Ripley Under Ground (2 page)

Jeff Constant would surely be pleased with the idea. A press interview. Tom must brush up on the questions he might have to answer, and the stories he would have to tell. Was Derwatt as tall as he? Well, who among the press would know? Derwatt’s hair had been darker, Tom thought. But that could be fixed. Tom drank more tea. He continued walking about the room. His should be a surprise appearance, a surprise presumably even to Jeff and Ed—and Bernard, of course. Or so they would tell the press.

Tom tried to imagine confronting Mr. Thomas Murchison. Be calm, self-assured, that was the essence. If Derwatt said a picture was his own, that he had painted it, who was Murchison to say him nay?

On a crest of enthusiasm, Tom went to his telephone. Often the operators were asleep at this hour—2 a.m. and a bit after—and took ten minutes to answer. Tom sat patiently on the edge of the yellow sofa. He was thinking that Jeff or somebody would have to get some very good makeup in readiness. Tom wished he could count on a girl, Cynthia for instance, to supervise it, but Cynthia and Bernard had broken up two or three years ago. Cynthia knew the score about Derwatt and Bernard’s forgeries, and would have none of it, not a penny of the profits, Tom remembered.

“
’Allo, j’écoute
,” said the female operator in an annoyed tone, as if Tom had got her out of bed to do him a favor. Tom gave the number of Jeff’s studio, which he had in an address book by the telephone. Tom was rather lucky, and the call came through in five minutes. He pulled his third cup of filthy tea nearer the telephone.

“Hello, Jeff. Tom. How are things?”

“Not any better. Ed’s here. We were just thinking of ringing you. Are you coming over?”

“Yes, and I have a better idea. How about my playing—our missing friend—for a few hours, anyway?”

Jeff took an instant to comprehend. “Oh, Tom, great! Can you be here for Tuesday?”

“Yes, sure.”

“Can you make it Monday. The day after tomorrow?”

“I don’t think I can. But Tuesday, yes. Now listen, Jeff, the makeup—it’s got to be good.”

“Don’t worry! Just a sec!” He left off to speak with Ed, then returned. “Ed says he has a source—of supply.”

“Don’t announce it to the public,” Tom continued in his calm voice, because Jeff sounded as if he were leaping off his feet with joy. “And another thing, if it doesn’t work, if I fail—we must say it’s a joke a friend of yours dreamed up—me. That it has nothing to do with—you know.” Tom meant with validating Murchison’s forgery, but Jeff grasped this at once.

“Ed wants to say a word.”

“Hello, Tom,” Ed’s deeper voice said. “We’re delighted you’re coming over. It’s a marvelous idea. And you know—Bernard’s got some of his clothes and things.”

“I’ll leave that to you.” Tom felt suddenly alarmed. “The clothes are the least. It’s the face. Get cracking, will you?”

“Right you are. Bless you.”

They hung up. Then Tom slumped back on the sofa and relaxed, almost horizontal. No, he wouldn’t go to London too soon. Go on stage at the last moment, with dash and momentum. Too much briefing and rehearsal could be a bad thing.

Tom got up with the cold cup of tea. It would be amusing and funny if he could bring it off, he thought, as he stared at the Derwatt over his fireplace. This was a pinkish picture of a man in a chair, a man with several outlines, so it seemed one was looking at the picture through someone else’s distorting eyeglasses. Some people said Derwatts hurt their eyes. But from a distance of three or four yards, they didn’t. This was not a genuine Derwatt, but an early Bernard Tufts forgery. Across the room hung a genuine Derwatt, “The Red Chairs.” Two little girls sat side by side, looking terrified, as if it were their first day in school, or as if they were listening to something frightening in church. “The Red Chairs” was eight or nine years old. Behind the little girls, wherever they were sitting, the whole place was on fire. Yellow and red flames leapt about, hazed by touches of white, so that the fire didn’t immediately catch the attention of the beholder. But when it did, the emotional effect was shattering. Tom loved both pictures. But now he had almost forgotten to remember, when he looked at them, that one was a forgery and the other genuine.

