Ripley Under Ground (4 page)

Jeff, like Ed, was listening attentively, and in this pause Jeff said, “But after all this picture came from Mexico along with a few others of Derwatt’s. He always sends two or three at a time.”

“Yes. ‘The Clock’ has a date on the back. It’s three years old, written in the same black paint as Derwatt’s signature,” Murchison said, swinging his painting round so all could see it. “I had the signature and the date analyzed in the States. That’s how carefully I’ve gone into this,” Murchison said, smiling.

“I don’t quite know what the trouble is,” Tom said. “I painted it in Mexico if the date’s three years old in my own writing.”

Murchison looked at Jeff. “Mr. Constant, you say you received ‘The Clock’ along with two others, perhaps, in a certain shipment?”

“Yes. Now that I recall—I think the other two are here now lent by London owners—‘The Orange Barn’ and— Do you recall the other, Ed?”

“I think it’s ‘Bird Specter’ probably. Isn’t it?”

From Jeff’s nod, Tom could see it was true, or else Jeff was doing well at pretending.

“That’s it,” said Jeff.

“They’re not in this technique. There’s purple in them, but made by mixed colors. The two you’re talking about are genuine—genuinely later pictures at any rate.”

Murchison was slightly wrong, they were phonies as well. Tom scratched his beard, but very gently. He kept a quiet, somewhat amused air.

Murchison looked from Jeff to Tom. “You may think I’m being bumptious, but if you’ll excuse me, Derwatt, I think you’ve been forged. I’ll stick my neck out farther, I’ll bet my life that ‘The Clock’ isn’t yours.”

“But Mr. Murchison,” Jeff said, “that’s a matter of simply—”

“Of showing me a receipt for a certain number of paintings in a certain year? Paintings received from Mexico which might not be even titled? What if Derwatt doesn’t give them a title?”

“The Buckmaster Gallery is the only authorized dealer for Derwatt’s work. You bought that picture from us.”

“I’m aware of that,” said Murchison. “And I’m not accusing you—or Derwatt. I’m just saying, I don’t think this is a Derwatt. I can’t tell you what
happened
.” Murchison looked at all of them in turn, a bit embarrassed by his own outburst, but still carried along by his conviction. “My theory is that a painter never reverts to a single color which he once used or any combination of colors once he has made a change to another color as subtle and yet as important as lavender is in Derwatt’s paintings. Do you agree, Derwatt?”

Tom sighed and touched his mustache with a forefinger. “I can’t say. I’m not so much of a theoretician as you, it seems.”

A pause.

“Well, Mr. Murchison, what would you like us to do about ‘The Clock?’ Refund your money?” Jeff asked. “We’d be happy to do that, because—Derwatt has just verified it, and frankly it’s worth more than ten thousand dollars now.”

Tom hoped Mr. Murchison would accept, but he was not that kind of man.

Murchison took his time, pushed his hands into his trousers pockets and looked at Jeff. “Thank you, but I’m more interested in my theory—my opinion, than in the money. And since I’m in London, where there’re as good judges of painting as anywhere in the world, maybe the best, I intend to have ‘The Clock’ looked at by an expert and compared with—certain indisputable Derwatts.”

“Very well,” said Tom amiably.

“Thank you very much for seeing me, Derwatt. A pleasure to meet you.” Murchison held out his hand.

Tom shook it firmly. “A pleasure, Mr. Murchison.”

Ed helped Murchison wrap up his painting, and provided more string, as Murchison’s string would no longer tie.

“Can I reach you through the gallery here?” Murchison said to Tom. “Say tomorrow?”

“Oh, yes,” Tom said. “They’ll know where I am.”

When Murchison had left the room, Jeff and Ed gave huge sighs.

“Well—how serious is it?” Tom asked.

Jeff knew more about pictures. He spoke first, with difficulty. “It’s serious if he drags in an expert, I suppose. And he will. He may have a point about the purples. One might call it a clue that could lead to worse.”

Tom said, “Why don’t we go back to your studio, Jeff? Can you whisk me out the back door again—like Cinderella?”

“Yep, but I want to speak to Leonard.” Jeff grinned. “I’ll drag him in to meet you.” He went out.

The hum from the gallery was less now. Tom looked at Ed, whose face was a bit pale.
I can disappear, but you can’t
, Tom thought. Tom squared his shoulders, and lifted his fingers in a V. “Chin up, Banbury. We’ll see this one through.”

“Or that’s what they’ll do to
us
,” Ed replied, with a more vulgar gesture.

