Free Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith Page B

place of honor in the house.”
    “Well, you didn’t know it was a forgery!” Murchison laughed a little. “It’d be very interesting—very—to know who’s forging.”
    Tom stretched his legs out in front of him and puffed on a cigar. “What a funny thing it would be,” he began, playing his last and best card, “if a forger was doing all the Buckmaster Gallery Derwatts now, all the ones we saw yesterday. Someone as good as Derwatt, in other words.”
    Murchison smiled. “Then what’s Derwatt doing? Sitting back and taking it? Don’t be ridiculous. Derwatt was much as I’d thought he would be. Withdrawn and sort of old-fashioned.”
    “Have you ever thought of collecting forgeries? I know a man in Italy who collects them. First as a hobby, and now he sells them to other collectors at quite high prices.”
    “Oh, I’ve heard of that. Yes. But I like to know I’m buying a forgery when I buy one.”
    Tom sensed that he was reaching a narrow and unpleasant spot. He tried again. “I like to daydream—about absurd things like that. In a sense, why disturb a forger who’s doing such good work? I intend to hang on to ‘Man in Chair.’”
    Murchison might not have heard Tom’s remarks. “And you know,” Murchison said, still gazing at the picture Tom was talking about, “it’s not merely the lavender, it’s the soul of the painting. I wouldn’t put it that way, if I weren’t mellow on your good food and drink.”
    They had finished a delicious bottle of Margaux, the best from Tom’s cellar.
    “Do you think the Buckmaster Gallery people might be crooks?” Murchison asked. “They must be. Why would they be putting up with a forger? Shoving forgeries among the real ones?”
    Murchison thought the other new Derwatts, all of them in the current show, except “The Tub,” were genuine, Tom realized. “That’s if these are really forgeries—your ‘Clock’ and so forth. I suppose I’m not yet convinced.”
    Murchison smiled with good humor. “Just because you like your ‘Man in Chair.’ If your picture is four years old and mine’s at least three, these forgeries have been going on quite a while. Maybe there’re more in London that weren’t lent for the show. Frankly, it’s Derwatt I suspect. I suspect him of being in cahoots with the Buckmaster people to earn more money. Another thing—there’ve been no drawings by Derwatt for years now. That’s odd.”
    “Really?” Tom asked with a feigned surprise. He knew this, and he knew what Murchison was driving at.
    “Drawings reveal an artist’s personality,” Murchison said. “I realized that myself, and then I read it somewhere—just to corroborate myself.” He laughed. “Just because I manufacture pipe, people never give me credit for sensitivity! But a drawing is like a signature for a painter, a very complicated signature at that. You might say, you can forge a signature or a painting more easily than you can forge a drawing.”
    “Never thought of that,” said Tom, and rolled his cigar end in the ashtray. “You say Saturday you’re going to speak to the Tate Gallery man?”
    “Yes. There’re a couple of old Derwatts at the Tate as you probably know. Then I’ll speak to the Buckmaster people without giving them any warning—if Riemer corroborates me.”
    Tom’s mind began to make painful leaps. Saturday was the day after tomorrow. Riemer might want to compare “The Clock” and “Man in Chair” with the Tate Gallery Derwatts and those in the current show. Could Bernard Tufts’s paintings stand up to it? And if they couldn’t? He poured more brandy for Murchison and a bit for himself which he did not want. He folded his hands on his chest. “You know, I don’t think I’ll sue—or whatever one does—if there’s forging going on.”
    “Hah! I’m a little more orthodox. Old-fashioned, maybe. My attitude. Suppose Derwatt’s really in on it?”
    “Derwatt’s rather a saint, I hear.”
    “That’s the legend. He