Tom recalled the early amorphous days of what was now Derwatt Ltd. Tom had met Jeffrey Constant and Bernard Tufts in London just after Derwatt had drowned—presumably intentionally—in Greece. Tom had just returned from Greece himself; it was not long after Dickie Greenleaf’s death. Derwatt’s body had never been found, but some fishermen of the village said they had seen him go swimming one morning, and had not seen him return. Derwatt’s friends—and Tom had met Cynthia Gradnor on the same visit—had been profoundly disturbed, affected in a way that Tom had never seen after a death, not even in a family. Jeff, Ed, Cynthia, Bernard had been dazed. They had spoken dreamily, passionately, of Derwatt not only as an artist but as a friend, and as a human being. He had lived simply, in Islington, eating badly at times, but he had always been generous to others. Children in his neighborhood had adored him, and had sat for him without expecting any payment, but Derwatt had always reached in his pockets for what were perhaps his last pennies to give them. Then just before he had gone to Greece, Derwatt had had a disappointment. He had painted a mural on a government assignment for a post office in a town in the north of England. It had been approved in sketch form, but rejected when finished: somebody was nude in it, or too nude, and Derwatt had refused to change it. (“And he was right, of course!” Derwatt’s loyal friends had assured Tom.) But this had deprived Derwatt of a thousand pounds that he had counted on. It seemed to have been a last straw in a series of disappointments—the depth of which Derwatt’s friends had not realized, and for this they reproached themselves. There had been a woman in the picture too, Tom recalled vaguely, the cause of another disappointment to Derwatt, but it seemed that the woman was not so important to him as his work disappointments. All Derwatt’s friends were professionals also, mostly freelance, and were quite busy, and in the last days when Derwatt had called on them—not for money but for company on several evenings—they had said they hadn’t time to see him. Unbeknownst to his friends, Derwatt had sold what furniture he had in his studio and got himself to Greece where he had written a long and depressed letter to Bernard. (Tom had never seen the letter.) Then had come the news of his disappearance or death.

The first thing Derwatt’s friends, including Cynthia, had done was gather all his paintings and drawings and try to sell them. They had wanted to keep his name alive, had wanted the world to know and appreciate what he had done. Derwatt had had no relatives, and as Tom recalled, he had been a foundling without even known parents. The legend of his tragic death had helped instead of hindered; usually galleries were uninterested in paintings by a young and unknown artist who was already dead—but Edmund Banbury, a freelance journalist, had used his entrées and his talent for articles on Derwatt in newspapers, color supplements, and art magazines, and Jeffrey Constant had made photographs of Derwatt’s paintings to illustrate them. Within a few months of Derwatt’s death they found a gallery, the Buckmaster Gallery and moreover in Bond Street, which was willing to handle his work, and soon Derwatt’s canvases were selling for six and eight hundred pounds.

Then had come the inevitable. The paintings were all sold, or nearly, and this was when Tom had been living in London (he had lived for two years in a flat in S.W.1, near Eaton Square) and had run into Jeff and Ed and Bernard one night in the Salisbury pub. They had again been sad, because Derwatt’s paintings were coming to an end, and it had been Tom who had said, “You’re doing so well, it’s a shame to end like this. Can’t Bernard knock off a few paintings in Derwatt’s style?” Tom had meant it as a joke, or a half-joke. He hardly knew the trio, only knew that Bernard was a painter. But Jeff, a practical type like Ed Banbury (and not a bit like Bernard), had turned to Bernard and said, “I’ve thought of that, too. What do you think, Bernard?” Tom had forgot Bernard’s exact reply, but he remembered that Bernard had lowered his head as if in shame or plain terror at the idea of falsifying his idol, Derwatt. Months later, Tom had encountered Ed Banbury in a street in London, and Ed had said cheerfully that Bernard had brought off two excellent “Derwatts” and they had sold one at the Buckmaster as genuine.

Then still later, just after Tom had married Heloise, and was no longer living in London, Tom, Heloise, and Jeff were at the same party, a large cocktail party of the kind where you never meet or even see the host, and Jeff had beckoned Tom into a corner.

Jeff had said, “Can we meet somewhere later? This is my address,” handing Tom a card. “Can you come round about eleven tonight?”

So Tom had gone to Jeff’s alone, which had been simple, because Heloise—who at that time did not speak much English—had had enough after the cocktail party, and wanted to go back to their hotel. Heloise loved London—English sweaters and Carnaby Street, and the shops that sold Union Jack wastebaskets and signs that said things like “Piss off,” things that Tom often had to translate for her, but she said her head ached after trying to speak English for an hour.

