Ripley Under Ground (25 page)

Bernard lifted his eyes to him.

Tom looked like himself now, in a tweed jacket, with his muffler round his neck against the chill—the muffler that Heloise had washed the blood from in the Paris hotel. Tom was on the brink of going closer, of extending his hand, smiling, when Bernard half stood up with a look of terror on his face.

The two plump colored waitresses looked from Bernard to Tom. Tom saw a waitress get up with what seemed like the slowness of Africa, with an obvious intention of going to Bernard to ask, eventually, if something was the matter, because Bernard looked as if he had swallowed something that was going to kill him.

Bernard waved his hand negatively, rapidly—against the waitress or him, Tom wondered?

Tom turned and went through the inside door (the place had a storm door), then walked out onto the pavement. He pushed his hands into his pockets and ducked his head, much like Bernard, as he walked back through the Gstättentor, toward the more lighted part of town. Had he done wrong, Tom asked himself. Should he have simply—advanced? But Tom had felt that Bernard would let out a scream.

Tom went past his hotel and on to the next corner, where he turned right. The Tomaselli was a few yards on. If Bernard was following him—Tom was sure Bernard was going to leave the restaurant—if Bernard wanted to join him here, very well. But Tom knew it was something different. Bernard thought he was seeing a vision, really. So Tom sat at a conspicuous middle table, ordered a sandwich and a carafe of white wine, and read a couple of newspapers.

Bernard did not come in.

The big wood-framed doorway had an arched brass curtain rod which supported a green curtain, and every time the curtain moved, Tom glanced up, but the person entering was never Bernard.

If Bernard did come in and walk toward him, it would be because Bernard wanted to make sure he was real. That was logical. (The trouble was, Bernard was not doing anything logical, probably.) Tom would say, “Sit down and have some wine with me. I’m not a ghost, you see. I spoke with Cynthia. She’d like to see you again.”
Pull Bernard out of it.

But Tom doubted that he could.

23

B
y the next day, Tuesday, Tom made another decision: to speak to Bernard by hook or by crook, even if he had to tackle him. He would try also to make Bernard go back to London. Bernard must have some friends there, apart from Jeff and Ed whom he would probably shun. Didn’t Bernard’s mother still live there? Tom wasn’t sure. But he felt he had to do something, because Bernard’s air of misery was pitiable. Each glimpse of Bernard sent a weird pain through Tom: it was as if he were seeing someone already in the throes of death, yet walking about.

So at 11 a.m., Tom went to the Blaue something, and spoke to a dark-haired woman of about fifty at the downstairs desk. “Excuse me, there is a man called Bernard Tufts—ein Englischer—staying here?” Tom asked in German.

The woman’s eyes went wider. “Yes, but he has just checked out. About an hour ago.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

Bernard had not. Tom thanked her, and he felt her eyes following him as he left the hotel, staring at him as if he were just as odd as Bernard, simply because he knew Bernard.

Tom took a taxi to the railway station. There were probably few planes out of the Salzburg airport, which was small. And trains were cheaper than planes. Tom did not see Bernard at the railway station. He looked on platforms and in the buffet. He then walked back toward the river and the center of town, watching for Bernard, for a man in a limp beige raincoat carrying a duffelbag. Around 2 p.m. Tom took a taxi to the airport, in case Bernard was flying to Frankfurt. No luck there, either.

It was just after 3 p.m. when Tom saw him. Bernard was on a bridge over the river, one of the smaller bridges that had a handrail and one-way traffic. Bernard leaned on his forearms, gazing down. His duffelbag was at his feet. Tom had not started across the bridge. He had seen Bernard from quite a distance. Was he thinking about jumping in? Bernard’s hair lifted and fell over his forehead with the wind. He was going to kill himself, Tom realized. Maybe not this instant. Maybe he would walk around and come back in an hour, in two hours. Maybe this evening. Two women, walking past Bernard, glanced at him with a brief curiosity. When the women had gone by, Tom walked toward Bernard, neither fast nor slowly. Below, the river foamed quickly over the rocks that bordered its banks. Tom had never seen a boat on the river, that he could recall. The Salzach was perhaps rather shallow. Tom, at a distance of four yards, was ready to say Bernard’s name, when Bernard turned his head to the left and saw him.

