Ripley Under Water

  “It really is time Heloise gave you another telephone call, Tome,” Agnes said as he and Ed were leaving. “I have a feeling she will telephone you tonight.”

  “Have you?” said Tom, smiling. “I wouldn’t bet my life on it.”

  The day had shaped up nicely, Tom thought. So far.

  Chapter 21

  To add a small bit to his luck today, Tom thought, he had not had to witness or hear or imagine that he heard the squeals of two lobsters being boiled alive. And as he bit into another succulent morsel covered in warm lemon butter, he reminded himself that the police had not paid a visit while he and Ed were at the Grais’. Mme Annette would have said something at once, if they had.

  “Delicious, Tom,” said Ed. “Do you dine like this every night?”

  Tom smiled. “No, it’s in your honor. I’m glad you like it.” He took a bit of rucola salad.

  They had just finished their salad and cheese when the telephone rang. Was that the police or had Agnes Grais’ prediction come true and it was Heloise ?

  “Hello?”

  ” ‘Ello, Tome!” It was Heloise , and she was with Noelle at the airport, and could Tom fetch her later tonight from Fontainebleau?

  Tom took a deep breath. “Heloise , darling, I am delighted you are home, but—just tonight, could you possibly stay chez Noelle?” Tom knew Noelle had an extra room. “I have an English guest tonight—”

  “Who?”

  Reluctantly Tom said, “Ed Banbury,” knowing that the name would signify vague danger to Heloise , because it was connected with the Buckmaster Gallery. “Tonight—we have a bit of work, whereas tomorrow—how is Noelle? … Good. Give her my love, would you? And you are well also? You don’t mind, darling, staying in Paris tonight? Ring me any time tomorrow morning.”

  “All right, cheri. It is so good to be back!” Heloise said in English.

  They hung up.

  “Holy—holy cow!” Tom said as he walked back to the table.

  “Heloise ,” Ed said.

  “She wanted to come down tonight, but she’s going to stay with her friend Noelle Hassler. Thank goodness.” The corpse in the garage was only bones, perhaps unidentifiable, Tom thought, but still the bones of a dead man, and instinctively Tom didn’t want Heloise anywhere near them. Tom swallowed, then took a sip of his Montrachet. “Ed—”

  At that moment Mme Annette came in. It was indeed time to remove the dinner and salad plates and replace them with the dessert plates. When Mme Annette had brought on her light homemade raspberry mousse, Tom began again. Ed was faintly smiling, eyes alert.

  “I have in mind to do something about the problem tonight,” Tom said.

  “Thought you might—another river? This would sink.” Ed spoke positively but softly. “Nothing to float there.”

  Tom knew he meant without rocks. “No. I’ve another idea. Dump ‘em right back into old Preekhard’s pond.”

  Ed smiled, then laughed softly, and some pink came into his cheeks. “Right back,” he repeated, as if listening to or reading a comical horror story, and he took a spoonful of his dessert.

  “Possibly,” Tom replied quietly, and began eating. “Do you know this is made with my own raspberries?”

  Coffee in the living room, and neither wanted a brandy. Tom strolled to the front door, stepped out and looked at the sky. It was nearly eleven. The stars were not in full summer glory because of a lot of clouds, and what was the moon doing?

  If they did the job quickly, Tom thought, who cared about moonlight? He could not find the moon now. He returned to the living room. “Are you game to come with me tonight? I don’t expect to see Pritchard—”

  “Yes, Tom.”

  “Back in a second.” Tom ran up the stairs, put on his Levis again, and transferred the heavy ring from his black trousers into his Levis. Was he developing some kind of neurosis about clothes-changing? Imagining that it helped somehow, gave new strength? Then Tom went to his atelier, took a soft pencil and some sketch paper, and went downstairs, feeling suddenly more cheerful.

  Ed sat where he had been before, at one end of the yellow sofa, now with a cigarette in hand.

  “Can you bear it if I make a quick sketch?”

  “Of me?” But Ed acquiesced.

