Ripley Under Water (7 page)

“Ah, oui, M’sieur Tome! Je me souviens. Quatre minutes.”

“At least. But first I shall ask if the ladies want them. Yes, my coffee. Most welcome!” Tom waited the few seconds while Mme Annette poured from her ever-ready kettle of hot water into his filter coffee maker. Then he carried it on a tray into the living room.

Tom liked to stand and drink a cup while gazing out across the back lawn. His thoughts wandered, and he could also think about what the garden needed.

A few minutes later, Tom was out in his herb section, cutting some parsley, in case the coddled eggs idea met with approval. One dropped some cut parsley, plus butter and salt and pepper, into the cups with the raw egg in each, before screwing the lids on and immersing the jars in hot water.

“Allo, Tome! Working already? Good morning!” It was Noelle, dressed in black cotton slacks, sandals, and a purple shirt. Her English was not bad, Tom knew, but she nearly always spoke French to him.

“Morning. Very hard work.” Tom extended his parsley bouquet. “Would you like a taste?”

Noelle took a sprig and began nibbling. She had already applied her pale blue eyeshadow and her pale lipstick. “Ah, delicieux! You know,” she continued in French, “Heloise and I were talking last evening after dinner. I may join you in Tangier, if I can arrange a couple of matters in Paris. You two go next Friday. Maybe I can take off by Saturday. That is, if it doesn’t bother you. Maybe for five days—“

“But what a nice surprise!” Tom replied. “And you know the country. I think it’s a splendid idea.” Tom meant it.

The ladies did opt for coddled eggs, one egg each, and the cheerful breakfast required more toast and tea and coffee. They were just finished when Mme Annette came in from the direction of the kitchen with an announcement.

“M’sieur Tome, I believe I should tell you, there is a man across the road taking pictures of Belle Ombre.” She pronounced Belle Ombre with a certain reverence.

Tom was on his feet. “Excuse me,” he said to Heloise and Noelle. Tom had a suspicion who it was. “Thank you, Madame Annette.”

He went to the kitchen window to have a look. Yes, the sturdy David Pritchard was at work, stepping out of the shadow of the great leaning tree which Tom loved, opposite the house, into the sunlight, camera lifted to his eye.

“Perhaps he thinks it a pretty house,” Tom said to Mme Annette in a tone calmer than he felt. He could have shot David Pritchard gladly, if he’d had a rifle in the house, and of course if he could have got away with it. Tom gave a shrug.

“If you notice him on our grass,” Tom added with a smile, “that’s a different matter, and tell me.”

“M’sieur Tome—he may be a tourist but I believe he lives in Villeperce. I think he is the American who rented a house down there with his wife.” Mme Annette gestured, and in the right direction.

How news traveled in a small town, Tom thought, and most of the femmes de menage had no cars of their own, only windows and telephones. “Really,” said Tom, and felt at once guilty, as Mme Annette might know, or soon know, that he had been in this same American’s house yesterday evening at the aperitif hour. “Probably not important,” Tom said as he moved toward the living room.

He found Heloise and their guest looking out of a living-room front window, Noelle holding a long curtain back a little, smiling as she said something to Heloise . Tom was now sufficiently far from the kitchen not to be overheard by Mme Annette, but he still glanced behind him before he spoke. “That’s the American, by the way,” he said in French in a soft voice. “David Pritchard.”

“Where you were, cheri?” Heloise had whirled around to face him. “Why is he photographing us?”

Indeed, Pritchard hadn’t stopped, had moved across the road to where the famous lane began, no-man’s land. There were trees and bushes near. Pritchard would not be able to get a clear picture of the house from the lane.

“I don’t know, dear, but he’s the type who loves to irritate others. He’d love for me to go out and show some annoyance, which is why I prefer to say nothing.” He gave Noelle an amused glance, and walked back to the dining area where his cigarettes lay on the table.

“I think he saw us—looking out,” said Heloise in English.

“Good,” Tom replied, relishing his first cigarette of the day. “Really, he’d like nothing better than for me to go out and ask him why he’s taking photographs!”

“What a strange man!” Noelle said.

“Indeed,” Tom replied.

“He didn’t say last evening he wanted to take pictures of your house?” Noelle went on.

Tom shook his head. “No. Let’s forget him. I asked Madame Annette to tell me if he sets foot on—on our land.”

They did talk of other things—traveler’s checks versus Visa cards for North African countries. Tom said he preferred a little of both.

