Tom gave a gasp. “Yes, you’d think! But we’re dealing with loonies, Ed! Just try and predict them!”
“But what if the police come?”
“Well—” Tom felt his adrenaline rising. “I’ll tell them these bones are in the car because I wanted them out of sight of my guest, and that I intended to deliver them to the police as soon as I’d recovered from the shock of finding them. And also—who notified the police? There’s the culprit!”
“You think Pritchard knows about that ring? Identification?”
“I doubt it. Doubt if he looked for a ring.” Tom began tying up the lower part of the carcass again.
“I’ll help you with the top,” Ed said, reaching for the rope that Tom had laid to one side.
Tom was grateful. “Got to make two loops around instead of three, thanks to that knot, I think.” Pritchard had looped three circles around with his new rope.
“But—what’re we going to do with it finally?” Ed asked.
Throw it back in some canal, Tom thought to himself in which case, they’d have to—or he’d have to—untie the ropes again to get some stones into Pritchard’s canvas. Or throw the damned thing into Pritchard’s little pond. Tom laughed suddenly. “I was thinking we could throw it back at Pritchard. He’s got a pond on his lawn.”
Ed gave a short laugh, unbelieving. They were both tugging at the final knots to secure their ropes.
“I’ve got more rope in my cellar, thank goodness,” Tom said. “Excellent, Ed. Now we know what we’ve got here, right? A headless corpse, pretty hard to identify, I’d say, fingerprints long ago washed off with the skin.”
Here Ed forced a laugh that sounded sick.
“Let’s get out,” Tom said at once. Ed got down to the garage floor and Tom slid out after him. Tom looked at the stretch of the road in front of Belle Ombre, as much of it as he could see. He couldn’t believe that Pritchard wasn’t curious enough to be snooping now, and Tom was half expecting Pritchard at any moment. But he didn’t want to tell Ed this.
“I thank you, Ed. I couldn’t have done it without you!” Tom gave Ed’s arm a pat.
“Are you kidding?” Ed tried to grin.
“No. I bogged down on it this morning, as I said.” Tom wanted to look for extra rope now and have it handy in the garage, but he noticed that Ed’s pallor did not leave his face. “Want to take a turn in the back garden? Out in the sun?”
Tom put out the inside light in the garage. They strolled around by the kitchen side of the house—Mme Annette had likely finished there, and was in her own room by now—and onto the back lawn. The sunshine fell warm and bright on their faces. Tom chatted about his dahlias. He’d cut a couple now, he said, because he had his knife with him. But there was the greenhouse, quite near, so Tom went in and got his clippers, his second pair.
“You don’t lock this at night?” Ed asked.
“Usually not. I know I should,” Tom replied. “Most people would around here.” Tom found himself glancing at the side road, the unpaved lane, for a car or for Pritchard. After all, Pritchard had made his delivery by that road. Tom cut three blue dahlias and they went into the living room, via a French window.
“Nice little brandy?” Tom suggested.
“Frankly, I feel like lying down for a couple of minutes.”
“Nothing easier.” Tom poured a very small Remy Martin, and handed it to Ed. “I insist. Moral support. Won’t do you any harm.”
Ed smiled, and tossed it down. “Um-m. Thank you.”
Tom went up with Ed, took a hand towel from the guest bathroom, and wet it with cold water. He told Ed to lie down with the folded towel on his forehead, and if he wanted to sleep for a while, fine.
Then Tom went down and got an appropriate vase for the dahlias from the kitchen, and set them on the coffee table. Heloise’s pricey jade Dunhill lighter lay on the coffee table. How wise she had been to leave it behind! Tom wondered when she would next pick it up.
Tom opened the door of the tiny downstairs bathroom, then the smaller door, and put on the light. Down the stairs to the wine department, to the unused picture frames that leaned against the wall, to the old bookcase that now held reserves of extra mineral water, milk, soft-drink bottles, potatoes and onions. A rope. Tom looked in corners, lifted plastic grain sacks, and finally found what he wanted. He shook the rope out, and coiled it again. He had nearly five meters here, and might need it, if he made three loops and put rocks into the canvas. Tom went up and out of the house via the front door, closing all doors behind him.