  Tom drew, with indications of sofa and pillow as background. He drew the puzzled concentration in Ed’s blond brows and eyelashes, as Ed gazed at him, the thinnish English lips, and the casual lines of the open shirt collar. Tom moved his chair half a meter to the right, and took another page. Same thing. Ed could move, drink his coffee, and did. Tom worked for perhaps twenty minutes, and then thanked Ed for his cooperation.

  “Cooperation!” Ed laughed. “I was daydreaming.”

  Mme Annette had returned with more coffee, and had now retired for the evening, Tom knew.

  “My idea,” Tom began “is to approach the Pritchard estate from the other side—not the Grais’ side—get out of the car and on foot take the thing onto the Pritchard lawn to the pond there, and just toss it. Doesn’t weigh anything, you know. Well—”

  “Not even thirty pounds, I’d guess,” said Ed.

  “Just about,” murmured Tom. “Well—they might hear something, Pritchard and wife, if they’re home. Living room has a window on that side, a couple of windows, I think. We’ll just walk away. Let him complain!” Tom added boldly. “Let him ring the police and tell his story.”

  Silence for a few seconds.

  “Do you think he would?”

  Tom shrugged. “Who knows what a nut will do?” He spoke in a resigned tone.

  Ed stood up. “Shall we?”

  Tom pulled back the pages of his sketchpad, and laid it with his pencil on the coffee table. He got a jacket from the hall table, and his wallet from the drawer of the hall table, just in case of a police check, he thought with amusement: he never drove without his license, of course. A police officer might check his license tonight, but not look into the package in the back of the car, which at a glance resembled a rug tied up for transport.

  Ed came downstairs also with a jacket, a dark one, and in sneakers. “Right, Tom.”

  Tom turned off a couple of lights, they went out through the front door, and Tom locked it after them. He opened the big gates, assisted by Ed, then the tall metal door of the garage. Mme Annette’s light might have been on at the back of the house, but Tom wasn’t sure and didn’t care. There was nothing unusual about his taking a guest for a late-night drive, possibly to a Fontainebleau cafe. They got in, and each lowered a window a bit, though Tom noticed not a hint of musty smell now. Tom drove through Belle Ombre’s gates and turned left.

  He crossed Villeperce at its southern part and took a road north when he could, as ever not caring much which road, as long as the general direction was correct.

  “You know all these roads,” Ed said. It was half a question.

  “Ha! Ninety percent, maybe. It’s easy to overshoot the side roads at night, where there’s no marker.” Tom made a right turn, drove for a kilometer, then found a signpost which said among other towns villeperce, to the right. Tom took it. Then he was on a road he knew, which would take them to the Pritchard house, the empty house, then the Grais’.

  “This is their road, I think,” said Tom. “Now my idea—” He drove more slowly, and let a car pass him. “We’ll walk with it—thirty meters or so anyway, so they don’t hear the car.” The clock on his dashboard said almost half-past midnight. Tom’s car crept along, with dimmed lights.

  “Is that it?” Ed asked. “The white house on the right?”

  “That’s it.” Tom saw lights downstairs and up, but only one up. “I hope there’s a party!” Tom said with a smile. “But I doubt it. I’m going to park by those trees back there and hope for the best.” He backed, and then cut the lights. He was near a curve, which led into a lane to the right, the unpaved kind used mainly by farmers. A car could still pass Tom’s, of course, though Tom had not gone more to the right, lest he roll into a ditch, even a s
hallow one. “Let’s try it.” Tom took the flashlight which he had put on the seat between them.

  They opened the back, and Tom put his fingers under the nearer rope around Murchison’s lower legs, and pulled. It was easy. Ed was about to grasp the next coils of rope, when Tom said, “Wait.”

  They kept still and listened.

  “Thought I heard something but maybe I didn’t,” Tom said.

  They had the bundle out now. Tom closed the back, almost: he did not want to make a noise. With a gesture of his head, Tom indicated departure, and they went off, along the right side of the road, Tom in front now, flashlight in left hand, but not on except from time to time when he flashed it downward at the road, because it was rather dark, after all.

  “Hold it,” Ed whispered. “Had a bad grip.” He got his fingers in better position under the rope, and they went on.

  Tom paused again and whispered, “About ten meters on, you see—we can get onto the grass. I don’t think there’s a ditch, even.”

