tom narrowed his eyes, opened them, advanced “What’s it called?”

  “Easel in Studio,” Ed replied. “I love the warm orangey-red. Just these two lines to indicate the size of the room. Typical.” He added, “I don’t hang it all the time—just six months out of the year perhaps—so it’s fresh to me.”

  The drawing was nearly thirty inches high, maybe twenty wide, in an appropriately gray and neutral frame.

  “Bernard’s?” Tom asked.

  “It’s a Derwatt. I bought it years ago—for absurdly little. I think about forty pounds. Forgot where I found it! He did it in London. Look at the hand.” Ed extended his right hand in the same position toward the painting.

  In the drawing, the right hand with an indication of a slender brush in the fingers was extended. The painter was approaching the easel, left foot delineated by a stroke of dark gray for the shoe sole.

  “Man going to work,” said Ed. “It gives me courage, this pi
cture.”

  “I understand.” Tom turned in the doorway. “I’m off to see the drawings—then a taxi to Heathrow. My thanks, Ed, for your kindnesses here.”

  Tom collected his raincoat and small suitcase. Under his key on the night table he had left two twenty-pound notes for telephone calls, which Ed might find today or tomorrow.

  “Shall I make it definite when I arrive?” Ed asked. “Such as tomorrow? You’ve only to say the word, Tom.”

  “Let me see how things look. Maybe I’ll ring you tonight. And don’t worry if I don’t ring. I should be home by seven or eight this evening—if all goes well.”

  They shook hands firmly at the door.

  Tom walked to what looked like a promising taxi-flagging corner, and when he got one asked the driver to go to Old Bond Street.

  This time, Nick was alone when Tom arrived, and got up from a desk where he had been looking at a Sotheby’s catalogue.

  “Good morning, Nick,” said Tom pleasantly. “I am back—for another look at the Derwatt drawings. Is that possible?”

  Nick drew himself up, and smiled, as if he considered this request something special. “Yes, sir—this way, as you know.”

  Tom liked the first Nick pulled out, a sketch of a pigeon on a windowsill, which had a few of Derwatt’s extra outlines that suggested a shifting of the alert bird. The paper, yellowish but originally off-white and of fair quality, was nevertheless deteriorating at the edges, but Tom liked that. The drawing was in charcoal and conte crayon under transparent plastic now.

  “And the price of this?”

  “Um—Maybe ten thousand, sir. I would have to verify that.”

  Tom was looking at another in the portfolio, a busy restaurant interior, which did not appeal to him, then a pair of trees and a bench in what looked like a London park. No, the pigeon. “If I make a down payment—and you speak with Mr. Banbury?”

  Tom signed a check for two thousand pounds, and handed it to Nick at the desk. “A pity it’s not signed by Derwatt. Just not signed,” Tom said, interested in what Nick might reply.

  “Well—y-yes, sir,” Nick answered pleasantly, almost rocking back on his heels. “That was Derwatt, I’ve heard. Makes a sketch on the spur of the moment, doesn’t think of signing it, forgets to do it later, and then he’s—no longer with us.”

  Tom nodded. “True. Bye-bye, Nick. Mr. Banbury has my address.”

  “Oh, yes, sir, no problem.”

  Then Heathrow, which looked to Tom more crowded every time he saw it. The cleaning women with brooms and bins on wheels apparently could not keep up with the dropped paper napkins and discarded flight-ticket envelopes. Tom had time to buy a box of six kinds of English soap for Heloise , and a bottle of Pernod for Belle Ombre.

  And when would he next see Heloise ?

  Tom bought a tabloid, a newspaper he would not get on the airplane. Tom had a short snooze after a lobster lunch with white wine, and awakened only when the stewardess asked for seatbelts to be fastened. The neat pale green and darker green-and-brown patchwork of French fields had spread itself below. The plane tilted. Tom felt much fortified, ready for anything—almost. It had occurred to him in London that morning to make a trip to the newspaper archives, wherever that was, to look up David Pritchard, as he had probably done in the States in regard to Tom Ripley. But what would be on record about David Pritchard, if that was his real name? Misdemeanors of a spoilt adolescence? Tickets for speeding? A drug offense at eighteen? Hardly worthy of being on record, even in America, and of no interest in England or France. Still, curious to think that Pritchard might be on the books for torturing a dog to death at the age of fifteen; some horrid little nugget like that just might have turned up in London, if the computers ground exceeding small and copied it. Tom braced himself as the plane landed, smoothly, and began to brake. His own record—well, a list of interesting suspicions might sum it up. No convictions, however.

  After passport control, Tom went to the next available telephone booth, and rang home.

  Mme Annette answered on the eighth ring. “Ah, M’sieur Tome! Ou etes-vous?”

  “De Gaulle airport. I can be home in two hours with luck. Is all well?”

  Tom ascertained that all was well and as usual.

  Then a taxi homewards. He was too eager to get home to worry about the driver being interested in his address. The day was warm and sunny, and Tom opened the taxi windows a slit on both sides, hoping the driver would not complain of a courant d’air, which the French were apt to do at the mildest of breezes. Tom mused about London, the young man Nick, the readiness of Jeff and Ed to help, in case of need. And what was Janice Pritchard doing? How much did she assist her husband, cover for him, and how much did she tease him about just such matters? Stand him up and let him down when he needed her? Janice was the loose cannon, Tom thought, an absurd term for someone as frail as she.

