Ripley Under Ground (27 page)

Jeff stammered, as if his telephone were being tapped, and Tom continued like an ordinary honest citizen:

“I haven’t yet told the police anywhere. The death—it was in circumstances I don’t care to describe over the telephone.”

“Are you—c-coming to London?”

“I am not, no. But would you speak to Webster and tell him I rang you, that I went to Salzburg to find Bernard. . . . Well, never mind Bernard just now, except for one important thing. Can you get into his studio and destroy every sign of Derwatt?”

Jeff understood. He and Ed knew the superintendent. They could get the keys. They could say that Bernard needed something. And this would account, Tom hoped, for sketches, the unfinished canvases possibly, that they might have to carry out.

“Do a thorough job,” Tom said. “To continue, Derwatt is supposed to have rung my wife a few days ago. My wife told him I’d gone to Salzburg.”

“Yes, but why did—”

Why did Derwatt want to go to Salzburg, Tom supposed Jeff was going to ask. “I think the important thing is that I’m ready to see Webster here. In fact I want to see him. I have news.”

Tom hung up and turned to Heloise. He smiled, hardly daring to smile. And yet, wasn’t he going to succeed?

“What do you mean,” Heloise asked in English, “Derwatt died in Salzburg, when he died years ago in Greece, you told me?”

“He’s got to be proven to be dead. You know, darling, I did all this to preserve the—the honor of Philip Derwatt.”

“How can one kill a man already dead?”

“Can you leave that to me? I have—” Tom looked at his wristwatch on his night table. “I have thirty minutes’ work to do tonight and after that I would love to join you in—”

“Work?”

“Little things to do.” Goodness, if a woman couldn’t understand little things to do, who could? “Little duties.”

“Can’t they wait until morning?”

“The Inspector Webster
might
arrive tomorrow. Even in the morning. And by the time you get undressed, almost, I shall be with you.” He pulled her up. She got up willingly, so he knew she was in a good mood. “Any news from Papa?”

Heloise burst into French, saying something like, “Oh, the hell with Papa on an evening like this! . . . Two men dead in Salzburg! You must mean one, chéri. Or do you mean any at all?”

Tom laughed, delighted with Heloise’s irreverent attitude, because it resembled his own. Her propriety was a veneer only, Tom knew, or surely she’d never have married him.

When Heloise went across the hall, Tom went to his suitcase and took out Bernard’s brown notebook and the drawing pad, and put them neatly on his writing table. He had disposed of Bernard’s chino pants and his shirt in a rubbish bin in a Salzburg street, and of the duffelbag itself in another rubbish bin. Tom’s story was going to be that Bernard had asked him to keep his duffelbag while he went off to look for another hotel. Bernard had never returned, and Tom had kept only what was of value. Then from his stud-box, Tom took his Mexican ring that he had worn in London the first time he had impersonated Derwatt. He went downstairs with it, silent and barefoot. Tom put the ring in the center of what was left of the embers. It might melt to a glob, he supposed, because Mexican silver was pure and soft. Something would remain, and he would add this to Derwatt’s—rather Bernard’s—ashes. He must get up early tomorrow, before Mme. Annette cleaned the ashes out of the fireplace.

Heloise was in bed, smoking a cigarette. He did not like to smoke her blond cigarettes, but he liked the smell of the smoke when she smoked them. Tom held Heloise more tightly, when they had turned the light out. A pity he hadn’t tossed Robert Mackay’s passport into the fire tonight. Was there ever a moment’s peace?

25

T
om extricated himself from the sleeping Heloise, withdrawing an arm from under her neck, daring to turn her over and kiss one breast before he eased himself from the bed. She hadn’t wakened much, and would probably think he was off to the loo. Tom went on bare feet to his room and got the Mackay passport from a pocket of his jacket.

He went downstairs. A quarter to seven by the clock near the telephone. The fire looked like white ashes, but was no doubt still warm. Tom took a twig and scraped for the silver ring, prepared at the same time to conceal the green passport in his hand—he had bent the passport in half—in case Mme. Annette came in. Tom found the ring, blackened and somewhat out of shape, but not the collapsed thing he had expected. He put the ring on the hearth to cool, stirred up the embers, and tore apart the passport. He used a match to hasten the burning of the passport, and watched until it was done. Then he went upstairs with the ring, and put it with the indescribable black and red stuff in the pigskin suitcase from Salzburg.