  Now they could see clearly the sharp corners of the lighted living-room windows. Did Tom hear music or was he imagining it? There was a ditch of sorts to their right, but no fence. On the other hand, just four meters on was the driveway, and neither of the Pritchards was in sight. Tom again indicated silently that they were to walk on. They walked into the driveway, and turned to the right toward the pond, which was now a dark oval, though nearly round. Their steps were silent on the grass. Tom heard music from the house, classical and not loud tonight.

  “Now the old heave-ho,” Tom said, and led the maneuver. “One—” A swing. ”—two—and three right in the middle.”

  Plu-ung! Then an echoing groan or burble from the pond’s waters.

  And much spatter, a gurgling of air rising, as Tom and Ed walked slowly away. Tom took the lead, and at the road turned left, flashlight beaming once on the road, for the benefit of both of them.

  When they were some twenty paces from the driveway, Tom slowed and stopped, and so did Ed. They looked back at the Pritchard house, beyond the darkness.

  “… awa … boaa-aa … ?” The fragments of a question had come from a female throat.

  “That’s his wife, Janice,” Tom whispered to Ed. Tom glanced to his right, and could just see the ghostly form of the white station wagon, mainly hidden by dark foliage. Tom looked back at the Pritchard house, fascinated. They had apparently heard the splash.

  “You—oh—wah!” This came in deeper tone, and sounded to Tom like Pritchard’s voice.

  A light on the side porch’s ceiling came on, and Tom saw Pritchard’s figure in light shirt and darker trousers, on the porch. Pritchard looked right and left, shined a flashlight across the yard, stared at the road, then descended the few steps onto the lawn. He went straight to the pond, peered, then looked toward the house.

  “… pond …” That word came clearly from Pritchard, followed by a rough sound, maybe a curse. “… am-mm-me … from garden, Jan!”

  Janice had appeared on the porch, clad in light-colored slacks and top. “… wah …ma-ee?” asked Janice.

  “No-o—one with the hook!” A favorable breeze must have carried those words straight to Tom and Ed.

  Tom touched Ed’s arm and found it rigid with tension. “I think he’s going to grapple for it!” he whispered, and stifled a burst of nervous mirth.

  “Shouldn’t we take off, Tom?”

  At that moment Janice, who had disappeared, trotted into view again around the front corner of the house, bearing a pole, hurrying. Bent, peering through the wild bushes that grew on the Pritchards’ lawn edge, Tom could just see that it was not the broad grappling-hook rake, but a three-pronged claw, perhaps, of the kind gardeners used to rake leaves and weeds from hard-to-get-at places. Tom had something similar, not two meters long, and this one looked shorter.

  Mumbling, asking for something, maybe the flashlight (now lying on the lawn), Pritchard took the pole and appeared to push it downward into the pond.

  “And what if he does get it?” Tom murmured to Ed, and stepped sideways in the car’s direction.

  Ed followed.

  Then Tom thrust out his left hand toward Ed, and they paused. Through the bushes, Tom saw Pritchard, his figure bent forward from the waist, reach for something Janice was handing him, then Pritchard’s white shirt vanished.

  They heard a cry from Pritchard, then a heavy splash.

  “David!” Janice’s figure trotted halfway around the pond. “Da—vid!”

  “Chrissake, he’s fallen in!” said Tom.

  “Ma—waa—aaa …” That was Pritchard, surfacing, then “P’too!” A spitting sound. A splash, as of an arm that threshed the water’s surface.

  “Where’s that hook?” Janice cried shrilly. “Hand …”

  Pritchard had lost his grip on it, Tom thought.

  “Janice! … Gimme … mud below! Y’ hand!”

  “Better a broom … or a rope …” Janice dashed off toward the lighted porch, then swerved maniacally and returned to the pond. “That pole … can’t see it!”

  ” … y’ hand … these …” David Pritchard’s words were lost, and there was another splashing sound.

  Janice’s pale figure wafted around the rim of the pond like a will-o’-the-wisp. “Davy, where are you? Ah!” She had sighted something, and bent.

  The pond’s surface seethed audibly to Tom and Ed.

  “… my hand, David! Grab the edge!”

  Seconds of silence, then a shriek from Janice followed by another great splash.