“Our problem is,” Jeff had said that night, “we can’t go on pretending we’ve found another Derwatt somewhere. Bernard is doing fine but— Do you think we could dare dig up a big trove of Derwatts somewhere, like Ireland where he painted for a bit, and sell them and then call it quits? Bernard isn’t keen about going on. He feels he’s betraying Derwatt—in a way.”

Tom had reflected a moment, then said, “What’s the matter with Derwatt being still alive somewhere? A recluse somewhere, sending his paintings to London? That is, if Bernard can keep going.”

“Um-m. Well—yes. Greece, maybe. What a super idea, Tom! It can go on forever!”

“How about Mexico? I think it’s safer than Greece. Let’s say Derwatt’s living in some little village. He won’t tell anyone the name of the village—except maybe you and Ed and Cynthia—”

“Not Cynthia. She’s— Well, Bernard doesn’t see much of her anymore. Consequently neither do we. Just as well she doesn’t know too much about this.”

Jeff had rung up Ed that night to tell him the idea, Tom recalled.

“It’s just an idea,” Tom had said. “I don’t know if it’ll work.”

But it had worked. Derwatt’s paintings had begun coming from Mexico, it was said, and the dramatic story of Derwatt’s “resurrection” had been exploited to advantage by Ed Banbury and Jeff Constant in more magazine articles, with photographs of Derwatt and his (Bernard’s) latest paintings, though not of Derwatt himself
in
Mexico, because Derwatt permitted no interviewers or photographers. The paintings were sent from Vera Cruz and not even Jeff or Ed knew the name of his village. Derwatt was perhaps mentally sick to be such a recluse. His paintings were sick and depressed, according to some critics. But were now among the highest priced paintings of any living artist in England or on the Continent or in America. Ed Banbury wrote to Tom in France, offering him ten percent of the profits, the loyal little group (now numbering only three, Bernard, Jeff, and Ed) being the sole beneficiaries of Derwatt’s sales. Tom had accepted, mainly because he considered it, his acceptance, rather a guarantee of his silence about the duplicity. But Bernard Tufts was painting like a demon.

Jeff and Ed bought the Buckmaster Gallery. Tom was not sure if Bernard owned any part of it. Several Derwatts were in a permanent collection of the gallery, and the gallery showed the paintings of other artists as well, of course. This was more Jeff’s job than Ed’s, and Jeff had hired an assistant, a sort of manager for the gallery. But this step up, the purchase of the Buckmaster Gallery, had come after Jeff and Ed had been approached by an art materials manufacturer called George Janopolos or some such, who wanted to start a line of goods to be labeled “Derwatt,” which would include everything from erasers to oil paint sets, and for which he offered Derwatt a royalty of one percent. Ed and Jeff had decided to accept for Derwatt (presumably with Derwatt’s consent). A company had then been formed called Derwatt Ltd.

All this Tom recollected at four in the morning, shivering a little despite his princely dressing gown. Mme. Annette always thriftily turned the central heating down at night. He held the cup of cold sweet tea between his hands and stared unseeing at a photograph of Heloise—long blonde hair on either side of a slender face, a pleasant and meaningless design to Tom just now rather than a face—and he thought of Bernard working in secret on his Derwatt forgeries in a closed, even locked room in his studio apartment. Bernard’s place was pretty crummy, as it always had been. Tom had never seen the sanctum sanctorum where he painted his masterpieces, the Derwatts that brought in thousands of quid. If one painted more forgeries than one’s own paintings, wouldn’t the forgeries become more natural, more real, more genuine to oneself, even, than one’s own painting? Wouldn’t the effort finally go out of it and the work become second nature?

At last Tom curled up on the yellow sofa, slippers off and feet drawn under his robe, and slept. He did not sleep long before Mme. Annette arrived and awakened him with a shriek, or a shrill gasp, of surprise.

“I must have fallen asleep reading,” Tom said, smiling, sitting up.

Mme. Annette hurried off to make his coffee.

2

T
om booked a flight to London at noon on Tuesday. It would give him only a couple of hours to get made-up and to be briefed. Not enough time to grow nervous. Tom drove to Melun to pick up some cash—francs—at his bank.

It was eleven-forty, and the bank closed at twelve. Tom was third in the queue at the window where people received cash, but unfortunately a woman was delivering payroll money or some such at this window, heaving up bags of coins, while keeping her feet braced against the bags that remained on the floor. Behind the grille, a clerk with wetted thumb was counting stacks of banknotes as quickly as possible and making notations of their sums on two separate papers. How long would this go on, Tom wondered, as the clock crept towards twelve. Tom watched with amusement as the queue broke up. Three men now and two women pressed near the grille, staring glassy-eyed, like fascinated snakes, at all the dough, as if it were a heritage left them by a relative who had worked a lifetime for it. Tom gave it up and left the bank. He could manage without the cash, he thought, and in fact he had only been thinking of giving it or selling it to English friends who might be coming to France.