The telephone rang, and Tom caught it at once.

“Oh, Inspector Webster, hello! . . . That’s quite all right, I was up.”

“If I understand Mr. Constant—Derwatt is
dead
?”

Tom hesitated an instant, and Webster added that Mr. Constant had rung his office late last night to leave a message. “He killed himself in Salzburg,” Tom said. “I was just in Salzburg.”

“I’d like to see you, Mr. Ripley, and the reason I ring so early is because I find I can take a nine o’clock plane. Can I come to see you this morning ’round eleven?”

Tom agreed readily.

Tom then went back to Heloise’s bedroom. They would be awakened—in case Tom slept—in another hour by Mme. Annette with her tray of tea for Heloise and coffee for him. Mme. Annette was used to finding them both in one or the other’s bedroom. Tom did not sleep, but some repose, such as he had with Heloise, was just as restorative.

Mme. Annette arrived around 8:30 a.m., and Tom signaled that he would take his coffee but Heloise would prefer to sleep longer. Tom sipped his coffee and thought what he must do, how he must behave. Honest above all, Tom thought, and he went over the story in his mind. Derwatt ringing because he was distressed about Murchison’s disappearance (over-distressed, oddly, just the sort of illogical thing that would ring true, an unexpected reaction that would sound real), and could he come to see Tom? And Heloise telling him that Tom had gone to Salzburg to look for Bernard Tufts. Yes, best if Heloise mentioned Bernard to Webster. To Derwatt, Bernard Tufts was an old friend whose name he would have responded to at once. In Salzburg, he and Derwatt had been more concerned over Bernard than Murchison.

When Heloise stirred, Tom got out of bed and went downstairs to ask Mme. Annette to make fresh tea. It was about 9:30 a.m.

Tom went out to look at the former grave of Murchison. Some rain had fallen since he had last seen it. He left the few branches over it as they were, because they looked natural, not as if someone had tried to conceal the spot, and Tom had no reason anyway to conceal the policemen’s digging.

Around ten, Mme. Annette went out to do the shopping.

Tom told Heloise that Inspector Webster was due and that he, Tom, would like her to be present. “You can say quite frankly I went to Salzburg to try to find Bernard.”

“Is M. Webster going to accuse you of anything?”

“How could he?” Tom replied, smiling.

Webster arrived at a quarter to eleven. He came in with his black attaché case, looking as efficient as a doctor.

“My wife—whom you’ve met,” Tom said. He took Webster’s coat and asked him to sit down.

The inspector sat on the sofa. First he went through the times of things, making notes. Tom had heard from Derwatt when? November the third, Sunday, Tom thought.

“My wife spoke to him when he rang,” Tom said. “I was in Salzburg.”

“You spoke to Derwatt?” Webster asked Heloise.

“Oh, yes. He would like to speak with Tome, but I told him Tome was in Salzburg—to look for Bernard.”

“Um-m. At what hotel did you stop?” Webster asked Tom. He had his usual smile, and from his jolly expression, there might have been no death involved.

“The Goldener Hirsch,” Tom said. “I went first to Paris, looking for Bernard Tufts on a hunch, then I went to Salzburg—because Bernard had mentioned Salzburg. He hadn’t said he was going there, but he said he’d like to see it again. It’s a small town and it’s not difficult to find someone you’re looking for. Anyway, I found Bernard on the second day.”

“Whom did you see first, Bernard or Derwatt?”

“Oh, Bernard, because I was looking for him. I didn’t know Derwatt was in Salzburg.”

“And—go on,” said Webster.

Tom sat forward on his chair. “Well—I suppose I spoke to Bernard alone once or twice. With Derwatt the same. Then we were a few times together. They were old friends. I thought it was Bernard who was the more depressed. His friend Cynthia in London doesn’t want to see him again. Didn’t Derwatt—” Tom hesitated. “Derwatt seemed more concerned with Bernard than himself. I have by the way a couple of notebooks of Bernard’s that I think I ought to show you.” Tom stood up, but Webster said:

“I’ll just get a few facts down first. Bernard killed himself how?”