  “My God, they’re both in!” said Tom, hysterically amused, having meant to whisper, but he had spoken almost normally.

  “How deep is that pond?”

  “Dunno. Five or six feet? I’m guessing.”

  Janice cried out something, and was stifled by water.

  “Shouldn’t we—” Ed looked at Tom anxiously. “Maybe—”

  Tom could feel Ed’s tautness. Tom shifted his weight from left to right foot and back, as if weighing or debating something, yes or no. It was Ed’s presence that made things different. The people in the pond were Tom’s enemies. On his own, Tom wouldn’t have hesitated, he would have walked away.

  The splashing sounds had stopped.

  “I didn’t push them into that pond,” Tom said rather sternly, just as a faint sound—like a single hand stirring the surface—came from the direction of the pond. “Now let’s get out while we can.”

  There were only some fifteen more paces to go in the dark. Great luck, Tom thought, that no one had passed by in those five or six minutes that the events had taken. They got into the car, and Tom backed into the nearby lane, in order to pull out and turn left, which would enable him to depart by the roundabout way he had come. He put his lights on now at their brightest.

  “What a break!” Tom said, smiling. He was reminded of his euphoria with the unresponsive Bernard Tufts, after they had dumped—yes—the same bones, Murchison’s bones, into the Loing at Voisy. He had felt like singing. Now he felt simply relieved and merry, but realized that Ed Banbury didn’t, couldn’t. So Tom drove carefully and said no more.

  “A break?”

  “Oh—” Tom was now driving in a darkness that seemed dense; he was not sure where the next crossroad or signpost would turn up. But he thought his course could take him again south of Villeperce proper, and past the main street at right angles. Marie and Georges’s bar-tabac would be closed, probably, but Tom didn’t want to be seen even crossing the main street. “A break—that nobody drove by during those minutes back there! Not that I’d have cared much. What’ve I got to do with the Pritchards or the bones in their pond—which I assume will be found tomorrow?” Tom vaguely imagined two corpses floating an inch or so beneath the pond’s surface. He gave a laugh and glanced at Ed.

  Ed, smoking a cigarette, returned Tom’s glance, then plunged his head down, held his forehead with one hand. “Tom, I can’t—”

  “Do you feel sick?” asked Tom with concern, and l
et the car slow down. “We can stop—”

  “No, but we’re leaving the scene and they’re drowning back there.”

  They have drowned, Tom thought. He thought of David Pritchard calling to his wife, “Your hand!” as if to pull her deliberately in, as if in a final act of sadism, but Pritchard had had no footing then, and had wanted to live. Tom realized, with a sense of frustration, that Ed didn’t understand it in the same way that he did. “They’re a pair of meddlers, Ed.” Tom again concentrated on the road, on the patch of now sandy-colored surface that kept advancing under the car. “Please don’t forget tonight had to do with Murchison. That is—”

  Ed put out his cigarette in the ashtray. He still rubbed his forehead.

  I didn’t enjoy watching that either, Tom wanted to say, but could he say it and be believed, when he had just been laughing? Tom took a breath. “Those two would have loved to get at the forgeries—get at the Buckmaster Gallery, get at all of us via Mrs. Murchison—probably,” Tom went on. “Pritchard was after me, but the forgery would have opened up. They asked for what they got, Ed. They were absolute outsider meddlers.” Tom spoke with force.

  They were nearly home; the bucolic few lights of Villeperce twinkled on their left. They were on the road that would take them to Belle Ombre. And now Tom saw the great tree opposite Belle Ombre’s gates that leaned toward his home, protectively, Tom always felt. The big gates were still open. The faintest light from the living room showed in a window left of the front door. Tom drove into the empty space on one side of his garage.

  “I’ll use the flashlight,” Tom said, and took it. With a rough cloth he found in a corner of the garage, Tom flicked out some grains of sand from the back of the station wagon, gray crumbs of soil. Soil? It occurred to Tom that the crumbs might be, must be, the remnants of Murchison, indescribable (by him) remains of human flesh. There were very few, and Tom pushed them off the cement floor of his garage with his foot. Tiny they were, vanishing into the gravel, invisible, at least to the eye.