On Tuesday morning, when Tom was packing his bag, Mme. Annette knocked on his bedroom door. “I’m off for Munich,” Tom said cheerily. “There’s a concert.”

“Ah, Munich! Bavière! You must take warm clothing.” Mme. Annette was used to his impromptu trips. “For how long, M. Tome?”

“Two days, maybe three. Don’t worry about messages. I may ring to see if any has come.”

Then Tom thought of something possibly useful, a Mexican ring that he had—he thought—in his studbox. Yes, there it was, among cuff links and buttons, a heavy ring of silver whose design was two coiled snakes. Tom disliked it and had forgot how he acquired it, but at least it was Mexican. Tom blew on it, rubbed it against a trousers leg, and pocketed it.

The post at 10:30 a.m. brought three items: a telephone bill, lumpy in its envelope because of separate tabs for each non-Villeperce call; a letter from Heloise; and an American airmail letter addressed in a hand Tom didn’t know. He turned the envelope over and was surprised to see the name Christopher Greenleaf on the back with a San Francisco return address. Who was Christopher? He opened Heloise’s letter first.

11 octobre 19–—

Chéri,

I am happy and very quite now. Very good repasts. We catch fishs off the boat. Zeppo sends love. [Zeppo was her swarthy Greek host and Tom could tell him what to do with his love.]

I learn better to mount a bicycle. We have made many voyages into the land which is dry. Zeppo makes photos. How goes it at Belle Ombre? I miss you. Are you happy? Many invites? [Did that mean guests or invitations?] Are you painting? I have received no word from Papa.

Kiss Mme. A. I embrace you.

The rest was in French. She wanted him to send a red bathing-suit which he would find in the small
commode
in her bathroom. He should send it airmail. The yacht had a heated swimming pool. Tom at once went upstairs, where Mme. Annette was still working in his room, and entrusted this task to her, giving her a hundred-franc bill for it, because he thought she might be scandalized at the price of the airmail package and be tempted to send it slow post.

Then he went down and opened the Greenleaf letter hastily, because he had to leave for Orly in a few minutes.

Oct. 12, 19——

Dear Mr. Ripley,

I am a cousin of Dickie’s and am coming to Europe next week, probably going to London first, though I cannot make up my mind whether to go to Paris first. Anyway, I thought it would be nice if we could meet. My uncle Herbert gave me your address, and he says you are not far from Paris. Haven’t got your telephone number, but I can look it up.

To tell you a bit about myself, I am twenty and I go to Stanford University. I spent one year in military service, during which my college was interrupted. I’ll return to Stanford for a degree in engineering but meanwhile I am taking a year off to see Europe and relax. Lots of fellows do this now. The pressure everywhere is quite something. I mean in America, but maybe you have been in Europe so long you don’t know what I mean.

My uncle has told me a lot about you. He says you were a good friend of Dickie’s. I met Dickie when I was 11 and he was 21. I remember a tall blond fellow. He visited my family in California.

Please tell me if you will be in Villeperce in late October, early November. Meanwhile here’s hoping to meet you.

Sincerely

Chris Greenleaf

He would get out of that one politely, Tom thought. No use making closer contact with the Greenleaf family. Once in a blue moon Herbert Greenleaf wrote him, and Tom always replied, nice polite letters.

“Mme. Annette, keep the home fires burning,” Tom said as he took off.

“What did you say?”

He translated it into French as best he could.

“Au revoir, M. Tome! Bon voyage!” Mme. Annette waved to him from the front door.

Tom took the red Alfa Romeo, one of the two cars in the garage. At Orly, he put the car in the indoor garage, saying it was for two or three days. He bought a bottle of whiskey in the terminus to take to the gang. He had already a big bottle of Pernod in his suitcase (since he was permitted to enter London with only one bottle), because Tom had found that if he went through the green aisle and showed the visible bottle, the inspector never asked him to open his suitcase. On the plane he bought untipped Gauloises, always popular in London.