“He disappeared. This was just after Derwatt’s death. From what he wrote in his notebook, I think he might have drowned himself in the river in Salzburg. But I wasn’t sure enough to report that to the police there. I wanted to speak with you first.”

Webster looked a bit puzzled, or benumbed, which didn’t surprise Tom. “I’m most interested in seeing Bernard’s notebooks, but Derwatt—what happened there?”

Tom glanced at Heloise. “Well, on Tuesday, we all had an appointment to meet around ten in the morning. Derwatt had taken sedatives, he said. He’d talked before of killing himself and said he wanted to be cremated—by us, Bernard and me. I at least hadn’t taken it too seriously until he turned up groggy Tuesday and sort of—making jokes. He took more pills as we walked. We were in the woods, where Derwatt wanted to go.” Tom said to Heloise, “If you don’t want to listen, dear, you should go upstairs. I have to tell it as it happened.”

“I will listen.” Heloise put her face in her hands for a moment, then took her hands down and stood up. “I shall ask Mme. Annette for some tea. All right, Tome?”

“A good idea,” Tom said. He continued to Webster, “Derwatt jumped off a cliff onto rocks. You could say he killed himself in three ways, by the pills, by jumping over—and by being burnt, but he was certainly dead when we burnt him. He died from the jump. Bernard and I returned—the next day. We burnt what we could. We buried the rest.”

Heloise came back.

Webster said, writing, “The next day. November the sixth, Wednesday.” Where had Bernard been staying? Tom was able to say Der Blaue something in the Linzergasse. But after Wednesday, Tom was not sure. Where and when had they bought the petrol? Tom was vague about the place, but it was Wednesday noon. Where had Derwatt been staying? Tom said he had never tried to find out.

“Bernard and I had promised to meet around nine-thirty Thursday morning in the Alter Markt. Wednesday night, Bernard gave me his duffelbag and asked me to keep it while he found another hotel that night. I asked him to stay at my hotel, but he didn’t want to. Then—he didn’t keep our date Thursday. I waited an hour or so. I never saw him again. He had left no message at my hotel. I felt Bernard didn’t want to keep that date, that he’d destroyed himself probably—probably by drowning himself in the river. I came home.”

Webster lit a cigarette, more slowly than usual. “You were to keep his duffelbag overnight on Wednesday?”

“Not necessarily. Bernard knew where I was, and I rather expected him to pick the bag up later that night. I did say, ‘If I don’t see you tonight, we’ll meet tomorrow morning.’”

“You asked at hotels for him yesterday morning?”

“No, I didn’t. I think I’d lost all hope. I was upset and discouraged.”

Mme. Annette served the tea, and exchanged a “
Bonjour
” with Inspector Webster.

Tom said, “Bernard hung a dummy downstairs in our cellar a few days ago. It was meant to be himself. My wife found it and it gave her quite a scare. Bernard’s trousers and jacket hanging from a belt from the ceiling with a note attached.” Tom glanced at her. “Heloise, sorry.”

Heloise bit her lip and shrugged. Her reaction was indisputably genuine. What Tom had said had happened had happened, and she did not enjoy recalling it.

“Have you got the note he wrote?” Webster asked.

“Yes. It must be still in the pocket of my dressing gown. Shall I get it?”

“In a moment.” Webster almost smiled again, but not quite. “May I ask why you went to Salzburg exactly?”

“I was worried about Bernard. He’d mentioned wanting to see Salzburg. I felt Bernard might be going to kill himself. And I wondered—why should he have looked me up after all? He knew I had two Derwatt paintings, true, but he didn’t know me. Yet he talked very freely on his first visit here. I thought perhaps I could help. Then as it turned out, both Derwatt and Bernard killed themselves, Derwatt first. One doesn’t want to meddle somehow—with a man like Derwatt, anyway. One feels one is doing the wrong thing. I don’t really mean
that
, but I mean, to tell somebody not to kill himself when one knows it won’t be accepted by the other person who’s determined to kill himself. That’s what I mean. It’s wrong and it’s hopeless, and why should someone be reproached for
not
saying something, when he knows it’s no good to say it?” Tom paused.

