The Talented Mr. Ripley

by Patricia Highsmith

  “Isn’t it awful! It’s getting a little better now, but when Mr. Greenleaf arrived, the papers were at their worst. Oh, thanks!” She accepted the martini gratefully.

  “How is he?”

  Marge shook her head. “I feel so sorry for him. He keeps saying the American police could do a better job and all that, and he doesn’t know any Italian, so that makes it twice as bad.”

  “What’s he doing in Rome?”

  “Waiting. What can any of us do? I’ve postponed my boat again.— Mr. Greenleaf and I went to Mongibello, and I questioned everyone there, mostly for Mr. Greenleaf’s benefit, of course, but they can’t tell us anything. Dickie hasn’t been back there since November.”

  “No.” Tom sipped his martini thoughtfully. Marge was optimistic, he could see that. Even now she had that energetic buoyancy that made Tom think of the typical Girl Scout, that look of taking up a lot of space, of possibly knocking something over with a wild movement, of rugged health and vague untidiness. She irritated him intensely suddenly, but he put on a big act, got up and patted her on the shoulder, and gave her an affectionate peck on the cheek. “Maybe he’s sitting in Tangiers or somewhere living the life of Riley and waiting for all this to blow over.”

  “Well, it’s damned inconsiderate of him if he is!” Marge said, laughing.

  “I certainly didn’t mean to alarm anybody when I said what I did about his depression. I felt it was a kind of duty to tell you and Mr. Greenleaf.”

  “I understand. No, I think you were right to tell us. I just don’t think it’s true.” She smiled her broad smile, her eyes glowing with an optimism that struck Tom as completely insane.

  He began asking her sensible, practical questions about the opinions of the Rome police, about the leads that they had (they had none worth mentioning), and what she had heard on the Miles case. There was nothing new on the Miles case, either, but Marge did know about Freddie and Dickie’s having been seen in front of Dickie’s house around eight o’clock that night. She thought the story was exaggerated.

  “Maybe Freddie was drunk, or maybe Dickie just had an arm around him. How could anybody tell in the dark? Don’t tell me Dickie murdered him!”

  “Have they any concrete clues at all that would make them think Dickie killed him?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why don’t the so-and-so’s get down to the business of finding out who really did kill him? And also where Dickie is?”

  “Ecco!” Marge said emphatically. “Anyway, the police are sure now that Dickie at least got from Palermo to Naples. A steward remembers carrying his bags from his cabin to the Naples dock.”

  “Really,” Tom said. He remembered the steward, too, a clumsy little oaf who had dropped his canvas suitcase, trying to carry it under one arm. “Wasn’t Freddie killed hours after he left Dickie’s house?” Tom asked suddenly.

  “No. The doctors can’t say exactly. And it seems Dickie didn’t have an alibi, of course, because he was undoubtedly alone. Just more of Dickie’s bad luck.”

  “They don’t actually believe Dickie killed him, do they?”

  “They don’t say it, no. It’s just in the air. Naturally, they can’t make rash statements right and left about an American citizen, but as long as they haven’t any suspects and Dickie’s disappeared— Then also his landlady in Rome said that Freddie came down to ask her who was living in Dickie’s apartment or something like that. She said Freddie looked angry, as if they’d been quarreling. She said he asked if Dickie was living alone.”

  Tom frowned. “I wonder why?”

  “I can’t imagine. Freddie’s Italian wasn’t the best in the world, and maybe the landlady got it wrong. Anyway, the mere fact that Freddie was angry about something looks bad for Dickie.”

  Tom raised his eyebrows. “I’d say it looked bad for Freddie. Maybe Dickie wasn’t angry at all.” He felt perfectly calm, because he could see that Marge hadn’t smelled out anything about it. “I wouldn’t worry about that unless something concrete comes out of it. Sounds like nothing at all to me.” He refilled her glass. “Speaking of Africa, have they inquired around Tangiers yet? Dickie used to talk about going to Tangiers.”

  “I think they’ve alerted the police everywhere. I think they ought to get the French police down here. The French are terribly good at things like this. But of course they can’t. This is Italy,” she said with the first nervous tremor in her voice.