Was that Pritchard’s car—a white one—creeping slowly toward Belle Ombre from the left? Tom walked on to the garage, and dropped the rope in the far left corner, near the Renault’s left wheel.
It was Pritchard. He had stopped his car to the right of the gates from Tom’s view, and stood outside them lifting a camera to his eyes.
Tom advanced. “What’s so fascinating about my house, Pritchard?”
“Oh, plenty! Have the police been here yet?”
“No. Why?” Tom paused with hands on hips.
“Don’t ask silly questions, Mr. Ripley.” Pritchard turned and walked toward his car, looking back once with a faint and stupid smile.
Tom stood as he was until Pritchard’s car had moved on. The photograph had perhaps included him, Tom thought, and so what? Tom spat on the gravel in the direction of Pritchard, turned and walked back to his front door.
Had Pritchard possibly kept the head of Murchison, Tom wondered. Like a guarantee of victory?
Chapter 20
Mme Annette was in the living room when Tom entered the house. “Ah, M’sieur Tome, I did not know where you were—earlier. The police telephoned perhaps one hour ago. The Nemours commissariat. I thought you had gone for a walk with the gentleman.”
“Telephoned about what?”
“They asked if there had been any disturbance during the night. I said no, not -
“What kind of disturbance?” Tom asked, frowning.
“Noise—of some kind. They even asked me, and I said, ‘Non, m’sieur, absolument pas de bruit.’ “
“I can say the same. Good, madame. They didn’t say what kind of noise?”
“Yes, they said a big package had been delivered, someone reported—someone with an American accent—a package of interest to the police.”
Tom laughed. “A package! Must be a joke.” Tom looked for his cigarettes, took one finally from the box on the coffee table and used Heloise ‘s lighter. “The police are going to telephone again?”
Mme Annette paused in her wiping of the shining dining-room table. “I am not sure, m’sieur.”
“They didn’t say who the American was?”
“Non, m’sieur.”
“Maybe I should telephone them,” Tom said as if to himself, and he thought he certainly should, to ward off a possible visit from the police. He also realized that he would be sticking his neck out, endangering himself, or in a plain word lying, if he said he didn’t know anything about a package, as long as that sack of bones was on his land.
Tom consulted the telephone book for the commissariat’s number in Nemours. He dialed and gave his name, and said where he lived. “There was a telephone call from the commissariat today, my housekeeper told me. From your commissariat?” Tom was passed to someone else, and had to wait.
To the next person, Tom repeated what he had said.
“Ah, oui, M’sieur Reepley. Oui.” The male voice continued in French. “A man with American accent told us that you had received a package that would be of interest to the police. Therefore we telephoned your home. This would have been about three o’clock this afternoon.”
“I have not received a package,” Tom said. “A couple of letters today, yes, but not a package.”
“A big package, the American said.”
“Not any package, m’sieur, I assure you. I can’t imagine why anyone—did the man leave his name?” Tom kept a light and unworried tone.
“
Non, m’sieur, we asked but he did not give his name. We know your house. You have a handsome gate there—”
“Yes, thank you. The postman can ring, if he has a package, of course. Otherwise there is a letterbox outside.”
“Yes—that is normal.”
“I thank you for telling me,” Tom said. “But as it happens, I have walked quite around my house a few minutes ago, and there is no package anywhere, small or big.”
They hung up amicably.
Tom was glad that the officer had not connected the American-accented caller with Pritchard, the American who lived now in Villeperce. That might come later, if there was any later, and Tom hoped there wouldn’t be. And the officer he had just spoken to would probably not be the same who had visited Belle Ombre in connection with Murchison’s disappearance years ago. But of course that visit would be on police records. Hadn’t that officer been based in Melun, a bigger town than Nemours?
Mme Annette was hovering discreetly.
Tom explained. There had been no package, he and M. Banbury had walked around the house, no one had come through the gates, not even the postman this morning (again nothing from Heloise), and Tom had declined to have the police from Nemours come to look around for a strange package.
“Very good, M’sieur Tome. That is a relief. A package—” She shook her head, indicating that she had no patience with pranksters and liars.
