The Talented Mr. Ripley

by Patricia Highsmith

  “I think so, too,” Tom said. “The bank isn’t unanimous, anyway, in saying they’re all forged. America’s divided about it, and Naples fell right in with America. Naples never would have noticed a forgery if the U.S. hadn’t told them about it.”

  “I wonder what’s in the papers tonight?” Peter asked brightly, pulling on the slipperlike shoe that he had half taken off because it probably hurt. “Shall I go out and get them?”

  But one of the Franchettis volunteered to go, and dashed out of the room. Lorenzo Franchetti was wearing a pink embroidered waistcoat, all’inglese, and an English-made suit and heavy-soled English shoes, and his brother was dressed in much the same way. Peter, on the other hand, was dressed in Italian clothes from head to foot. Tom had noticed, at parties and at the theater, that if a man was dressed in English clothes he was bound to be an Italian, and vice versa.

  Some more people arrived just as Lorenzo came back with the papers—two Italians and two Americans. The papers were passed around. More discussion, more exchanges of stupid speculation, more excitement over today’s news: Dickie’s house in Mongibello had been sold to an American for twice the price he originally asked for it. The money was going to be held by a Naples bank until Greenleaf claimed it.

  The same paper had a cartoon of a man on his knees, looking under his bureau. His wife asked, “Collar button?” And his answer was, “No, I’m looking for Dickie Greenleaf.”

  Tom had heard that the Rome music halls were taking off the search in skits, too.

  One of the Americans who had just come in, whose name was Rudy something, invited Tom and Marge to a cocktail party at his hotel the following day. Tom started to decline, but Marge said she would be delighted to come. Tom hadn’t thought she would be here tomorrow, because she had said something at lunch about leaving. The party would be deadly, Tom thought. Rudy was a loudmouthed, crude man in flashy clothes who said he was an antique dealer. Tom maneuvered himself and Marge out of the house before she accepted any more invitations that might be further into the future.

  Marge was in a giddy mood that irritated Tom throughout their long five-course dinner, but he made the supreme effort and responded in kind—like a helpless frog twitching from an electric needle, he thought—and when she dropped the ball, he picked it up and dribbled it a while. He said things like, “Maybe Dickie’s suddenly found himself in his painting, and he’s gone away like Gauguin to one of the South Sea Islands.” It made him ill. Then Marge would spin a fantasy about Dickie and the South Sea Islands, making lazy gestures with her hands. The worst was yet to come, Tom thought: the gondola ride. If she dangled those hands in the water, he hoped a shark bit them off. He ordered a dessert that he hadn’t room for, but Marge ate it.

  Marge wanted a private gondola, of course, not the regular ferry-service gondola that took people over ten at a time from San Marco’s to the steps of Santa Maria della Salute, so they engaged a private gondola. It was one-thirty in the morning. Tom had a dark-brown taste in his mouth from too many espressos, his heart was fluttering like bird wings, and he did not expect to be able to sleep until dawn. He felt exhausted, and lay back in the gondola’s seat about as languidly as Marge, careful to keep his thigh from touching hers. Marge was still in ebullient spirits, entertaining herself now with a monologue about the sunrise in Venice, which she had apparently seen on some other visit. The gentle rocking of the boat and the rhythmic thrusts of the gondolier’s oar made Tom feel slightly sickish. The expanse of water between the San Marco boat stop and his steps seemed interminable.

  The steps were covered now except for the upper two, and the water swept just over the surface of the third step, stirring its moss in a disgusting way. Tom paid the gondolier mechanically, and was standing in front of the big doors when he realized he hadn’t brought the keys. He glanced around to see if he could climb in anywhere, but he couldn’t even reach a window ledge from the steps. Before he even said anything, Marge burst out laughing.

  “You didn’t bring the key! Of all things, stuck on the doorstep with the raging waters around us, and no key!”

  Tom tried to smile. Why the hell should he have thought to bring two keys nearly a foot long that weighed as much as a couple of revolvers? He turned and yelled to the gondolier to come back.

  “Ah!” the gondolier chuckled across the water. “Mi dispiace, signor! Deb’ ritornare a San Marco! Ho un appuntamento!” He kept on rowing.

  “We have no keys!” Tom yelled in Italian.

  “Mi dispiace, signore!” replied the gondolier “Mandarò un altro gondoliere!”

  Marge laughed again. “Oh, some other gondolier’ll pick us up. Isn’t it beautiful?” She stood on tiptoe.

