Ripley Under Ground (12 page)

Oct. 22, 19——

Heloise chérie,

A cousin of Dickie Greenleaf, a nice boy named Christophe, is visiting for a couple of days. He is making his first visit to Paris. Imagine seeing Paris for the first time at the age of twenty? He is very astonished by its size. He is from California.

Today there is a terrible storm. Everyone is nervous. Wind and rain.

I miss you. Did you get the red bathing suit? I told Mme. Annette to airmail it and gave her lots of money, so if she did not send it airmail, I will hit her. Everyone asks when you are coming home. I had tea with the Grais. I feel myself very alone without you. Come back and we shall sleep in each other’s arms.

Your solitary husband,

Tom

Tom stamped the letter and took it downstairs to put on the hall table.

Now Christopher was in the living room, reading on the sofa. He jumped up. “Listen—” He spoke quietly. “What’s the matter with your friend?”

“He’s had a crisis. In London. He’s depressed about his work. And I think he’s had a— He’s broken off with his girlfriend or she has with him. I don’t know.”

“You know him well?”

“Not too. No.”

“I was wondering—since he’s in such a funny state—if you’d like me to take off. Tomorrow morning. Even tonight.”

“Oh, certainly not tonight, Chris. In this weather? No, it doesn’t bother me, your being here.”

“But I had the feeling it bothered him. Bernard.” Chris jerked his head toward the stairs.

“Well—there’s plenty of room in this house for us to talk, Bernard and I, if he wants to. Don’t worry.”

“All right. If you mean it. Till tomorrow then.” He shoved his hands in his back pockets and walked toward the french windows.

At any moment now, Mme. Annette would come in and draw the curtains, Tom thought, which would at least be something calm in all this chaos.

“Look!” Chris pointed out toward the lawn.

“What is it?” A tree had fallen, Tom supposed, a minor matter. It took him a moment to see what Chris had seen, because it was so dark. Tom made out a figure walking slowly across the lawn, and his first thought was
Murchison’s ghost
, and he jumped. But Tom didn’t believe in ghosts.

“It’s Bernard!” Chris said.

It was Bernard, of course. Tom opened the French windows and stepped out into the rain, which was now a cold spray blown in all directions. “Hey, Bernard! What’re you doing?” Tom saw that Bernard wasn’t reacting, was still walking slowly, his head lifted, and Tom dashed off toward him. Tom tripped on the top step of his stone stairs, nearly fell down the rest of them, and caught himself only at the bottom, turning an ankle at the same time. “Hey, Bernard, come in!” Tom yelled, limping toward him now.

Chris ran down and joined Tom. “You’ll get soaking wet!” Chris said with a laugh, and started to grab Bernard’s arm, but evidently didn’t dare.

Tom took Bernard’s wrist firmly. “Bernard, are you trying to catch a sensational cold?”

Bernard turned to them and smiled, and the rain dripped down his black hair that was plastered to his forehead. “I like it. I really do. I
feel
like this!” He lifted his arms high, breaking Tom’s hold.

“But you’re coming in now? Please, Bernard.”

Bernard smiled at Tom. “Oh, all right,” he said, as if he were humoring Tom.

The three walked back to the house together, but slowly, because Bernard seemed to want to absorb every drop. Bernard was in good humor, and made some cheerful comment as he removed his shoes at the French windows, so as not to soil the rug. He also removed his jacket.

“You’ve really got to change,” Tom said. “I’ll get something for you.” Tom was taking off his own shoes.

“Very well, I’ll change,” Bernard said, in the same tone of condescension, and slowly climbed the stairs, shoes in hand.

Chris looked at Tom and frowned intently, like Dickie. “That guy’s nuts!” he whispered. “Really nuts!”

Tom nodded, strangely shaken—shaken as he always was when in the presence of someone genuinely a bit off in the head. It was a feeling of being shattered. The sensation was setting in early: usually it took twenty-four hours. Tom stepped cautiously on his ankle and worked it around. It was not going to be serious, his ankle, he thought. “You may be right,” he said to Chris. “I’ll go up and find some dry clothes for him.”

11

A
round ten o’clock that evening, Tom knocked on Bernard’s door. “It’s me. Tom.”

“Oh, come in, Tom,” Bernard’s voice said calmly. He was sitting at the writing table, pen in hand. “Please don’t be alarmed by my walking in the rain tonight. I was myself in the rain. And that’s become a rare thing.”

Tom understood, only too well.

“Sit down, Tom! Shut the door. Make yourself at home.”

Tom sat down on Bernard’s bed. He had come to see Bernard as he had promised during dinner, in the presence of Chris, in fact. Bernard had been more cheerful during dinner. Bernard was wearing the Madras dressing gown. There were a couple of sheets of paper covered with Bernard’s black ink handwriting on the table, but Tom had the feeling Bernard was not writing a letter. “I suppose a lot of the time you feel you’re Derwatt,” Tom said.