Bernard straightened up suddenly, and Tom had the feeling that his staring expression did not change at the sight of him, but Bernard picked up his duffelbag.

“Bernard!” Tom said, just as a noisy motorcycle pulling a trailer passed by them, and Tom was afraid Bernard hadn’t heard him. “
Bernard!
”

Bernard ran off.

“
Bernard!
” Tom collided with a woman, and would have knocked her down, except that she struck the handrail instead. “Oh!— I’m
terribly
sorry!” Tom said. He repeated it in German, picking up a parcel the woman had dropped.

She replied something to him, something about a “football player.”

Tom trotted on. Bernard was in sight. Tom frowned, embarrassed and angry. He felt a sudden hatred for Bernard. It made him tense for a moment, then the emotion passed away. Bernard was walking briskly, not looking behind him. There was a madness in the way Bernard walked, with nervous but regular strides that Tom felt he could keep up for hours until he simply dropped. Or would Bernard ever simply drop? It was curious, Tom thought, that he felt Bernard was as much a kind of ghost as Bernard apparently thought he was.

Bernard began to zigzag meaninglessly in the streets, but he stayed rather close to the river. They walked for half an hour, and now they had left the town proper behind them. The streets were thin now, with an occasional florist’s shop, woods, gardens, a residence, a tiny
Konditorei
with a now empty terrace giving a view of the river. Bernard at last went into one of these.

Tom slowed his steps. He was not tired or out of breath after all his fast walking. He felt odd. Only the pleasant coolness of the wind on his forehead reminded him that he was still among the living.

The little square café had glass walls, and Tom could see that Bernard was seated at a table with a glass of red wine in front of him. The place was empty, save for a skinny and rather elderly waitress in black uniform with a white apron. Tom smiled, relieved, and without thinking or pondering anything, he opened the door and went in. Now Bernard looked at him as if he were a bit surprised, puzzled (Bernard was frowning), but there was not the same terror.

Tom smiled a little and nodded. He didn’t know why he nodded. Was it a greeting? Was it an affirmation? If so, an affirmation of what? Tom imagined pulling out a chair, sitting down with Bernard and saying, “Bernard, I’m not a ghost. There wasn’t much earth on top of me and I dug my way out. Funny, isn’t it? I was just in London and I saw Cynthia and she said . . .” And he imagined lifting a glass of wine also, and he would slap Bernard on the sleeve of his raincoat and Bernard would know that Tom was real. But it was not happening. Bernard’s expression changed to one of weariness and, Tom thought, hostility. Tom felt again a slight pique of anger. Tom stood up straighter, and opened the door behind him and stepped smoothly and gracefully out, though he did it backward.

That had been rather deliberate on his part, Tom realized.

The waitress in the black uniform had not glanced at Tom, because presumably she had not seen him. She had been doing something at the counter on Tom’s right.

Tom crossed the road, walking away from the café where Bernard was, and farther away from Salzburg. The café was on the land side, not the river side of the street, so Tom was now quite near the river and its embankment. There was a telephone booth full of glass panels near the curb, and Tom took refuge behind this. He lit a French cigarette.

Bernard came out of the café, and Tom walked slowly around the booth, keeping it between him and Bernard. Bernard was looking for him, but his glances seemed merely nervous, as if he did not really expect to see Tom. At any rate Bernard did not see him, and kept on walking rather quickly in a direction away from the town of Salzburg and on the land side of the street. Tom eventually followed him.

The mountains rose up ahead, cut by the narrowing Salzach, mountains covered with dark-green trees, mainly pine. It was still a pavement that they walked on, but Tom could see where it finished ahead, and the road became a two-lane country road. Was Bernard going to walk straight up some mountain with his crazy energy? Bernard glanced behind him once or twice, so Tom stayed out of sight—at least from a glance—and Tom could tell from Bernard’s behavior that he had not seen him.