  “Shall we have lunch here?” Tom asked. “The maid is functioning over the lunch hour and we might as well take advantage of it.” He said it just as Anna was coming in to announce that the lunch was ready.

  “Wonderful!” Marge said. “It’s raining a little, anyway.”

  “Pronta la collazione, signore,” Anna said with a smile, staring at Marge.

  Anna recognized her from the newspaper pictures, Tom saw. “You and Ugo can go now if you like, Anna. Thanks.”

  Anna went back into the kitchen—there was a door from the kitchen to a little alley at the side of the house, which the servants used—but Tom heard her pottering around with the coffeemaker, stalling for another glimpse, no doubt.

  “And Ugo?” Marge said. “Two servants, no less?”

  “Oh, they come in couples around here. You may not believe it, but I got this place for fifty dollars a month, not counting heat.”

  “I don’t believe it! That’s practically like Mongibello rates!”

  “It’s true. The heating’s fantastic, of course, but I’m not going to heat any room except my bedroom.”

  “It’s certainly comfortable here.”

  “Oh, I opened the whole furnace for your benefit,” Tom said, smiling.

  “What happened? Did one of your aunts die and leave you a fortune?” Marge asked, still pretending to be dazzled.

  “No, just a decision of my own. I’m going to enjoy what I’ve got as long as it lasts. I told you that job I was after in Rome didn’t pan out, and here I was in Europe with only about two thousand dollars to my name, so I decided to live it up and go home—broke—and start over again.” Tom had explained to her in his letter that the job he had applied for had been selling hearing aids in Europe for an American company, and he hadn’t been able to face it, and the man who had interviewed him, he said, hadn’t thought him the right type, either. Tom had also told her that the man had appeared one minute after he spoke to her, which was why he had been unable to keep his appointment with her in Angelo’s that day in Rome.

  “Two thousand dollars won’t last you long at this rate.”

  She was probing to see if Dickie had given him anything, Tom knew. “It will last till summer,” Tom said matter-of-factly. “Anyway, I feel I deserve it. I spent most of the winter going around Italy like a gypsy on practically no money, and I’ve had about enough of that.”

  “Where were you this winter?”

  “Well, not with Tom. I mean, not with Dickie,” he said laughing, flustered at his slip of the tongue. “I know you probably thought so. I saw about as much of Dickie as you did.”

  “Oh, come on now,” Marge drawled. She sounded as if she were feeling her drinks.

  Tom made two or three more martinis in the pitcher. “Except for the trip to Cannes and the two days in Rome in February, I haven’t seen Dickie at all.” It wasn’t quite true, because he had written her that “Tom was staying” with Dickie in Rome for several days after the Cannes trip, but now that he was face to face with Marge he found he was ashamed of her knowing, or thinking, that he had spent so much time with Dickie, and that he and Dickie might be guilty of what she had accused Dickie of in her letter. He bit his tongue as he poured their drinks, hating himself for his cowardice.

  During lunch—Tom regretted very much that the main dish was cold roast beef, a fabulously expensive item on the Italian market—Marge quizzed him more acutely than any police officer on Dickie’s state of mind while he was in Rome. Tom was pinned down to ten days spent in Rome with Dickie after the Cannes trip, and
was questioned about everything from Di Massimo, the painter Dickie had worked with, to Dickie’s appetite and the hour he got up in the morning.

  “How do you think he felt about me? Tell me honestly. I can take it.”

  “I think he was worried about you,” Tom said earnestly. “I think—well, it was one of those situations that turn up quite often, a man who’s terrified of marriage to begin with—”

  “But I never asked him to marry me!” Marge protested.

  “I know, but—” Tom forced himself to go on, though the subject was like vinegar in his mouth. “Let’s say he couldn’t face the responsibility of your caring so much about him. I think he wanted a more casual relationship with you.” That told her everything and nothing.

  Marge stared at him in that old, lost way for a moment, then rallied bravely and said, “Well, all that’s water under the bridge by now. I’m only interested in what Dickie might have done with himself.”