“Sometimes. But who could be really him? And when I walk down a London street, no. Just sometimes when I paint, for seconds at a time, I’ve felt I’m him. And you know, I can talk easily now about it, and it’s a pleasure, because I’m going to give it up. I have.”

And that was perhaps a confession on the writing table, Tom thought. A confession to whom?

Bernard put his arm over the back of his chair. “And you know, my faking, my forgeries, have evolved in four or five years the way Derwatt’s painting might have evolved. It’s funny, isn’t it?”

Tom didn’t know what to say that would be correct, even respectful enough. “Maybe it’s not funny. You understood Derwatt. And critics have said the same thing, that the painting has developed.”

“You can’t imagine how strange it is to paint like—Bernard Tufts. His painting hasn’t developed as much. It’s as if I’m faking Tufts now, because I’m painting the same Tufts as I did five years ago!” Bernard gave a real laugh. “In a way, I have to make more of an effort to be myself than I do to be Derwatt. I
did
. And it was making me mad, you see. You can see that. I’d like to give myself a chance, if there’s anything of me left.”

He meant give Bernard Tufts a chance, Tom knew. “I’m positive that can be done. You should be the one that calls the tune.” Tom took his Gauloises from a pocket and offered Bernard one.

“I want to start with a clean slate. I intend to admit what I’ve done and start from there—or try to.”

“Oh, Bernard! You’ve got to get rid of
that
idea. You’re not the only one involved. Think what it’d do to Jeff and Ed. All the pictures you’ve painted would— Really, Bernard, confess it to a priest, if you want to, but not the press. Or the English police.”

“You think I’m mad, I know. Well, I am sometimes. But I have only one life to lead. I’ve nearly ruined it. I don’t intend to ruin the rest. And that’s my affair, isn’t it?”

Bernard’s voice shook. Was he strong or weak, Tom wondered? “I do understand,” Tom said gently.

“I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but I have to see if people will accept me—see if they’ll forgive me, if you like.”

They won’t, Tom thought. The world absolutely wouldn’t. Would it smash Bernard if he said this? Probably. Bernard might commit suicide instead of making a confession. Tom cleared his throat and tried to think, but nothing, nothing came to him.

“For another thing, I think Cynthia would like it if I made a clean breast of things. She loves me. I love her. I know she didn’t want to see me just now. In London. Ed told me. I don’t blame her. Jeff and Ed presenting me like an invalid case: ‘Come to see Bernard, he needs you!’” Bernard said in a mincing voice. “What woman would?” Bernard looked at Tom and opened his arms, smiling. “You see how much good the rain did me, Tom? It did everything but wash away my sins.”

His laugh came again, and Tom envied him the carefreeness of it.

“Cynthia’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. I don’t mean—Well, she’s had an affair or two since me, I’m sure. I was the one who more or less ended it. I got so—nervous, even scared in a way, when I began imitating Derwatt.” Bernard gulped. “But I know she still loves me—if I’m
me
. Can you understand that?”

“I certainly can. Of course. Are you writing to Cynthia now?”

Bernard waved an arm at the sheets of paper and smiled. “No, I’m writing—to anyone. It’s just a statement. It’s for the press or anyone.”

And that had to be stopped. Tom said calmly, “I wish you’d think things over for a few days, Bernard.”

“Haven’t I had enough time to think?”

Tom tried to think of something stronger, clearer to say to Bernard that would stop him, but half his mind was on Murchison, on the possibility of the police returning. How hard would they search here for clues? Would they look in the woods? Tom Ripley’s reputation was already a bit—stained, perhaps, by the Dickie Greenleaf story. Though he’d been cleared of suspicion, he had for a time been under suspicion, there had been a story there, despite its happy ending. Why hadn’t he put Murchison in the station wagon and driven him miles away to bury him, somewhere in the forest of Fontainebleau, camped out in the woods to get the job done, if he’d had to? “Can we talk about it tomorrow?” Tom said. “You might see things differently, Bernard.”

“Of course, we can talk about it anytime. But I’m not going to feel any different tomorrow. I wanted to talk to you first, because you thought of the whole idea—of resurrecting Derwatt. I want to start with first things first, you see. I’m quite logical.” There was a touch of the insane in his dogmatic delivery of this, and Tom felt again a profound unease.

The telephone rang. There was a telephone in Tom’s room, and the sound came clearly across the hall of the house.

Tom jumped up. “You mustn’t forget the others involved—”

“I won’t drag you into it, Tom.”

“The telephone. Good night, Bernard,” Tom said quickly, and dashed across the hall to his room. He didn’t want Chris to pick up the phone downstairs.

It was the police again. They apologized for ringing this late, but—

Tom said, “I’m sorry, m’sieur, but could you ring back in perhaps five minutes? I am just now—”

The courteous voice said of course he could ring back.