They must be eight kilometers from Salzburg, Tom thought, and paused to wipe his forehead, to loosen his tie under his muffler. Bernard moved out of sight around a curve in the road, and Tom walked on. Tom ran, in fact, thinking as he had thought in Salzburg that Bernard might walk right or left and disappear somewhere that Tom could not find him.

Tom saw him. Bernard looked behind him in that instant, and Tom stopped and held both his arms out sideways—to be better seen. But Bernard turned away as quickly as he had turned away several times before, and Tom was left with a feeling of doubt: had Bernard seen him or not? Did it even matter? Tom walked on. Bernard had again disappeared around a curve, and again Tom trotted. When Tom came to the next straight section of road, Bernard was not in sight, so Tom stopped and listened, in case Bernard had gone into the woods. All Tom heard was the twittering of a few birds, and from afar the bells of a church.

Then on his left, Tom heard a faint crackling of branches, which soon stopped. Tom walked a few feet into the woods, and listened.

“
Bernard!
” Tom yelled, his voice hoarse. Surely Bernard heard that.

There seemed to be complete silence. Was Bernard hesitating?

Then there was a remote thud. Or had Tom imagined it?

Tom walked farther into the woods. Some twenty yards in, there was a slope down toward the river, and beyond this a cliff of light gray rock, which went down thirty or forty feet, it seemed, and perhaps more. At the top of this cliff was Bernard’s duffelbag, and Tom knew at once what had happened. Tom went closer, listening, but even the birds seemed silent just now. At the edge of the cliff, Tom looked down. It was not sheer, and Bernard would have had to walk or start falling down a slope of rocks before he jumped or simply toppled over.

“
Bernard?
”

Tom moved to the left, where it was safer to look down. By clinging to a small tree, and with another tree in sight in case he slipped and had to catch hold of something, Tom looked down and saw a gray, elongated form on the stones below, one arm flung out. It was something like a four-story drop, and onto rocks. Bernard was not moving. Tom made his way back to safer ground.

He picked up the duffelbag, a pitiably light weight.

It was a few moments before Tom could think of anything at all. He was still holding the duffelbag.

Was anyone going to find Bernard? From the river, could anyone see him? But who was ever on the river? It was not likely that a hiker would see him or come across him, not soon, anyway. Tom could not face going closer to Bernard now, looking at him. Tom knew he was dead.

It had been a curious murder.

Tom walked back along the downward sloping road toward Salzburg, and he encountered no one. Somewhere, down near the town, Tom saw a bus and hailed it. He had not much idea where he was, but the bus seemed to be going in the Salzburg direction.

The driver asked Tom if he were going to a certain place, a name which Tom did not know.

“Nearer Salzburg,” Tom said.

The driver took a few schillings from him.

Tom got off as soon as he recognized something. Then he walked. Finally, he was trudging across Residenzplatz, then into the Getreidegasse, carrying Bernard’s duffelbag.

He entered the Goldener Hirsch, breathed suddenly the pleasant scent of furniture wax, the aroma of comfort and tranquillity.

“Good evening, sir,” said the porter, and handed Tom his key.

24

T
om awakened from a dream of frustration in which some eight people (only one of whom was recognizable, Jeff Constant) in some house, mocked him and chuckled, because nothing went right for him, he was late for something, he had difficulty settling a bill he owed, he was in shorts when he should have been in trousers, he had forgotten an important engagement. The depression caused by the dream lingered for minutes after he had sat up. Tom put out his hand and touched the thick, polished wood of his night table.

Then he ordered a Kaffee Komplett.

The first sips of coffee helped. He had been vacillating between doing something about Bernard—what?—and ringing Jeff and Ed to tell them what had happened. Jeff might be more articulate, but Tom doubted if either he or Ed could come up with an idea about the next move he should make. Tom felt anxious, with the kind of anxiety that got him nowhere. The reason he had to speak with Jeff and Ed was simply that he felt scared and alone.