Jeff came back with Leonard, a smallish, neat young man in an Edwardian suit with many buttons and velvet facings. Leonard burst into laughter at the sight of Derwatt, and Jeff shushed him.

“It is marvelous, marvelous!” Leonard said, looking Tom over with a genuine admiration. “I’ve seen so many pictures, you know! I haven’t seen anything so good since I did Toulouse-Lautrec with my feet tied up behind me! That was last year.” Leonard stared at Tom. “Who
are
you?”

“That,” Jeff said, “you are not to know. Suffice it to say—”

“Suffice it to say,” Ed said, “Derwatt has just given a brilliant interview to the press.”

“And tomorrow Derwatt is no more. He will return to Mexico,” Jeff said in a whisper. “Now back to your duties, Leonard.”

“
Ciao
,” said Tom, raising a hand.

“
Hommage
,” said Leonard, bowing. He backed toward the door, and added, “The crowd’s nearly all gone. So’s the booze.” He slipped out.

Tom was not quite so cheerful. He very much wanted out of his disguise. The situation was a problem, not yet solved.

Back at Jeff’s studio, they found that Bernard Tufts had gone. Ed and Jeff seemed surprised. And Tom was a little uneasy, because Bernard ought to know what was going on.

“You can reach Bernard, of course,” Tom said.

“Oh, sure,” said Ed. He was making some tea for himself in Jeff’s kitchen. “Bernard’s always
chez lui
. He’s got a telephone.”

It crossed Tom’s mind that even the telephone might not be safe to use for long.

“Mr. Murchison is going to want to see you again probably,” Jeff said. “With the expert. So you’ve got to disappear. You’ll leave for Mexico tomorrow—officially. Maybe even tonight.” Jeff was sipping a Pernod. He looked more confident, perhaps because the press interview and even the Murchison interview had gone reasonably well, Tom thought.

“Mexico my foot,” Ed said, coming in with his cup of tea. “Derwatt will be somewhere in England staying with friends, and even we won’t know where. Let some days pass. Then he’ll go to Mexico. By what means? Who knows?”

Tom removed his baggy jacket. “Is there a date for ‘The Red Chairs?’”

“Yes,” Jeff said. “It’s six years old.”

“Printed here and there, I suppose?” Tom asked. “I was thinking of updating it—to get over this purple business.”

Ed and Jeff glanced at each other, and Ed said quickly, “No, it’s in too many catalogues.”

“There’s one way out, have Bernard do several canvases—two anyway—with the plain cobalt violet. Sort of prove that he uses both kinds of purple.” But Tom felt discouraged as he said it, and he knew why. Tom felt that it might be Bernard that they couldn’t count on any longer. Tom looked away from Jeff and Ed. They were dubious. He tried standing up, straight, feeling confident of his Derwatt disguise. “Did I ever tell you about my honeymoon?” Tom asked in Derwatt’s monotone.

“No, tell us about your honeymoon!” Jeff said, ready for a laugh and grinning already.

Tom assumed Derwatt’s stoop. “It was—most inhibiting—the atmosphere. In Spain. We’d taken a hotel suite, you see, and there I was with Heloise, and downstairs in the patio a parrot sang
Carmen
—badly. And every time we— Well, there it came: ‘Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa! Ah-
ha
-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-
haaaaa
!’ People leaned out windows yelling in Spanish, ‘Shut your filthy beak! Who taught that—unmentionable object to sing
Carmen
? Kill it! Boil it in soup!’ It is impossible to make love while laughing. Have you ever tried it? Well—they say laughter distinguishes the human from the animal. And—the other thing certainly doesn’t. Ed, can you get me out of this foliage?”

Ed was laughing, and Jeff rolling on the sofa in relief—which Tom knew would be temporary—from the recent strain.

“Come in the loo.” Ed turned on the hot water in the basin.

Tom changed into his own trousers and shirt. If he could lure Murchison to his house somehow, before Murchison spoke to the expert he was talking about, perhaps something—Tom didn’t know what—could be done about the situation. “Where’s Murchison staying in London?”

“Some hotel,” Jeff said. “He didn’t say which.”

“Can you ring a few hotels and see if you can find him?”

Before Jeff got to the telephone, it rang. Tom heard Jeff telling someone that Derwatt had taken a train north, and Jeff did not know where he was going. “He’s very much a loner,” Jeff said. “Another gentleman of the press,” Jeff said when he had hung up, “trying to get a personal interview.” He opened a telephone book. “I’ll try the Dorchester first. He looks like a Dorchester type.”

“Or a Westbury type,” Ed said.

It took a lot of delicately applied water to remove the gauze of the beard. Afterward came a shampoo to get the rinse out of his hair. Tom finally heard Jeff say in a cheerful tone, “No, thank you, I’ll ring back later.”