Tom was glad that Mme Annette did not suspect Pritchard as the culprit either. That was the kind of thing she would come out with, if she did suspect. Tom looked at his watch: 4:15. He was delighted that Ed was having a good nap after today’s stress. Maybe a cup of tea? And should he ask the Grais over for a pre-dinner drink? Why not?
He went into the kitchen and said, “A pot of tea, madame? I’m sure our guest is going to wake up any minute. Tea for us two … No, no need of sandwiches or cake … Yes, Earl Grey would be perfect.”
Tom returned to the living room, hands in the front pockets of his jeans; in the right-hand pocket was Murchison’s rather thick ring. Best into a river with that, Tom thought, maybe dropped from the bridge in Moret some time soon. Or if he were in haste, straight into the rubbish bag in the kitchen. The plastic rubbish bag swung out when one opened the door under the sink, and the bags were put out at the edge of the road and collected Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Tomorrow morning, for instance.
Tom was climbing the stairs to rap on Ed’s door, when Ed opened it, smiling cautiously.
“Hello, Tom! Had a great nap! Hope it didn’t bother you. It’s so lovely and quiet here!”
“Certainly didn’t bother me. How about a spot of tea? Come down.”
They drank their tea, and watched two sprinklers that Tom had put on in his garden. Tom had decided not to mention the telephone call from the police. What good would it do? And it might well make Ed more edgy, unsure of himself.
“I was thinking,” Tom began, “by way of relieving the atmosphere of this afternoon—I might ask a couple of neighbors to come for a pre-dinner drink. Agnes and Antoine Grais.”
“That’d be nice,” said Ed.
“I’ll buzz them. They’re friendly—live not far away. He’s an architect.” Tom went to the telephone and dialed, expecting, nay hoping, for a flood of information on Pritchard at the sound of his voice. But no. “I’m ringing to ask if you and Antoine—if he’s there and I hope so—can come for a glass around seven? I’ve an old friend from England here for the weekend.”
“Oh, Tome, how nice! Yes, Antoine’s here now. But why don’t you both come to us? Change of scene for your friend. What is his name?”
“Edward Banbury. Ed,” Tom replied. “Very well, Agnes, my dear. We’d be delighted. What time?”
“Oh-h—six-thirty, is that too early? The children want to watch something on tele after dinner.”
Tom said it was fine.
“We’re going there,” he said to Ed, smiling. “They live in a round house, like a turret. Climbing-rose-covered. Only two houses away from the accursed—Pritchards.” Tom whispered the last word, and glanced at the doorway in the kitchen direction; sure enough, Mme Annette was just coming through the doorway to ask if the messieurs would care for more tea. “I think not, madame, thank you. Or do you, Ed?”
“No, thanks, really.”
“Oh, Madame Annette—we are going out to the Grais’ at half-past six. I suppose we shall return at half-past seven, quarter to eight? So dinner perhaps about eight-fifteen?”
“Very good, M’sieur Tome.”
“And a good white wine with the lobsters. A Montrachet, perhaps?”
Mme Annette was pleased to oblige.
“Should I put on a jacket and tie?” Ed asked.
“I wouldn’t bother. Antoine’s probably already in jeans, even shorts. He’s come down from Paris today.”
Ed stood up, finished the last of his cup, and Tom saw him look out of the window toward the garage. He glanced at Tom, then away. Tom knew what was on his mind: what were they going to do with it? He was glad Ed didn’t ask now, because Tom had no ready answer.
Tom went upstairs and so did Ed. Tom changed to black cotton trousers and a yellow shirt. He put the ring into the right-hand pocket of the black trousers. Somehow he felt safer having the ring with him. Then out to the garage, where Tom looked at the brown Renault, then turned his glance to the red Mercedes in the drive, as if debating which to take—in case Mme Annette were looking out of the kitchen window. He went into the closed half of the garage, and ascertained that the canvas-wrapped bundle still lay in the car.