Rather than wait in a noisy, crowded post office, Tom lifted his telephone and gave Jeff’s number in London. The next half hour or so while he waited for the call was a curious but not unpleasant limbo. Tom began to realize that he had willed or wished Bernard’s suicide, while at the same time, since he had known Bernard was going to kill himself, Tom could hardly accuse himself of forcing suicide upon Bernard. On the contrary, Tom had showed himself pretty clearly alive—several times—unless Bernard had preferred to see a ghost. Also Bernard’s suicide had not much and maybe nothing to do with Tom’s belief that he had killed him. Hadn’t Bernard hanged himself as a dummy already in Tom’s cellar, days before Bernard attacked him in the woods?

Tom also realized that he wanted Bernard’s corpse, and that this had been in the back of his mind. If he used the corpse as Derwatt’s, this would leave the question of what happened to Bernard Tufts. Settle that problem later, Tom thought.

The telephone rang and Tom leapt for it. Jeff spoke.

“This is Tom. In Salzburg. Can you hear me?”

The connection was excellent.

“Bernard—Bernard’s dead. Down a cliff. He jumped.”

“You don’t mean it. He’s killed himself?”

“Yes. I saw him. What’s happening in London?”

“They’re— The police are looking for Derwatt. They don’t know where he is in London or—or elsewhere,” Jeff said, stuttering.

“We’ve got to make an end of Derwatt,” Tom said, “and this is a good chance to. Don’t mention Bernard’s death to the police.”

Jeff didn’t understand.

The next exchanges were awkward, because Tom could not tell Jeff what he intended to do. Tom conveyed that he would somehow get Bernard’s remains out of Austria and possibly into France.

“You mean— Where is he? He’s still lying there?”

“Nobody’s seen him. I’ll simply have to do it,” Tom said with laborious and painful patience, trying to reply to Jeff’s blunt or half-formed questions, “as if he incinerated himself or wanted to be incinerated. There’s no other way, is there?” Not if he tried once more to help Derwatt Ltd.

“No.” Helpful as usual, Jeff.

“I will soon notify the French police, and Webster if he’s still there,” Tom said more firmly.

“Oh, Webster’s back. They’re looking for Derwatt here and one man—a plainclothesman—yesterday suggested that Derwatt could have been impersonated by someone.”

“Are they on to me about it?” Tom asked anxiously, but with a rush of defiance.

“No, they’re
not
, Tom. I don’t think so. But somebody—I’m not sure if it was Webster—said they were wondering where you were in Paris.” Jeff added, “I think they’ve checked the Paris hotels.”

“Just now,” Tom said, “you don’t know where
I
am, naturally, and you must say that Derwatt seemed depressed. You have no idea where he might have gone.”

Seconds later, they had hung up. If the police investigated at some later date Tom’s doings in Salzburg, and found this call on his bill, Tom would say he had rung because of Derwatt. He would have to create a story that he followed Derwatt to Salzburg, for some reason. Bernard would have to figure in the story, too. If Derwatt, for instance—

Derwatt, depressed and disturbed by Murchison’s disappearance and possible death, might have rung Tom Ripley at Belle Ombre. Derwatt could also have known, through Jeff and Ed, that Bernard had visited Belle Ombre. Derwatt might have proposed that they meet in Salzburg, where Derwatt wanted to go. (Or Tom might attribute to Bernard that suggestion of Salzburg.) Tom would say that he saw Derwatt at least two or three times in Salzburg, probably with Bernard. Derwatt was depressed. Why, particularly? Well, Derwatt had not told Tom everything. Derwatt had spoken little about Mexico, but had asked about Murchison, and had said that his trip to London had been a mistake. In Salzburg, Derwatt had insisted on going to out-of-the-way places to drink coffee, to have a bowl of Gulyassuppe, or a bottle of Grinzing. True to his character, Derwatt had not told Tom where he was stopping in Salzburg, had always left Tom and walked off alone when they had said good-bye. Tom had assumed he was staying somewhere under another name.

Tom would say that he had not wished to tell even Heloise that he was going to Salzburg in order to meet Derwatt.

The story, so far as it went, began to fall into place.

Tom opened his window onto Sigmundsplatz, which was now filled with pushcarts displaying huge white radishes, bright oranges and apples. People stood dipping long sausages into mustard on paper plates.