  It was not at all a beautiful night. It was chilly, and a slimy little rain had started falling. He might get the ferry gondola to come over, Tom thought, but he didn’t see it. The only boat he saw was the motoscafo approaching the San Marco pier. There was hardly a chance that the motoscafo would trouble to pick them up, but Tom yelled to it, anyway. The motoscafo, full of lights and people, went blindly on and nosed in at the wooden pier across the canal. Marge was sitting on the top step with her arms around her knees, doing nothing. Finally, a lowslung motorboat that looked like a fishing boat of some sort slowed down, and someone yelled in Italian: “Locked out?”

  “We forgot the keys!” Marge explained cheerfully.

  But she didn’t want to get into the boat. She said she would wait on the steps while Tom went around and opened the street door. Tom said it might take fifteen minutes or more, and she would probably catch a cold there, so she finally got in. The Italian took them to the nearest landing at the steps of the Santa Maria della Salute church. He refused to take any money for his trouble, but he accepted the rest of Tom’s pack of American cigarettes. Tom did not know why, but he felt more frightened that night, walking through San Spiridione with Marge, than if he had been alone. Marge, of course, was not affected at all by the street, and talked the whole way.

  25

  Tom was awakened very early the next morning by the banging of his door knocker. He grabbed his robe and went down. It was a telegram, and he had to run back upstairs to get a tip for the man. He stood in the cold living room and read it.

  CHANGED MY MIND. WOULD LIKE TO SEE YE.

  ARRIVING 11:45 A.M.

  H. GREENLEAF

  Tom shivered. Well, he had expected it, he thought. But he hadn’t, really. He dreaded it. Or was it just the hour? It was barely dawn. The living room looked gray and horrible. That “ye” gave the telegram such a creepy, archaic touch. Generally Italian telegrams had much funnier typographical errors. And what if they’d put “R” or “D” instead of the “H”? How would he be feeling then?

  He ran upstairs and got back into his warm bed to try to catch some more sleep. He kept wondering if Marge would come in or knock on his door because she had heard that loud knocker, but he finally decided she had slept through it. He imagined greeting Mr. Greenleaf at the door, shaking his hand firmly, and he tried to imagine his questions, but his mind blurred tiredly and it made him feel frightened and uncomfortable. He was too sleepy to form specific questions and answers, and too tense to get to sleep. He wanted to make coffee and wake Marge up, so he would have someone to talk to, but he couldn’t face going into that room and seeing the underwear and garter belts strewn all over the place, he absolutely couldn’t.

  It was Marge who woke him up, and she had already made coffee downstairs, she said.

  “What do you think?” Tom said with a big smile. “I got a telegram from Mr. Greenleaf this morning and he’s coming at noon.”

  “He is? When did you get the telegram?”

  “This morning early. If I wasn’t dreaming.” Tom looked for it. “Here it is.”

  Marge read it. “‘Would like to see ye,’” she said, laughing a little. “Well, that’s nice. It’ll do him good, I hope. Are you coming down or shall I bring the coffee up?”

  “I’ll come down
,” Tom said, putting on his robe.

  Marge was already dressed in slacks and a sweater, black corduroy slacks, well-cut and made to order, Tom supposed, because they fitted her gourdlike figure as well as pants possibly could. They prolonged their coffee drinking until Anna and Ugo arrived at ten with milk and rolls and the morning papers. Then they made more coffee and hot milk and sat in the living room. It was one of the mornings when there was nothing in the papers about Dickie or the Miles case. Some mornings were like that, and then the evening papers would have something about them again, even if there was no real news to report, just by way of reminding people that Dickie was still missing and the Miles murder was still unsolved.

  Marge and Tom went to the railroad station to meet Mr. Greenleaf at eleven forty-five. It was raining again, and so windy and cold that the rain felt like sleet on their faces. They stood in the shelter of the railroad station, watching the people come through the gate, and finally there was Mr. Greenleaf, solemn and ashen. Marge rushed forward to kiss him on the cheek, and he smiled at her.

  “Hello, Tom!” he said heartily, extending his hand. “How’re you?”

  “Very well, sir. And you?”

  Mr. Greenleaf had only a small suitcase, but a porter was carrying it and the porter rode with them on the motoscafo, though Tom said he could easily carry the suitcase himself. Tom suggested they go straight to his house, but Mr. Greenleaf wanted to install himself in a hotel first. He insisted.

  “I’ll come over as soon as I register. I thought I’d try the Gritti. Is that anywhere near your place?” Mr. Greenleaf asked.

