Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online

Cynthia.”
    “I don’t really know any of them. I’ve been to the gallery a few times. I like Derwatts. Who doesn’t?” Tom smiled. “That gallery specializes in Derwatts.”
    “You’ve bought some from there?”
    “Some?” Tom laughed. “At Derwatt’s prices? I have two—bought when they weren’t so costly. Old ones. Well-insured now.”
    Several seconds of silence. Pritchard might have been planning his next move. It occurred to Tom that Janice might have impersonated Dickie Greenleaf on the telephone. Her voice had a wide range, from shrill to a quite deep tone when she spoke softly. Was his suspicion correct, that the Pritchards had briefed themselves on Tom Ripley’s past as far as they could—via newspaper archives, talks with people like Cynthia Gradnor—just to have fun with him, pique him and perhaps make him admit something? What the Pritchards believed would be interesting to know. Tom did not think Pritchard was a police agent. But one never knew. There were sub-employees of the CIA, and FBI too. Lee Harvey Oswald had been one for the CIA, Tom thought, and the fall guy in that story. Was extortion, money, on the Pritchards’ minds? Horrid thought.
    “How’s your drink, Mr. Ripley?” asked David Pritchard.
    “Thanks. Maybe a half one.”
    Pritchard went into the kitchen to make it, taking his own glass too, ignoring Janice. The kitchen door leading off the dining room was open—it wouldn’t be much of a problem to hear what was said in the living room, Tom supposed, from the kitchen. But he was going to wait for Janice to begin. Or was he?
    Tom said, “And do you work too, Mrs.—Janice? Or did you?”
    “Oh. I was a secretary in Kansas. Then I studied singing—voice-training—first in Washington. So many schools there, you wouldn’t believe it. But then I—”
    “She met me, tough luck,” said David, coming in with the two drinks on the little round tray.
    “If you say so,” said Janice with deliberate primness. She added in her quieter and deeper tone, “You should know.”
    David, who had not yet sat down, took a mock swat at Janice with fingers crumpled against his palm, narrowly missing her face and right shoulder. “I’ll fix you.” He did not smile.
    Janice had not flinched. “But sometimes it’s my turn,” she replied.
    They played little games, Tom saw. And made up in bed? Unpleasant to contemplate. Tom was curious about the Cynthia connection. That was a can of worms, if the Pritchards or anybody else—especially Cynthia Gradnor, who knew as well as the Buckmaster Gallery people that the last sixty-odd “Derwatts” were forgeries—ever opened it, and told the truth. No use trying to put the lid back on, because all those very expensive paintings would become next to worthless, except for eccentric collectors who were amused by good forgeries; like Tom, in fact, but how many people in the world were like him, with a cynical attitude toward justice and veracity?
    “How is Cynthia—Gradnor, is it?” Tom began. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen her. Very quiet, as I remember.” Tom also remembered that Cynthia detested him, because Tom had thought up the idea of Bernard Tufts’s forging Derwatts, after Derwatt’s suicide. Bernard had done the forgeries brilliantly and successfully, working slowly and steadily in his little London garret-cum-studio, but he had ruined his life in the process, because he had adored and respected Derwatt and his work, and had finally felt that he had betrayed Derwatt unforgivably. Bernard had committed suicide, a nervous wreck.
    David Pritchard was taking his own sweet time answering, and Tom saw (or thought he saw) that Pritchard was thinking that Tom was worried about Cynthia, that Tom wanted to pump Pritchard about her.
    “Quiet? No,” said Pritchard finally.
    “No,” said Janice with a flash of a smile. She was smoking a filter cigarette, and her hands were calmer, though still clasped, even when they held the