If the police did come during this absence, Tom intended to say that the bundle must have been deposited during the night without his knowledge. Was David Pritchard going to turn up and remark on the difference in the ropes and so on? Tom doubted that. Tom did not want to say all this to Ed, however, lest it make Ed more tense. Tom would just have to hope that Ed was not present, or would catch on to his lie and go along with him, in case the police spoke to both of them together.
Ed was down and they took off.
The Grais were hospitable and curious about their new guest, Ed Banbury of London, a journalist. The teenagers stared a little, amused by Ed’s accent, perhaps. Antoine was in shorts, as Tom had predicted, and his tanned legs with bulging calf muscles looked utterly untirable, capable of a marathon walk around the border of France, for instance. Tonight he was using his legs merely to go back and forth from living room to kitchen.
“You work for a newspaper, M’sieur Banbury?” asked Agnes, in English.
“I am freelance. Independent,” Ed replied.
“Amazing,” Tom said, “all the years I’ve known Ed—I admit we have not been very close friends—he’s never been to Belle Ombre! I’m glad to say he—”
“It is very beautiful,” said Ed.
“Ah, Tome, some news since yesterday,” said Agnes. “The assistant, or whatever one may call him, of Preechard has departed. Yesterday afternoon.”
“Oh,” said Tom pretending little or no interest. “The boat man.” He sipped his gin and tonic.
“Let’s sit down,” said Agnes. “Anyone want to sit? I do.”
They were standing, because Antoine had shown Ed and Tom around their house to some extent, at least to the upstairs “observatory tower” as Antoine called it, where his workroom was, and on the opposite side, or curve, two bedrooms. Still up, there was another bedroom for their son, Edouard, and an attic room.
They all sat.
“Yes, this Teddy,” Agnes went on. “I happened to see him driving past yesterday around four, by himself in the peek-up away from the Preechard house. So I thought, they are finishing early today. Does your friend know that they have been scraping the local waterways?”
Tom looked at Ed and said in English, “I told you about the odd two, dredging the rivers—for treasure.” Tom laughed.
“There are two odd couples, one’s Pritchard and wife, the other Pritchard and helper.” He continued in French
to Agnes. “What were they looking for?”
“Nobody knows!” Now Agnes and Antoine laughed, because they had both said the words almost at once.
“No, seriously, this morning at the bakery—”
“The bakery!” said Antoine, as if in contempt of a gossip center for women only, then listened with attention.
“Well, Simone Clement told me in the bakery that she’d heard it from Marie and Georges. Teddy was in the bar-tabac for a couple of glasses yesterday, and he told Georges he was finished with Preechard and he was in bad humor and did not say why. It seems they had a quarrel. I am not sure. That’s the way it sounded,” Agnes finished with a smile. “Anyway, Teddy is not here today, his truck is not.”
“Curious people. These Americans. Sometimes,” Antoine added, as if he thought Tom might be offended by his curious. “And what is the news from Heloise , Tome?”
Agnes passed around her little sausage canapes and the bowl of green olives once more.
Tom filled Antoine in with what he knew, meanwhile thinking that it was a decided advantage that Teddy had departed, and in foul mood. Had Teddy finally realized what Pritchard’s quarry had been, and thought it best to have nothing to do with it? Wouldn’t quitting the scene be a normal reaction? And perhaps Teddy—even if well paid—had had enough of the oddball personalities of both Pritchard and wife. Normal people, Tom thought, were made uneasy by seriously abnormal people. Tom was still managing to speak of other things, as his inner thoughts roved.
Five minutes later, after Edouard had reappeared and asked permission to do something in the garden, Tom had another thought: Teddy just might report the bones to the Paris police, not necessarily today even, but tomorrow. Teddy could probably honestly say that he had been told by Pritchard that Pritchard was after a treasure trove, a sunken suitcase, anything but a corpse, and that he (Teddy) thought the police ought to know about the corpse. That would be an excellent way for Teddy to hit back, too, if Teddy were so inclined.
So far, the news was good. Tom felt his face relax. He accepted a canape, but not a freshener of his drink. Ed seemed to be holding his own pretty well in French with Antoine, Tom saw. Agnes looked particularly nice in her peasant-style white blouse, embroidered, with puffy short sleeves. Tom paid her a compliment on it.