  Her fury at his apparently having been with Dickie all winter was water under the bridge, too, Tom thought, because she hadn’t wanted to believe it in the first place, and now she didn’t have to. Tom asked carefully, “He didn’t happen to write to you when he was in Palermo?”

  Marge shook her head. “No. Why?”

  “I wanted to know what kind of state you thought he was in then. Did you write to him?”

  She hesitated. “Yes—matter of fact, I did.”

  “What kind of a letter? I only ask because an unfriendly letter might have had a bad effect on him just then.”

  “Oh—it’s hard to say what kind. A fairly friendly letter. I told him I was going back to the States.” She looked at him with wide eyes.

  Tom enjoyed watching her face, watching somebody else squirm as they lied. That had been the filthy letter in which she said she had told the police that he and Dickie were always together. “I don’t suppose it matters then,” Tom said, with sweet gentleness, sitting back.

  They were silent a few moments, then Tom asked her about her book, who the publisher was, and how much more work she had to do. Marge answered everything enthusiastically. Tom had the feeling that if she had Dickie back and her book published by next winter, she would probably just explode with happiness, make a loud, unattractive ploop! and that would be the end of her.

  “Do you think I should offer to talk to Mr. Greenleaf, too?” Tom asked. “I’d be glad to go to Rome—” Only he wouldn’t be so glad, he remembered, because Rome had simply too many people in it who had seen him as Dickie Greenleaf. “Or do you think he would like to come here? I could put him up. Where’s he staying in Rome?”

  “He’s staying with some American friends who have a big apartment. Somebody called Northup in Via Quattro Novembre. I think it’d be nice if you called him. I’ll write the address down for you.”

  “That’s a good idea. He doesn’t like me, does he?”

  Marge smiled a little. “Well, frankly, no. I think he’s a little hard on you, considering. He probably thinks you sponged off Dickie.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I’m sorry the idea didn’t work out about my getting Dickie back home, but I explained all that. I wrote him the nicest letter I could about Dickie when I heard he was missing. Didn’t that help any?”

  “I think it did, but— Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Tom! All over this wonderful tablecloth!” Marge had turned her martini over. She daubed at the crocheted tablecloth awkwardly with her napkin.

  Tom came running back from the kitchen with a wet cloth. “Perfectly all right,” he said, watching the wood of the table turn white in spite of his wiping. It wasn’t the tablecloth he cared about, it was the beautiful table.

  “I’m so sorry,” Marge went on protesting.

  Tom hated her. He suddenly remembered her bra hanging over the windowsill in Mongibello. Her underwear would be draped over his chairs tonight, if he invited her to stay here. The idea repelled him. He deliberately hurled a smile across the table at her. “I hope you’ll honor me by accepting a bed for the night. Not mine,” he added, laughing, “but I’ve got two rooms upstairs and you’re welcome to one of them.”

  “Thanks a lot. All right, I will.” She beamed at him.

  Tom installed her in his own room—the bed in the other room being only an outsized couch and not so comfortable as his double bed—and Marge closed her door to take a nap after lunch. Tom wandered restlessly through the rest of the house, wondering whether there was anything in his room that he ought to remove. Dickie’s passport was in the lining of a suitcase in his closet. He couldn’t think of anything else. But women had sharp eyes, Tom thought, even Marge. She might snoop around. Finally he went into the room while she was still asleep and took the suitcase from the closet. The floor squeaked, and Marge’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Just want to get something out of here,” Tom whispered. “Sorry.” He continued tiptoeing out of the room. Marge probably wouldn’t even remember, he thought, because she hadn’t completely waked up.

  Later he showed Marge all around the house, showed her the shelf of leather-bound books in the room next to his bedroom, books that he said had come with the house, though they were his own, bought in Rome and Palermo and Venice. He realized that he had had about ten of them in Rome, and that one of the young police officers with Roverini had bent close to them, apparently studying their titles. But it was nothing really to worry about, he thought, even if the same police officer were to come back. He showed Marge the front entrance of the house, with its broad stone steps. The tide was low and four steps were bared now, the lower two covered with thick wet moss. The moss was a slippery, long-filament variety, and hung over the edges of the steps like messy dark-green hair. The steps were repellent to Tom, but Marge thought them very romantic. She bent over them, staring at the deep water of the canal. Tom had an impulse to push her in.