“A little of both?” asked Noelle.

“You find hotels that won’t take Visa, only American Express, for instance,” Tom said.

“But—a traveler’s check can always do it.” He was near the French windows at the terrace, and he took the opportunity to scan the lawn from the left, where the lane was, to the right corner where the greenhouse squatted in tranquillity. No sign of a human figure or of movement. Tom saw that Heloise had noticed his concern. Where had Pritchard left his car, Tom wondered. Or had Janice dropped him and was she going to swoop by and pick him up?

The ladies consulted a timetable for the trains to Paris. Heloise wanted to drive Noelle to Moret, where there was a train direct to the Gare de Lyon. Tom offered to do it, but it seemed that Heloise really wanted to drive her friend. Noelle had the smallest of overnight cases, and was already packed, and she was downstairs in a trice with it.

“Thank you, Tome!” said Noelle. “So it seems we shall see one another sooner than usual—in just six more days!” She laughed.

“Let us hope. That’ll be fun.” Tom wanted to carry her case, but Noelle wouldn’t let him.

Tom walked out with them, and watched the red Mercedes turn left and head toward the village. Then he saw a white car approaching from the left, slowing, and a figure stepped out from the bushes into the road—Pritchard in rumpled tan summer jacket and dark trousers. He got into the white car. Now Tom stepped behind a conveniently tall hedge at one side of the gates of Belle Ombre, a hedge taller than a Pots-darner guard, and waited.

The self-assured Pritchards cruised by, David grinning at the excitable Janice, who was looking at him rather than at the road. Pritchard glanced at the open gates of Belle Ombre, and Tom almost wished he had dared to order Janice to stop, back up and drive in—Tom felt like taking them both on with his fists—but apparently Pritchard did not give such an order, because the car rolled slowly away. The white Peugeot had a Paris license, Tom noticed.

What was left of Murchison by now, Tom wondered. The flow of the river over the years, slow and steady, would have done as much or more than predatory fish to diminish Murchison. Tom was not sure there were types of fish in the Loing there that would be interested in flesh, unless of course there were eels. Tom had heard—he checked his sickening thoughts. He did not want to imagine it. Two rings, Tom recalled, which he had decided to leave on the dead man’s fingers. The stones just might have held the corpse in the same spot. Would the head have come loose from the neck bones, and rolled away on its own somewhere, dispelling dental identification? The tarpaulin or canvas would certainly have rotted.

Stop it! Tom told himself, and lifted his head. Mere seconds had passed since he had seen the creepy Pritchards, and he was only now at his own unlocked door.

Mme Annette had by now cleared the breakfast table and was probably doing the most minor of chores in the kitchen, such as checking the black and white pepper supplies. Or she might even be in her own room, sewing for herself or a friend (she had an electric sewing machine), or writing a letter to her sister Marie-Odile in Lyons. Sunday was Sunday, and exerted its influence, Tom had noticed, also on him: one simply didn’t try to work as hard on Sunday. Monday was Mme Annette’s official day off.

Tom stared at the beige harpsichord with its black and beige keys. Their music teacher, Roger Lepetit, was coming Tuesday afternoon to give a lesson to them both. Tom was practicing some old English songs now, ballads, which he didn’t love as much as he loved Scarlatti, but the ballads were more personal, warmer, and of course a change. He liked to listen to, or overhear (Heloise did not like attention paid), Heloise ‘s efforts with Schubert. Her naivete, her goodwill, seemed to Tom to bring out a new dimension in the familiar tunes of the master. Tom was further amused by her Schubert playing, for the reason that M. Lepetit rather resembled the young Schubert—of course Schubert had always been young, Tom realized. M. Lepetit was under forty, somewhat soft and rotund, and wore rimless glasses, as had Schubert. Unmarried, he lived with his mother, as did the giant Henri, the gardener. What a difference in the men!

Stop dreaming, Tom told himself. What was he logically to expect from Pritchard’s photographic efforts this morning? Would the photographs or negatives be sent to the CIA, that organization which, as Tom recalled, JFK had once said he would like to see hanged, drawn and quartered? Or would David and Janice pore over the photos, some of them, perhaps, enlarged, giggle and chatter about invading the Ripley stronghold, which was apparently unguarded by dog or man? Would the Pritchards’ chatter be dreams or real plans?