  Mme Annette’s ears were good enough for her to hear the taxi’s wheels on the gravel, because she had opened the front door and was on the stone porch before the taxi came to a halt. Tom paid the driver, tipped him, and carried his case to the door.

  “Non, non, I shall carry it!” Tom said. “This tiny weight?”

  Mme Annette’s old habits never died, habits such as still wanting to carry the heaviest of cases, because a housekeeper should.

  “Did Madame Heloise telephone?”

  “Non, m’sieur.”

  That was good news, Tom thought. He entered the front hall and inhaled its smell of old rose petals, or something similar, but without the lavender wax smell just now, which reminded him that he did have the wax in his suitcase.

  “A tea, M’sieur Tome? Or a cafe? A drink with ice?” She was hanging up his raincoat.

  Tom hesitated, walked into the living room and glanced out of the French windows on to the garden lawn. “Well, yes, a cafe. And no doubt a drink too.” It was just past seven.

  “Oui, m’sieur. Ah! Madame Berthelin has telephoned. Last evening. I told her that you and madame were away.”

  “Thank you,” said Tom. The Berthelins, Jacqueline and Vincent, were neighbors who lived a few kilometers away in another town. “Thank you, I’ll telephone her,” said Tom, walking toward the stairs. “No other phone calls?”

  “N-non, je croix que non.”

  “I’ll be down in ten minutes. Oh, first—” Tom set his suitcase flat on the floor, opened it and extracted the tins of wax in their plastic bag. “A present for the house, madame.”

  “Ah, cirage de lavande! Toujours le bienvenu! Merci!”

  Tom was down again in ten minutes, in a change of clothing and in sneakers. He elected to drink a small Calvados with his coffee, just for a change. Mme Annette hovered, ascertaining if what she had prepared for dinner would be satisfactory, though it always was. Her description went in one of Tom’s ears and out the other, because he was thinking of ringing Janice Pritchard, the loose cannon.

  “That sounds most tempting,” Tom said politely. “I only wish Madame Heloise were here to join me.”

  “And when is Madame Heloise returning?”

  “Not sure,” Tom replied. “But she is enjoying herself—with a good friend, you know.”

  Then he was alone. Janice Pritchard. Tom got up from the yellow sofa and walked with deliberate slowness into the kitchen. He said to Mme Annette, “And Monsieur Preechard? I think he is back today?” Tom tried to sound as casual as he might in inquiring about any other neighbor, who was not yet a friend. In fact, he went to the fridge to get a wedge of cheese, or whatever might be visible at a glance, to munch on, as if he had come in for that purpose.

  Mme Annette helped him, with a small plate and a knife. “He was not back this morning,” she replied. “Perhaps by now.”

  “But his wife’s still here?”

  “Oh, yes. She is sometimes in the grocery.”

  Tom returned to the living room, small plate in hand, and set it down by his drink. On the hall table was the notepad, which Mme Annette never touc
hed, and soon Tom had found the number of the Pritchard house, not yet in the official telephone book.

  Before Tom reached for the telephone, he saw Mme Annette approaching.

  “M’sieur Tome, before I forget, I learned this morning that les Preechards have bought their house in Villeperce.”

  “Really?” said Tom. “Interesting.” But he said it as if it did not interest him. Mme Annette turned away. Tom stared at the telephone.

  If Pritchard himself answered, Tom thought, he’d hang up without a word. If Janice answered, he’d take a chance. He might ask how David’s jaw was, assuming Pritchard had told Janice about their set-to in Tangier. Would Janice know that Pritchard had told Mme Annette, in French with an American accent, that Heloise had been kidnapped? Tom would not bring that up, he decided. Where did politeness end and insanity begin, or vice versa? Tom stood straight, reminding himself that courtesy and politeness were seldom a mistake, and dialed.

  Janice Pritchard answered with a singing American “Hel-lo-o-o?”

  “Hello—Janice. Tom Ripley,” Tom said with a smile on his face.

  “Oh, Mr. Ripley! I thought you were in North Africa!”

  “Was but I returned. Saw your husband there, as you may know.” Beat him unconscious, Tom thought, and smiled politely again, as if Janice could see him over the telephone.

  “Ye-es. So I understand—” Janice paused. Her tone was dulcet, soft anyway. “Yes, there was a fight—”

  “Oh, not much of one,” said Tom modestly. He had the feeling David Pritchard was not at home yet. “I hope David is feeling all right?”

  “Of course he’s all right. I know he asks for these things,” Janice said earnestly. “If you dish it out, you’ve got to take it, too, isn’t that so? Why did he go to Tangier?”

  A chill went through Tom. Those words were more profound than perhaps Janice knew. “You’re expecting David back soon?”

  “Yes, tonight. I’m going to pick him up at Fontainebleau, after he calls me,” Janice replied in her steady, earnest way. “He told me he’d be a little late, because he’s buying some sports goods today in Paris.”

  “Oh. Golf?” Tom asked.

  “No-o. Fishing, I think. Not sure. You know the way David talks, all around the subject.”