The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

had just passed through, partly opened in the picture. It was direct, bold, and not at all worked over.
    “Yes, that. I found some kid’s watercolors in the drawer of the table here.” Now the boy looked more sleepy than drunk.
    “I shall be pushing off,” Tom said, reaching for the doorknob. “Phone me again when you feel like it.” Tom had the door half open, when he saw a light come on in Mme. Boutin’s house about twenty yards away straight ahead.
    Frank saw it too. “Now what?” Frank said with irritation. “We didn’t make any noise.”
    Tom wanted to flee, but suddenly in the absolute silence he heard her footsteps on what sounded like gravel and pretty near. “I’m going to hide in the bushes,” Tom whispered, and he moved even as he spoke, out and to the left, where he knew there was darkness either against the garden wall or under a tree.
    The old lady was watching her footing with the aid of a feeble pencil-like flashlight. “ C’est Billy? ”
    “Mais oui, madame!” Frank said.
    Tom was crouched, with one hand on the ground, about six yards from Frank’s little house. Mme. Boutin was saying that two men had arrived around ten o’clock, asking to see him.
    “To see me? Who were they?” Frank said.
    “They didn’t say their names. They wanted to see my gardener, they said. Strangers to me! Bizarre to look for a gardener at ten o’clock, I thought!” Mme. Boutin sounded vexed and suspicious.
    “It’s not my fault,” said Frank. “What did they look like?”
    “Oh, I saw only one. Maybe thirty years old. He asked when you would be back. I didn’t know!”
    “I am sorry they disturbed you, madame. I am not looking for other work, I assure you.”
    “I trust not! I don’t like such people ringing my doorbell at night .” Now her small, rather stooped figure was taking its leave. “I keep my two gates locked. But I came all the way to the front gate to speak to them.”
    “We should—forget it, Madame Boutin. I am sorry.”
    “Good night, Billy, and sleep well.”
    “And you too, madame!”
    Tom waited, watching her progress back to the house. He heard Frank close his house door, then finally the turning of a lock in Mme. Boutin’s house, the faint creak of a second key, then the firm clunk of a bolt that she slid home. Or was that even final? There were no more noises of closures, but still Tom waited. A light on the floor above the ground floor glowed dimly through clouded glass. Then that went out. Frank was evidently waiting for him to make the first move, which Tom thought intelligent of the boy. Tom crept from the bushes, approached the door of the little house, and tapped with his fingertips.
    Frank opened the door partway, and Tom slipped in.
    “I heard that,” Tom whispered. “I think you’d better leave tonight. Now.”
    “ Do you?” Frank looked startled. “I know you’re right. I know, I know.”
    “Now—let’s get going and pack up. You’ll stay at my house tonight and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. This is your only suitcase?” Tom took it from the high shelf, and opened it on the bed.
    They worked smoothly, Tom handing Frank things, trousers, shirts, sneakers, books, toothpaste, and toothbrush. Frank worked with his head down, and Tom felt he was on the brink of tears.
    “Nothing to worry about if we evade those creeps tonight,” Tom said softly, “and tomorrow we’ll leave the nice old lady a note—maybe saying you phoned your family tonight and you have to get back to the States right away. Something like that. But we can’t waste time with it now.”
    Frank pressed his raincoat down, and closed the suitcase.
    Tom took his torch from the table. “Wait a sec, I want to see if they’ve come back.”
    Tom walked as noiselessly as possible over the mowed grass toward the gates. He was able to see only some three yards around him without the torch, and he didn’t want to put the torch on. No car was in front of the Boutin house, anyway. Could