It was raining lightly in England. The bus crept along on the left side of the road, past the family houses whose names always amused Tom, though now he could hardly read them through the murk.
BIDE-A-WEE
. Unbelievable.
MILFORD HAVEN. DUN WANDERING.
They hung on little signboards.
INGLENOOK. SIT-YE-DOON.
Good God. Then came the stretch of jammed-together Victorian houses that had been converted into small hotels with grandiose names in neon lights between Doric doorway pillars:
MANCHESTER ARMS, KING ALFRED, CHESHIRE HOUSE.
Tom knew that behind the genteel respectability of those narrow lobbies some of the best murderers of the present day took refuge for a night or so, looking equally respectable themselves. England was England, God bless it!

The next thing that caught Tom’s attention was a poster on a lamppost on the left side of the road.
DERWATT
was written in bold black script slanting downward—Derwatt’s signature—and the picture reproduced in color looked in the dim light dark purple or black and somewhat resembled the raised top of a grand piano. A new Bernard Tufts forgery, doubtless. There was another such poster a few yards on. It was odd to feel so “announced” all over London, and to arrive so quietly, Tom thought as he stepped down from the bus at the West Kensington Terminal unnoticed by anyone.

From the terminal, Tom rang Jeff Constant at his studio. Ed Banbury answered.

“Hop in a taxi and come straight here!” Ed said, sounding wildly happy.

Jeff’s studio was in St. John’s Wood. Second floor—first to the English—on the left. It was a proper neat little building, neither swank nor shabby.

Ed whipped the door open. “My God, Tom, it’s great to see you!”

They shook hands firmly. Ed was taller than Tom with lank blond hair that was apt to fall over his ears, so he was constantly shoving it aside. He was about thirty-five.

“And where’s Jeff?” Tom fished out Gauloises and whiskey from the red net bag, then the smuggled Pernod from his suitcase. “For the house.”

“Oh, super! Jeff’s at the gallery. Listen, Tom, you’ll
do
it?—Because I’ve got the stuff here and there isn’t too much time.”

“I’ll try it,” Tom said.

“Bernard’s due. He’ll help us. Briefing.” Ed looked hectically at his wristwatch.

Tom had removed his topcoat and jacket. “Can’t Derwatt be a little late? Isn’t the opening at five?”

“Oh, of course. No need to get there till six, anyway, but I do want to try the makeup. Jeff said to remind you you’re not much shorter than Derwatt was—and who remembers those statistics? Assuming I ever wrote them anywhere? And Derwatt had bluish-gray eyes. But yours’ll do.” Ed laughed. “Want some tea?”

“No thanks.” Tom was looking at the dark-blue suit on Jeff’s couch. It looked too wide, and it was unpressed. A pair of awful black shoes were on the floor by the couch. “Why don’t you have a drink?” Tom suggested to Ed, because Ed looked as jumpy as a cat. As usual, another person’s nervousness was making Tom feel calm.

The doorbell rang.

Ed let Bernard Tufts in.

Tom extended a hand. “Bernard, how are you?”

“All right, thank you,” Bernard said, sounding miserable. Bernard was thin and olive-skinned, with straight black hair and gentle dark eyes.

Tom thought it best not to try to talk to Bernard just now, but to be simply efficient.

Ed drew a basin of water in Jeff’s tiny but modern bathroom, and Tom submitted to a hair rinse to make his hair darker. Bernard began to talk, but only after deliberate, then more importunate prodding from Ed.

“He walked with a slight stoop,” Bernard said. “His voice— He was a little shy in public. It was sort of a monotone, I suppose. Like this, if I can illustrate,” Bernard said in a monotone. “Now and then he laughed.”

“Don’t we all!” Tom said, laughing nervously himself. Now Tom was sitting in a straight chair, being combed by Ed. On Tom’s right was a platter of what looked like barbershop floor sweepings, but Ed shook this out, and it was a beard fastened to fine flesh-colored gauze. “Good God, I hope the lights are dim,” Tom murmured.

“We’ll see to that,” said Ed.

While Ed worked with a mustache, Tom pulled off his two rings, one a wedding ring, one Dickie Greenleaf’s ring, and pocketed them. He asked Bernard to bring him the ring from his left trousers pocket, and Bernard did. Bernard’s thin fingers were cold and shaking. Tom wanted to ask him how Cynthia was, and remembered that Bernard was not seeing her anymore. They had been going to marry, Tom remembered. Ed was snipping at Tom’s hair with scissors, creating a bush in front.