Perhaps now he could face Bernard’s duffelbag. Tom knelt on the floor and opened the zipper. A soiled shirt was on top. Below were shorts and a singlet. Tom tossed them onto the floor. Then he turned the key in his door—though unlike the staff of many hotels, the maids did not come plunging in without knocking here. Tom continued. A
Salzburger Nachrichten
two days old, a London
Times
of the same age. Toothbrush, razor, a much-used hairbrush, a pair of beige chino pants rolled up, and at the bottom the worn brown notebook that Bernard had produced to read from at Belle Ombre. Below this was a drawing pad with a spiral binding, on its cover the Derwatt signature that was the trademark of the art supply company. Tom opened it. Baroque churches and towers of Salzburg, some rather leaning, embellished with extra curlicues. Birds resembling bats flew above some of them. Shadows had been achieved here and there by a wetted thumb moved across the paper. One sketch had been heavily crossed out. In a corner of the duffelbag was a bottle of India ink, the top of its cork broken off, but still the cork was holding, and a bundle of drawing pens and a couple of brushes held together by a rubber band. Tom dared to open the brown notebook to see if there were any late entries. Nothing since October 5 of this year, but Tom could not read it now. He detested reading other people’s letters or personal papers. But he recognized the folded notepaper of Belle Ombre, two sheets. This was what Bernard had written the first evening at Tom’s house, and at a glance Tom saw that it was an account of Bernard’s forging, beginning six years ago. Tom did not want to read it, and tore the pages into small bits which he dropped into the wastebasket. Tom put the things back into the duffelbag, zipped it, and set it into his closet.

How to buy gasoline, petrol, to burn the corpse?

He could say his car had run out. It couldn’t all be done today, certainly, because the only plane was at 2:40 p.m. going toward Paris. He had a return ticket. He could, of course, take a train, but would the luggage inspection be more severe? Tom didn’t want a customs inspector to open a suitcase and find a parcel of ashes.

Would a corpse burn enough, in the open, to become ashes? Didn’t it require a sort of oven? To augment the heat?

Tom left his hotel shortly before noon. Across the river, he bought a smallish pigskin suitcase at a shop in the Schwarzstrasse, and bought also several newspapers and put them into the suitcase. It was a cool, gusty day, though there was sunlight. Tom caught a bus going up the river on the old side of the town, in the direction of Mariaplain and Bergheim, two towns on the way which he had looked up. Tom got off in what he thought was the right area, and began to look for a petrol station. It took him twenty minutes to find one. He left the new suitcase in the woods before approaching the station.

The attendant was courteous and offered to drive him to his car, but Tom said it was not far, and could he purchase the container also, because he didn’t want to come back? Tom bought ten liters. He did not look back as he walked up the road. He picked up his suitcase. He was, at least, on the right road, but it was a long walk, and he twice investigated areas in the woods which were not the right ones.

At last he found the spot. He saw the gray rocks ahead. Tom left the suitcase and descended with the petrol in a roundabout way. Blood had run in wild little veins to right and left below Bernard. Tom looked around. He needed a cave, a recess, something overhanging to increase the heat. It would take a lot of wood. He recalled pictures of Indian corpses on high burning ghats. That took a lot of wood, apparently. Tom found a suitable place below the cliff, a sort of cavity among the rocks. The easiest thing would be to roll the body down.

First Tom removed the one ring that Bernard wore, a gold ring with what looked like a worn-out crest on it. He started to hurl it into the woods, but reflected that there was always a chance it would be found at some time, so he pocketed it with an idea of dropping it into the Salzach from a bridge. Next the pockets. Nothing but a few Austrian coins in the raincoat, cigarettes in a jacket pocket which Tom left, billfold in a trousers pocket, and Tom took the contents out and crumpled them, money and papers, and put them in his own pocket to start the fire with, or to toss on the fire later. Then he lifted the sticky body and rolled it. It tumbled down the rocks. Tom climbed down, and pulled the body toward the recess he had found.

