Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

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