Then Jeff said, “It’s the Mandeville. That’s off Wigmore Street.”

Tom put on his own pink shirt from Venice. Then he went to the telephone and booked a room at the Mandeville under the name Thomas Ripley. He would arrive by 8 p.m. or so, he said.

“What’re you going to do?” Ed asked.

Tom smiled a little, “I don’t know just yet,” he said, which was true.

4

T
he Hotel Mandeville was rather plush, but by no means as expensive as the Dorchester. Tom arrived at 8:15 p.m. and registered, giving his address as Villeperce-sur-Seine. It had crossed his mind to give a false name and some English country address, because he might get into considerable difficulties with Mr. Murchison and have to disappear quickly, but there was also the possibility of inviting Murchison to France, in which case Tom might need his real name. Tom asked a bellhop to take his suitcase to his room, and then he looked into the bar, hoping Mr. Murchison might be there. Mr. Murchison was not there, but Tom decided to have a lager and wait a few moments.

A ten-minute wait with a lager and an
Evening Standard
brought no Mr. Murchison. The neighborhood was full of restaurants, Tom knew, but he could hardly approach Murchison’s table and strike up an acquaintance on the strength of saying he had seen Murchison at the Derwatt show that day. Or could he—saying he had also seen Murchison going into the back room to meet Derwatt? Yes. Tom was just about to venture out to explore the local restaurants, when he saw Mr. Murchison coming into the bar, gesturing to someone to follow him.

And to Tom’s surprise, horror even, he saw that the other person was Bernard Tufts. Tom slipped quickly out of the door on the other side of the bar, which opened onto the pavement. Bernard hadn’t seen him, Tom was fairly sure. He looked around for a telephone booth, for another hotel from which to telephone, and, finding none, he went back into the Mandeville by the main entrance and took his key for his room, number four eleven.

In his room, Tom rang Jeff’s studio. Three rings, four, five, then to Tom’s relief, Jeff answered.

“Hello, Tom! I was just going down the stairs with Ed when I heard the phone. What’s up?”

“Do you happen to know where Bernard is now?”

“Oh, we’re leaving him alone tonight. He’s upset.”

“He’s having a drink with Murchison in the bar of the Mandeville.”

“
What
?”

“I’m ringing from my room. Now whatever you do, Jeff— Are you listening?”

“Yes-yes.”

“Don’t tell Bernard I saw him. Don’t tell Bernard I’m at the Mandeville. And don’t get in a flap about anything. That’s providing Bernard isn’t spilling the beans now, I don’t know.”

“Oh, my God,” Jeff groaned. “No-no. Bernard wouldn’t spill the
beans
. I don’t
think
he would.”

“Are you in later tonight?”

“Yes, by— Oh, home before midnight, anyway.”

“I’ll try to ring you. But don’t be worried if I don’t. Don’t try to ring me because—I just might have somebody in my room.” Tom said with a sudden laugh.

Jeff laughed, but a bit sickly, “Okay, Tom.”

Tom hung up.

He definitely wanted to see Murchison tonight. Would Murchison and Bernard have dinner? That would be a bore to wait out. Tom hung up a suit and stuck a couple of shirts in a drawer. He splashed some more water on his face and looked in the mirror to make sure every bit of glue was gone.

Out of restlessness, he left his room, his topcoat over his arm. He would take a walk, to Soho perhaps, and find a place for dinner. In the lobby, he looked through the glass doors of the Mandeville bar.

He was in luck. Murchison sat alone, signing the bill, and the street door of the bar was just closing, perhaps even with Bernard’s departure. Still, Tom glanced around in the lobby, in case Bernard had slipped out to the men’s room and might be coming back. Tom did not see Bernard, and he waited until Murchison was actually standing up to leave before he went into the bar. Tom looked depressed and thoughtful, and in fact he felt that way. He looked twice at Murchison, whose eyes met his once, as if he were recalling Murchison from somewhere.

Then Tom approached him. “Excuse me. I think I saw you at the Derwatt show today.” Tom had put on an American accent, midwestern with a hard
r
in Derwatt.

“Why, yes, I was there,” Murchison said.

“I thought you looked like an American. So am I. Do you like Derwatt?” Tom was being as naïve and straightforward as possible without seeming dim-witted.

“Yes, I certainly do.”

“I own two of his canvases,” Tom said with pride. “I may buy one of the ones in the show today—if it’s left. I haven’t decided yet. ‘The Tub.’”

“Oh? So do I own one,” Murchison said with equal candor.