Then, glad to turn away from the thing, he began gathering wood energetically. He made at least six trips to the pale little vault he had discovered. He avoided looking at Bernard’s face and head, all of which was of a general darkness now. At last he gathered handfuls of dried leaves and twigs, such as he could find, and stuck the papers and money from Bernard’s billfold among them. Then he dragged the body onto the heap of wood, holding his breath as he pushed the legs, shoved one arm with his foot, into place. The body was stiff, with one arm extended. Tom got the gasoline, and poured half of it over the raincoat, soaking it. He decided to gather more wood to put on top, before he lit the whole thing.

Tom struck one match and from a distance tossed it.

The flames sprang up at once, yellow and white. Tom—with eyes half shut—found a spot away from the smoke. There was a lot of crackling. He did not look.

Nothing alive was in sight, not even a flying bird.

Tom gathered more wood. There couldn’t be too much, he thought. The smoke was pale but abundant.

A car went by on the road, a truck, judging from the grinding sound of its motor. It was out of sight to Tom because of the trees. Its sound faded, and Tom hoped it had not stopped to investigate. But for three or four minutes nothing happened, and Tom assumed the driver had gone on. Without looking at the remains of Bernard, Tom poked branches nearer the flames. He was using a long stick. He felt he was doing things clumsily, that the fire was not hot enough—nowhere near the intense heat needed to cremate a body properly. The only thing he could do, therefore, was make the fire burn as long as possible. It was now 2:17 p.m. Quite a heat came from the fire, because of the overhang, and Tom had to toss branches finally. He did this steadily for several minutes. When the flames died down a little, he could approach the fire, pick up the half-burnt branches, and throw them back again. There was still half the can of gasoline left.

With some method in mind, Tom gathered still more wood, from a greater distance, for a final effort. When he had a heap of wood, he tossed the gasoline tin onto the body—which still had a discouragingly bodylike shape. The raincoat, and trousers were burnt, but not the shoes, and the flesh, what he could see of it, was black, but not burnt, evidently only smoked. The gasoline tin made a drumlike boom, not an explosion. Tom was constantly listening for footfalls, or twigs crackling, in the woods. It was possible that someone might come because of the smoke. Finally, Tom withdrew a few yards, took off his raincoat, and held it over his arm as he sat down on the ground, his back to the burning. Let a good twenty minutes pass, he thought. The bones were not going to burn, not going to collapse, he knew. It would mean another grave. He’d have to get a shovel somewhere. Buy one? To steal one would be wiser.

When Tom faced the pyre again, it was black, ringed by red embers. Tom poked these back. The body remained a body. As a cremation, it had failed, Tom knew. He debated whether to finish the job today or to come back tomorrow, and decided to finish today, if there remained enough light for him to see what he was doing. What he needed was something to dig with. He poked with the same long stick at the body, and found it jelly-like. Tom put the suitcase flat on the ground, in a little clump of trees.

Then he almost ran up the slope toward the road. The smell of the smoke was awful, and in fact he had not been breathing much for several minutes. He could give the search for the shovel an hour, he thought, if it would take an hour. He liked to have some plan, because he felt quite lost and inexpert just now. He walked down the road, free of suitcase, empty-handed. After several minutes, he arrived at the stretch of thinly scattered houses, not far from the café where Bernard had had his glass of red wine. There were a few neat gardens, there were glass-enclosed greenhouses, but there was no shovel leaning conveniently against a brick wall.

“Grüss’ Gott!” said one man, digging in his garden with the kind of narrow, sharp spade Tom could have used.

Tom returned his greeting casually.

Then Tom saw a bus stop, one he hadn’t noticed yesterday, and a young girl, or woman, was walking toward it, toward Tom. A bus must be due. Tom wanted to take it when it came, to forget about the corpse, the suitcase. Tom walked past the girl without glancing at her, hoping she would not remember him. Then Tom saw a metal wheelbarrow full of leaves beside the curb, and across the wheelbarrow lay a shovel. He couldn’t believe it. A small gift of God—except that the shovel was blunt. Tom slowed his steps, and glanced into the woods, thinking that the workman to whom these things belonged might have disappeared for a moment.