Tom hung up and sank his face in his hands. He was sitting on the edge of his bed. He got up and shut his door. Events were getting a bit ahead of him. He’d been in a hurry about burying Murchison because of the damned Count. What a mistake! The Seine, the Loing were snaking around everywhere in the district, there were quiet bridges, quiet especially after one o’clock in the morning. The telephone call from the police could mean only bad news. Mrs. Murchison—Harriet, had Murchison said her name was?—might have engaged an American or English detective to find her husband. She knew what Murchison’s mission had been, to find out if a painting by an important artist was a forgery or not. Wouldn’t she suspect foul play? If Mme. Annette were questioned, wouldn’t she say that she hadn’t actually
seen
M. Murchison leave the house Thursday afternoon?

If the police wanted to see him tonight, Chris might volunteer the information about the gravelike patch in the woods. Tom envisaged Chris saying in English, “Why don’t you tell them about . . .” and Tom wouldn’t be able to say something else to the police in French, because Chris would probably want to watch them digging.

The telephone rang again, and Tom answered it calmly.

“Hello, M. Reeply. The Prefecture of Melun here. We have had a telephone call from London. In the matter of M. Murchison, Mme. Murchison has contacted the London Metropolitan Police, which wants us to provide all the information we can by tonight. The English inspector will arrive tomorrow morning. Now, if you please, did M. Murchison make any telephone calls from your house? We should like to trace the numbers.”

“I can’t remember,” Tom said, “that he made a single telephone call. But I was not in the house all the time.” They could look at his telephone account, Tom thought, but let them think of that.

A moment later, they had hung up.

It was unfriendly, a little off-putting that the London police hadn’t rung Tom direct to ask questions, Tom thought. He felt the London police were already treating him as suspect, and preferred to get information through official channels. Somehow Tom feared an English detective more than a French detective, although for overall minutiae and sticklership, he had to give the French high marks.

He had to do two things, get the body out of the woods and Chris out of the house. And Bernard? Tom’s brain almost boggled at the task.

He went downstairs.

Chris was reading, but he yawned and stood up. “I was just going to turn in. How’s Bernard? I thought he was better at dinner.”

“Yes, I think so, too.” Tom hated what he had to say, or hinting at it, which was worse.

“I found a timetable by the telephone. There’s a train in the morning at nine fifty-two and one at eleven thirty-two. I can get a taxi from here to the station.”

Tom was relieved. There were earlier trains, but it was impossible for him to propose them. “Whichever one you want. I’ll take you to the station. I don’t know what to make of Bernard, but I think he wants to be alone with me for a couple of days.”

“I only hope it’s safe,” Chris said earnestly. “You know, I thought of staying on a day or so just to give you a hand with him, in case you needed it.” Chris was speaking softly. “There was a fellow in Alaska—I did my service there—who cracked up, and he acted a lot like Bernard. Just all of a sudden he turned violent, socking everybody.”

“Well, I doubt that Bernard will. Maybe you and your friend Gerald can visit after Bernard leaves. Or after you get back from the Rheinland.”

Chris brightened at this prospect.

When Chris had gone upstairs (he wanted the 9:52 a.m. train tomorrow), Tom walked up and down the living room. It was five minutes to midnight. Something had to be done about Murchison’s corpse tonight. Quite a task for one person to dig it up in the dark, load it in the station wagon, and dump it—where? Off some little bridge, maybe. Tom pondered the idea of asking Bernard to help him. Would Bernard blow up or be cooperative—confronted by reality? Tom sensed that he wasn’t going to be able to persuade Bernard not to confess, as things were. Mightn’t the corpse shock him into a sense of the seriousness of the situation?

It was a hell of a question.

Would Bernard take the “leap into faith,” as Kierkegaard put it? Tom smiled as the phrase crossed his mind. But he had taken the leap when he had dashed to London to impersonate Derwatt. That leap had succeeded. He had taken another leap in killing Murchison. To hell with it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Tom went to the stairway, but had to slow his pace because of the pain in his ankle. In fact, he paused with his bad foot on the first step, his hand on the gilt angel that formed the newel post. It had occurred to him that if Bernard balked tonight, Bernard would have to be disposed of, too. Killed. It was a sickening thought. Tom did not want to kill Bernard. Perhaps he would not even be able to. So if Bernard refused to help him, and added Murchison to his confession—

Tom climbed the stairs.

The hall was dark, except for the little light that came from Tom’s own room. Bernard’s light was off, and Chris’s seemed to be, too, but that didn’t mean Chris was asleep. It was difficult for Tom to lift his hand and knock on Bernard’s door. He knocked gently, because Chris’s room was only eight feet away, and he did not want Chris to eavesdrop by way of protecting him from a possible assault by Bernard.