“Y’do? What’s it called?”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Murchison was standing, but indicated the chair opposite him. “Would you care for a drink?”

“Thanks, I don’t mind if I do.”

Murchison sat down. “My picture is called ‘The Clock.’ How nice to run into someone who owns a Derwatt, too—or a couple of them!”

A waiter came.

“Scotch for me, please. And you?” he asked Tom.

“A gin and tonic,” Tom said. He added, “I’m staying here at the Mandeville, so these drinks are on me.”

“We’ll argue about that later. Tell me what pictures you have.”

“‘The Red Chairs,’” Tom said, “and—”

“Really? That’s a gem! ‘The Red Chairs.’ Do you live in London?”

“No, in France.”

“Oh,” with disappointment. “And what’s the other picture?”

“‘Man in Chair.’”

“I don’t know that,” Murchison said.

For a few minutes, they discussed Derwatt’s odd personality, and Tom said he had seen Murchison go into a back room of the gallery where he had heard Derwatt was.

“Only the press was let in, but I crashed the gate,” Murchison told Tom. “You see, I’ve got a rather special reason for being here just now, and when I heard Derwatt was
here
this afternoon at the gallery, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip.”

“Yes? What’s your reason?” Tom asked.

Murchison explained. He explained his reasons for thinking Derwatt might be being forged, and Tom listened with rapt attention. It was a matter of Derwatt using a mixture of ultramarine and cadmium red now, for the past five years or so (since before his death, Tom realized, so Derwatt had begun this, not Bernard), and of having in “The Clock” and in “The Tub” gone back to his early simple cobalt violet. Murchison himself painted, he told Tom, as a hobby.

“I’m no expert, believe me, but I’ve read almost every book about painters and painting that exists. It wouldn’t take an expert or a microscope to tell the difference between a single color and a mixture, but what I mean is, you’ll never find a painter going back to a color that he has consciously or unconsciously discarded. I say unconsciously, because when a painter chooses a new color or colors it is usually a decision made by his unconscious. Not that Derwatt uses lavender in every picture, no indeed. But my conclusion is that my ‘Clock’ and possibly some other pictures, including ‘The Tub’ that you’re interested in, by the way, are not Derwatts.”

“That’s interesting. Very. Because as it happens my ‘Man in Chair’ sort of corresponds to what you’re saying. I think. And ‘Man in Chair’ is about four years old now. I’d love you to see it. Well, what’re you going to do about your ‘Clock’?”

Murchison lit one of his Chesterfields. “I haven’t finished my story yet. I just had a drink with an Englishman whose name is Bernard Tufts, a painter also, and he seems to suspect the same thing about Derwatt.”

Tom frowned hard. “Really? It’s pretty important if someone’s forging Derwatts. What did the man say?”

“I have the feeling he knows more than he’s saying. I doubt if he’s in on any of it. He’s not a crooked type, and he doesn’t look as if he has much money, either. But he seems to know the London art scene. He simply warned me, ‘Don’t buy any more Derwatts, Mr. Murchison.’ Now what do you think of
that
?”

“Hm-m. But what’s he got to go on?”

“As I say, I don’t know. I couldn’t get anything out of him. But he took the trouble to look me up here, and he said he called eight London hotels before he found me. I asked him how he knew my name, and he said, ‘Oh, word gets around.’ Very strange, since the Buckmaster Gallery people are the only people I’ve spoken to. Don’t you think? I have an appointment with a man from the Tate Gallery tomorrow, but even he doesn’t know it’s in regard to a Derwatt.” Murchison drank some of his scotch and said, “When paintings start coming from Mexico— Do you know what I’m going to do tomorrow besides showing ‘The Clock’ to Mr. Riemer at the Tate Gallery, I’m going to ask if I or he has the right to see the receipts or books of the Buckmaster Gallery people in regard to Derwatt paintings sent from Mexico. It’s not the titles I’m so interested in, and Derwatt told me he doesn’t always title them, it’s the number of paintings. Surely they’re let in by the customs or something, and if some paintings aren’t recorded, there’s a reason. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Derwatt himself were being hoodwinked and a few Derwatts—well, some said to be four or five years old, for instance—were being painted right here in London?”

Yes, Tom thought. Amazing. “But you said you spoke with Derwatt. Did you talk to him about your painting?”

“I showed it to him! He said it was his, but he wasn’t dead sure of it in my opinion. He didn’t say, ‘By God, that’s mine!’ He looked at it for a couple of minutes and said, ‘Of course, it’s mine.’ It was maybe presumptuous of me, but I said to Derwatt I thought it was possible he could forget a canvas or two, an untitled canvas that he’d done years ago.”