“And Derwatt—” Bernard stopped, because his voice had cracked.

“Oh, shut up, Bernard!” Ed said, laughing hysterically.

Bernard laughed also. “Sorry. Really, I’m sorry.” He sounded contrite, as if he meant it.

The beard was going on, with glue.

Ed said, “I want you to walk around a bit here, Tom. Get used to it. At the gallery— You won’t have to go in with the crowd, we decided against that. There’s a back door, and Jeff will let us in. We’ll invite some of the press to come into the office, you see, and we’ll have just one standing lamp on across the room. We’ve removed a little lamp and the ceiling bulb, so that
can’t
go on.”

The gluey beard felt cool on Tom’s face. In the mirror in Jeff’s loo, he looked a little like D. H. Lawrence, he thought. His mouth was surrounded by hair. It was a sensation Tom did not like. Below the mirror on a little shelf three snapshots of Derwatt were propped up—Derwatt reading a book in shirtsleeves in a deckchair, Derwatt standing with a man Tom did not know, facing the camera. Derwatt had glasses in all the pictures.

“The specs,” Ed said, as if he read Tom’s thoughts.

Tom took the round-rimmed glasses Ed handed him, and put them on. That was better. Tom smiled, gently so as not to spoil the drying beard. The specs were plain glass, apparently. Tom walked with a stoop back into the studio, and said in what he hoped was Derwatt’s voice, “Now tell me about this man Murchison—”

“Deeper!” Bernard said, his skinny hands flailing wildly.

“This man Murchison,” Tom repeated.

Bernard said, “M-Murchison, according to Jeff, thinks—Derwatt has returned to an old technique. In his painting ‘The Clock,’ you see. I don’t know what he means—specifically—to tell you the truth.” Bernard shook his head quickly, pulled a handkerchief from somewhere and blew his nose. “I was just looking at one of Jeff’s shots of ‘The Clock.’ I haven’t seen it in three years, you see. Not the picture itself.” Bernard was talking softly, as if the walls might be listening.

“Is Murchison an expert?” Tom asked, thinking, what was an expert?

“No, he’s just an American businessman,” Ed said. “He collects. He’s got a bee in his bonnet.”

It was more than that, Tom thought, or they wouldn’t all be so upset. “Am I supposed to be prepared for anything specific?”

“No,” Ed said. “Is he, Bernard?”

Bernard almost gasped, then tried to laugh, and for an instant he looked as he had looked years ago, younger, naïve. Tom realized that Bernard was thinner than when he had last seen him three or four years ago.

“I wish I knew,” Bernard said. “You must only—stand by the fact that the picture, ‘The Clock,’ is Derwatt’s.”

“Trust me,” Tom said. He was walking about, practicing the stoop, assuming a slowish rhythm which he hoped was correct.

“But,” Bernard went on, “if Murchison wants to continue whatever he’s talking about, whatever it is—‘Man in Chair’ you’ve got, Tom—”

A forgery. “He need never see that,” said Tom. “I love it, myself.”

“‘The Tub,’” Bernard added. “It’s in the show.”

“You’re worried about that?” Tom asked.

“It’s in the same technique,” Bernard said. “Maybe.”

“Then you know what technique Murchison is talking about? Why don’t you take ‘The Tub’ out of the show if you’re worried about it?”

Ed said, “It was announced on the program. We were afraid if we removed it, Murchison might want to see it, want to know who bought it and all that.”

The conversation got nowhere, because Tom could not get a clear statement of what they, or Murchison, meant by the technique in these particular pictures.

“You’ll never meet Murchison, so stop worrying,” Ed said to Bernard.

“Have you met him?” Tom asked Ed.

“No, only Jeff has. This morning.”

“And what’s he like?”

“Jeff said about fifty or so, a big American type. Polite enough but stubborn. Wasn’t there a belt in those trousers?”

Tom tightened the belt in his trousers. He sniffed at the sleeve of his jacket. There was a faint smell of mothballs, which probably wouldn’t be noticed in all the cigarette smoke. And anyway, Derwatt could have been wearing Mexican clothes for the past few years, and his European clothes might have been put away. Tom looked at himself in a long mirror, under one of Jeff’s very bright spotlights that Ed had put on, and suddenly doubled over with laughter. Tom turned around and said, “Sorry, I was just thinking that considering Derwatt’s fantastic earnings, he certainly hangs on to his old gear!”