Webster was listening attentively.

“Bernard went off—probably to Paris—after hanging himself in effigy here. Then he came back. That’s when Heloise met him.”

Webster wanted the date Bernard Tufts had returned to Belle Ombre. Tom did the best he could. October twenty-fifth, he thought.

“I tried to help Bernard by telling him his girlfriend Cynthia might see him again. Which I don’t think was true, not from what I could gather from Bernard. I was simply trying to pull him out of his depression. I think Derwatt tried even harder. I’m sure they saw each other alone a few times in Salzburg. Derwatt was fond of Bernard.” Tom said to Heloise. “Are you understanding this, darling?”

Heloise nodded.

It was probably true that she understood all of it.

“Why was Derwatt so depressed?”

Tom thought for a moment. “He was depressed about the whole world. Life. I don’t know if there was something personal—in Mexico—contributing to it. He mentioned a Mexican girl who had married and gone away. I don’t know how important this was. He seemed disturbed because he’d come back to London. He said it was a mistake.”

Webster stopped taking notes at last. “Shall we go upstairs?”

Tom took the inspector into his room, and went to the closet for his suitcase.

“I don’t want my wife to see this,” Tom said, and opened the suitcase. He and Webster stooped beside it.

The small remains were wrapped in Austrian and German newspapers that Tom had bought. Tom noticed that Webster looked at the dates of the newspapers before he lifted the bundle out and set it on the rug. He put more newspaper under the bundle, but Tom knew it was not damp. Webster opened it.

“Um-m. Dear me. What did Derwatt want you to do with this?”

Tom hesitated, frowning. “Nothing.” Tom went to the window, and opened it a little. “I don’t know why I took it. I was upset. So was Bernard. If Bernard said we should take some back to England, I don’t remember. But I took that. We’d expected ashes. It wasn’t.”

Webster was poking in the stuff with the end of his ballpoint pen. He came upon the ring and fished it out with the pen. “A silver ring.”

“I took that on purpose.” Tom knew the two snakes on the ring were still visible.

“I’ll take this back to London,” Webster said, standing up. “If you have a box, perhaps—”

“Yes, certainly,” Tom said, starting for the door.

“You spoke of Bernard Tufts’s notebooks.”

“Yes.” Tom turned back, and pointed to the notebook and the drawing pad on the corner of his writing table. “They’re here. And the note he wrote—” Tom went to his bathroom, where his dressing gown hung on a hook. The note was still in the pocket.
I hang myself in effigy
. . . . Tom handed it to Webster, and went downstairs.

Mme. Annette saved boxes, and there was always a variety of sizes. “What is it for?” she asked, trying to help him.

“This will do very well,” Tom said. The boxes were on top of Mme. Annette’s clothes cupboard, and Tom pulled one down. It held a few remnants of knitting wool, neatly coiled, which he handed to Mme. Annette with a smile. “Thank you, my treasure.”

Webster was downstairs, talking in English on the telephone. Heloise had perhaps gone up to her room. Tom took the box upstairs and put the little bundle into it, and wadded some newspaper to fill out the box. He got string from his workroom and tied it. It was a shoe box. Tom took the box downstairs.

Webster was still on the telephone.

Tom went to the bar and poured a neat whiskey for himself, and decided to wait to see if Webster wanted a Dubonnet.

“. . . the Buckmaster Gallery people? Can you wait till I’m there?”

Tom changed his mind and went to the kitchen for ice to make Webster’s Dubonnet. He got the ice and, seeing Mme. Annette, asked her to finish making the drink and not to forget the lemon peel.

Webster was saying, “I’ll ring you again in about an hour, so don’t go out to lunch. . . . No, not a word to anyone just now. . . . I don’t know yet.”

Tom felt uneasy. He saw Heloise on the lawn, and went out to speak to her, though he would have preferred to stay in the living room. “I think we should offer the inspector lunch or sandwiches, something like that. All right, darling?”

“You gave him the ashes?”

Tom blinked. “A small thing. In a box,” he said awkwardly. “It is wrapped. Don’t think about it.” Tom led her by the hand back toward the house. “It’s appropriate that Bernard should give his remains to be thought of as Derwatt.”