  “Can we take a gondola and come in this way tonight?” she asked.

  “Oh sure.” They were going out to dinner tonight, of course. Tom dreaded the long Italian evening ahead of them, because they wouldn’t eat until ten, and then she’d probably want to sit in San Marco’s over espressos until two in the morning.

  Tom looked up at the hazy, sunless Venetian sky, and watched a gull glide down and settle on somebody else’s front steps across the canal. He was trying to decide which of his new Venetian friends he would telephone and ask if he could bring Marge over for a drink around five o’clock. They would all be delighted to meet her, of course. He decided on the Englishman Peter Smith-Kingsley. Peter had an Afghan, a piano, and a well-equipped bar. Tom thought Peter would be best because Peter never wanted anybody to leave. They could stay there until it was time for them to go to dinner.

  24

  Tom called Mr. Greenleaf from Peter Smith-Kingsley’s house at about seven o’clock. Mr. Greenleaf sounded friendlier than Tom had expected, and sounded pitifully hungry for the little crumbs Tom gave him about Dickie. Peter and Marge and the Franchettis—an attractive pair of brothers from Trieste whom Tom had recently met—were in the next room and able to hear almost every word he said, so Tom did it better than he would have done it completely alone, he felt.

  “I’ve told Marge all I know,” he said, “so she’ll be able to tell you anything I’ve forgotten. I’m only sorry that I can’t contribute anything of real importance for the police to work on.”

  “These police!” Mr. Greenleaf said gruffly. “I’m beginning to think Richard is dead. For some reason the Italians are reluctant to admit he might be. They act like amateurs—or old ladies playing at being detectives.”

  Tom was shocked at Mr. Greenleaf’s bluntness about Dickie’s possibly being dead. “Do you think Dickie might have killed himself, Mr. Greenleaf?” Tom asked quietly.

  Mr. Greenleaf sighed. “I don’t know. I think it’s possible, yes. I never thought much of my son’s stability, Tom.”

  “I’m afraid I agree with you,” Tom said. “Would you like to talk to Marge? She’s in the next room.”<
br />
  “No, no, thanks. When’s she coming back?”

  “I think she said she’d be going back to Rome tomorrow. If you’d possibly like to come to Venice, just for a slight rest, Mr. Greenleaf, you’re very welcome to stay at my house.”

  But Mr. Greenleaf declined the invitation. It wasn’t necessary to bend over backward, Tom realized. It was as if he were really inviting trouble, and couldn’t stop himself. Mr. Greenleaf thanked him for his telephone call and said a very courteous good night.

  Tom went back into the other room. “There’s no more news from Rome,” he said dejectedly to the group.

  “Oh.” Peter looked disappointed.

  “Here’s for the phone call, Peter,” Tom said, laying twelve hundred lire on top of Peter’s piano. “Thanks very much.”

  “I have an idea,” Pietro Franchetti began in his English-accented English. “Dickie Greenleaf has traded passports with a Neapolitan fisherman or maybe a Roman cigarette peddler, so that he can lead the quiet life he always wanted to. It so happens that the bearer of the Dickie Greenleaf passport is not so good a forger as he thought he was, and he had to disappear suddenly. The police should find a man who can’t produce his proper carta d’identità, find out who he is, then look for a man with his name, who will turn out to be Dickie Greenleaf!”

  Everybody laughed, and Tom loudest of all.

  “The trouble with that idea,” Tom said, “is that lots of people who knew Dickie saw him in January and February—”

  “Who?” Pietro interrupted with that irritating Italian belligerence in conversation that was doubly irritating in English.

  “Well, I did, for one. Anyway, as I was going to say, the forgeries now date from December, according to the bank.”

  “Still, it’s an idea,” Marge chirruped, feeling very good on her third drink, lolling back on Peter’s big chaise longue. “A very Dickie-like idea. He probably would have done it right after Palermo, when he had the bank forgery business on top of everything else. I don’t believe those forgeries for one minute. I think Dickie’d changed so much that his handwriting changed.”