What did they have against him, and why? What did they have to do with Murchison, or Murchison with them? Were they related? Tom couldn’t believe it. Murchison had been reasonably well educated, a cut above the Pritchards. Tom had also met his wife; she had come to Belle Ombre to meet Tom after her husband’s disappearance, and she and Tom had talked for an hour or so. A civilized woman, Tom remembered.

Creepy collectors, of sorts? The Pritchards had not asked for his autograph. Would they try to do some harm to Belle Ombre in his absence? Tom debated saying something to the police, that he’d seen a man who might be a prowler, and because the Ripleys were going to be away for a while -

Tom was still debating when Heloise returned.

Heloise was in good humor. “Cheri, why didn’t you ask this man—photographing—to come in? Prickard—”

“Pritchard, dear.”

“Pritchard. You were at his house. What’s the trouble?”

“He is not really friendly, Heloise.” Tom, who had been standing at the French windows that gave on to the back lawn, had taken a stance with feet slightly apart. He deliberately relaxed. “A boring little snoop,” Tom went on more calmly. “Fouineur—that’s what he is.”

“Why is he snooping?”

“I dunno, darling. I know—we must keep a distance—and ignore him. And his wife.”

The next morning, Monday, Tom chose a moment when Heloise was in her bath and telephoned the institute at Fontainebleau, where Pritchard had said he was taking courses in marketing. Tom took some time over this, saying first that he wished to speak with someone in the department of marketing studies. Tom was prepared to speak in French, but the woman who answered spoke English, and without an accent.

When Tom got the right person he asked if David Pritchard, an American, was in the building now, or could he leave a message. “In marketing, I think,” Tom said. Tom said he had found a house Mr. Pritchard might be interested in renting, and it was important that he leave a message for Mr. Pritchard. Tom could tell that the man in insead took his words seriously, as people there were always looking for housing. He came back to the telephone and told Tom that there was no David Pritchard on their register, in marketing or any other department.

“Then I’ve made a mistake somewhere,” Tom said. “I thank you for your trouble.”

Tom took a turn around the garden. He might have known, of course, that David Pritchard—if that was his real name—made a game of telling lies.

Now Cynthia. Cynthia Gradnor. That mystery. Tom bent quickly and plucked a buttercup, shiny and delicate, from his lawn. How had Pritchard got her name?

Tom took a breath, and turned toward the house again. He had decided that the only thing to do was to ask either Ed or Jeff to ring up Cynthia and ask her straight if she knew Pritchard. Tom could have done it, but he strongly suspected that Cynthia would hang up on him, or be deliberately unhelpful, no matter what he wanted. She hated him more than she did the others.

Just as Tom entered the living room, the front doorbell sounded, a buzz, twice. Tom drew himself up, clenched and unclenched his fists. The door had a peephole, and Tom took a look through it. He saw a stranger in a blue cap.

“Who’s there?”

“Express, m’sieur. Pour M’sieur Reepley?”

Tom opened the door. “Yes, thank you.”

The messenger handed Tom a small sturdy manila envelope, gave a vague salute and departed. He must have come from Fontainebleau or Moret, Tom thought, and inquired the position of Tom’s house perhaps from the bar-tabac. This was the mystery object from Reeves Minot of Hamburg, whose name and address was on the upper-left corner. Tom found inside a small white box, and in this something that looked like a miniature typewriter ribbon in a transparent plastic case. There was also a white envelope on which Reeves had written “Tom.” Tom opened it.

Hello, Tom,

Here it is. Please post it about five days from now to George Sardi, 307 Temple St., Peekskill, NY 10569, but not registered, and please label it tape or typewriter ribbon. Airmail, please.

All the best, as always,

And what was on this, Tom wondered, as he put the transparent case back into the white box. International secrets of some kind? Financial transactions? A record of drug-money movements? Or some revolting private and personal blackmail material, a pair of voices taped when the owners of the voices thought they were alone? Tom was glad to know nothing about the tape. He was not paid nor did he wish to be paid for work such as this, and he wouldn’t have accepted pay, or even danger money, if Reeves had offered it.

Tom decided to try Jeff Constant first and ask him, insist even, that he find out how David Pritchard might have learned Cynthia Gradnor’s name. And what was Cynthia doing these days—married, working in London? Easy for Ed and Jeff to take a rather unanxious attitude, Tom thought. He, Tom Ripley, had eliminated Thomas Murchison for them all, and now Tom had a vulture cruising over him and his household in the form of Pritchard.