Tom frowned as if he doubted this, which he did. Even a painter who did not give titles to his paintings would remember a painting, Tom thought, less a drawing, perhaps. But he let Murchison continue.

“And for another thing, I don’t quite like the men at the Buckmaster Gallery. Jeffrey Constant. And the journalist Edmund Banbury, who’s obviously a close friend of Constant’s. They’re old friends of Derwatt’s, I realize that. I get
The Listener
and
Arts Review
and also the
Sunday Times
in Long Island where I live. I see articles by Banbury quite often, usually with a plug for Derwatt, if the article isn’t on Derwatt. And do you know what occurred to me?”

“What?” Tom asked.

“That—just maybe Constant and Banbury are putting up with a few forgeries in order to sell more Derwatts than Derwatt can produce. I don’t go so far as to say Derwatt’s in on it. But wouldn’t that be a funny story, if Derwatt’s so absentminded he can’t even remember how many pictures he’s painted?” Murchison laughed.

It was funny, Tom supposed, but not hilarious. Not as funny as the truth, Mr. Murchison. Tom smiled. “So you’re going to show your picture to the expert tomorrow?”

“Come up and see it now!”

Tom tried to take the bill, but Murchison insisted upon signing.

Tom went with him in the lift. Murchison had his painting in a corner of his closet, wrapped as Ed had wrapped it that afternoon. Tom looked at it with interest.

“It’s a handsome picture,” Tom said.

“Ah, no one can deny that!”

“You know—” Tom propped it on the writing desk and was now looking at it from across the room with all the lights turned on. “It does have a similarity to my ‘Man in Chair.’ Why don’t you come over and look at my picture? I’m very near Paris. If you think my picture might be forged, too, I’ll let you take it back with you to show in London.”

“Hum,” said Murchison, thinking. “I could.”

“If you’ve been taken in, so have I, I think.” It would only be insulting to offer to pay for Murchison’s flight, Tom thought, so he did not. “I’ve a pretty big house and I’m alone at the moment, except for my housekeeper.”

“All right, I will,” said Murchison, who hadn’t sat down.

“I intend to leave tomorrow afternoon.”

“All right, I’ll postpone that Tate Gallery appointment.”

“I’ve lots of other paintings. Not that I’m a collector.” Tom sat down in the largest chair. “I’d like you to have a look at them. A Soutine. Two Magrittes.”

“Really?” Murchison’s eyes began to look a little dreamy. “How far are you from Paris?”

Ten minutes later, Tom was in his own room one floor below. Murchison had proposed that they have dinner together, but Tom had thought it best to say he had an appointment at 10 p.m. in Belgravia, so there was hardly time. Murchison had entrusted Tom with booking their plane tickets for tomorrow afternoon to Paris, a round-trip for Murchison. Tom picked up the telephone and booked two seats on a flight that left tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday, at 2 p.m. for Orly. Tom had his own return ticket. He left a message downstairs for Murchison in regard to the flight. Then Tom ordered a sandwich and a half bottle of Médoc. After this, he napped until eleven, and put in a telephone call to Reeves Minot in Hamburg. This took nearly half an hour.

Reeves was not in, a man’s German-accented voice said.

Tom decided to chance it, because he was fed up with Reeves, and said, “This is Tom Ripley. Has Reeves any message for me?”

“Yes. The message is Wednesday. The Count arrives in Milan tomorrow. Can you come to Milan tomorrow?”

“No, I cannot come to Milan tomorrow.
Es tut mir leid
.” Tom didn’t, as yet, want to say to this man, no matter who he was, that the count already had an invitation to visit him when he next came to France. Reeves couldn’t expect him to drop everything all the time—Tom had done so on two other occasions—to fly to Hamburg or Rome (much as Tom enjoyed little excursions), pretend to be in those cities by accident, and invite the “host,” as Tom always thought of the carrier, to his Villeperce house. “I think there’s no great complication,” Tom said. “Can you tell me the Count’s address in Milan?”

“Grand Hotel,” said the voice brusquely.

“Would you tell Reeves I’ll be in touch, tomorrow probably. Where can I reach him?”

“Tomorrow morning at the Grand Hotel in Milan. He is taking a train to Milan tonight. He does not like airplanes, you know.”

Tom hadn’t known. It was odd, a man like Reeves not liking airplanes. “I’ll ring him. And I’m not in Munich now. I’m in Paris.”

“Paris?” with surprise. “I know Reeves tried to ring you in Munich at the Vierjahreszeiten.”

That was too bad. Tom hung up politely.