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

right?”
    Frank understood.
    Tom went out and took the Mercedes, whose keys he had picked up from the hall table. The car was low on gasoline, and he would buy some on the way back. Tom drove as fast as the speed limit permitted. A pity the letter was in Frank’s handwriting, but it would have been odd if he had written on a typewriter. Not unless the police knocked on Mme. Boutin’s door would anyone be interested in Frank’s handwriting, Tom hoped.
    In Moret, Tom parked a hundred yards from the Boutin house, and went on foot. Unfortunately a woman was standing outside the front door gate, talking with Mme. Boutin, Tom supposed, though he couldn’t see the latter. They might be talking about Billy’s disappearance. Tom turned and walked the other way, slowly, for a couple of minutes. When he looked again, the woman who had been standing on the pavement was now walking toward him. Tom walked in the direction of the Boutin house, and did not glance at the woman as he passed her. Tom dropped the envelope into the slit marked LETTRES in the closed front gate, circled the block, and arrived back at his car. Then he headed for the center of town, toward the bridge over the Loing River, where he knew there was a newspaper shop.
    Tom stopped and bought a France-Dimanche . It had red headlines as usual, but these were about Prince Charles’s girlfriend, and the second headline about the catastrophic marriage of a Greek heiress. Tom crossed the bridge and bought gas, and opened the paper while the tank was filling. A full-face picture of Frank—left-side hair part, right cheek showing the little mole—made Tom start. It was a square, two-column item. AMERICAN MILLIONAIRE’S SON HIDES IN FRANCE , said the caption, and below the photograph: Frank Pierson. Have you seen him?
    The item read:
    Hardly a week after the death of multi-millionaire John J. Pierson, American food magnate, his younger son Frank, only 16, quit his luxurious home in Maine, USA, having taken his older brother John’s passport. The sophisticated Frank is known for his independence, and was also extremely troubled by his father’s death, said his beautiful mother Lily. The young Frank left a note saying he was going to New Orleans, Louisiana, for a few days. But the family and police found no evidence that he ever went there. The search has since led to London and now to France, according to authorities.
    The fabulously wealthy family is desperate, and the older brother John may come to Europe with a private detective in an attempt to find Frank. “I can spot him better, because I know him,” said John Pierson, Jr.
    John Pierson, Sr., a wheelchair invalid since an attempt on his life eleven years ago, died on July 22 last, when he fell from a cliff on his Maine estate. Was he a suicide or was it an accident? The American authorities attributed his death to “accidental causes.”
    But—what is the mystery behind the boy’s flight from home?
    Tom paid the station attendant, and gave him a tip. He should tell Frank at once, show him the newspaper, Tom thought. It would surely jog the boy into making a move of some kind. Then he should get rid of the newspaper in case Heloise or Mme. Annette (more likely) looked at it.
    It was 10:30 when Tom rolled through the gates of Belle Ombre, and into the shade of the garage. He folded the newspaper, stuck it under his arm, and walked around the house to the left, past Mme. Annette’s door, which had prim pots of blossoming red geraniums, one on either side—a touch of pride, Tom thought, as she had bought them herself. He saw Frank at the far end of the garden, stooped and apparently pulling weeds. From the house, through the slightly opened French windows, he heard Heloise virtuously practicing Bach. After one half hour, Tom knew, she would either put on a record of someone playing the same thing, or something to change her mood entirely, such as rock music.
    “Bil-ly,” Tom called gently, trying to fix in his