  “Not too close, but you can walk to San Marco’s and take a gondola over,” Tom said. “We’ll come with you, if you just want to check in. I thought we might all have lunch together—unless you’d rather see Marge by yourself for a while.” He was the old self-effacing Ripley again.

  “Came here primarily to talk to you!” Mr. Greenleaf said.

  “Is there any news?” Marge asked.

  Mr. Greenleaf shook his head. He was casting nervous, absentminded glances out the windows of the motoscafo, as if the strangeness of the city compelled him to look at it, though nothing of it was registering. He had not answered Tom’s question about lunch. Tom folded his arms, put a pleasant expression on his face, and did not try to talk any more. The boat’s motor made quite a roar, anyway. Mr. Greenleaf and Marge were talking very casually about some people they knew in Rome. Tom gathered that Marge and Mr. Greenleaf got along very well, though Marge had said she had not known him before she met him in Rome.

  They went to lunch at a modest restaurant between the Gritti and the Rialto, which specialized in seafoods that were always displayed raw on a long counter inside. One of the plates held varieties of the little purple octopuses that Dickie had liked so much, and Tom said to Marge, nodding toward the plates as they passed, “Too bad Dickie isn’t here to enjoy some of those.”

  Marge smiled gaily. She was always in a good mood when they were about to eat.

  Mr. Greenleaf talked a little more at lunch, but his face kept its stony expression, and he still glanced around as he spoke, as if he hoped that Dickie would come walking in at any moment. No, the police hadn’t found a blessed thing that could be called a clue, he said, and he had just arranged for an American private detective to come over and try to clear the mystery up.

  It made Tom swallow thoughtfully—he, too, must have a lurking suspicion, or illusion, perhaps, that American detectives were better than the Italian—but then the evident futility of it struck him as it was apparently striking Marge, because her face had gone long and blank suddenly.

  “That may be a very good idea,” Tom said.

  “Do you think much of the Italian police?” Mr. Greenleaf asked him.

  “Well—actually, I do,” Tom replied. “There’s also the advantage that they speak Italian and they can get around everywhere and investigate all kinds of suspects. I suppose the man you sent for speaks Italian?”

  “I really don’t know. I don’t know,” Mr. Greenleaf said in a flustered way, as if he realized he should have demanded that, and hadn’t. “The man’s name is McCarron. He’s said to be very good.”

  He probably didn’t speak Italian, Tom thought. “When is he arriving?”

  “Tomorrow or the next day. I’ll be in Rome tomorrow to meet him if he’s there.” Mr. Greenleaf had finished his vitello alla parmigiana. He had not eaten much.

  “Tom has the most beautiful house!” Marge said, starting in on her seven-layer rum cake.

  Tom turned his glare at her into a faint smile.

  The quizzing, Tom thought, would come at the house, probably when he and Mr. Greenleaf were alone. He knew Mr. Greenleaf wanted to talk to him alone, and therefore he proposed coffee at the restaurant where they were before Marge could suggest having it at home. Marge liked the coffee that his filter pot made. Even so, Marge sat around with them in the living room for half an hour after they got home. Marge was incapable of sensing anything, Tom thought. Finally Tom frowned at her facetiously and glanced at the stairs, and she got the hint, clapped her hand over her mouth and announced that she was going up to have a wee nap. She was in her usual invincibly merry mood, and she had been talking to Mr. Greenleaf all during lunch as if of course Dickie wasn’t dead, and he mustn’t, mustn’t worry so much because it wasn’t good for his digestion. As if she still had hopes of being his daughter-in-law one day, Tom thought.

  Mr. Greenleaf stood up and paced the floor with his hands in his jacket pockets, like an executive about to dictate a letter to his stenographer. He hadn’t commented on the plushness of the house, or even much looked at it, Tom noticed.

  “Well, Tom,” he began with a sigh, “this is a strange end, isn’t it?”

  “End?”

  “Well, you living in Europe now, and Richard—”

  “None of us has suggested yet that he might have gone back to America,” Tom said pleasantly.

  “No. That couldn’t be. The immigration authorities in America are much too well alerted for that.” Mr. Greenleaf continued to pace, not looking at him. “What’s your real opinion as to where he may be?”

  “Well, sir, he could be hiding out in Italy—very easily if he doesn’t use a hotel where he has to register.”

  “Are there any hotels in Italy where one doesn’t have to register?”

  “No, not officially. But anyone who knows Italian as well as Dickie might get away with it. Matter of fact, if he bribed some little innkeeper in the south of Italy not to say anything, he could stay there even if the man knew his name was Richard Greenleaf.”

  “And is that your idea of what he may be doing?” Mr. Greenleaf looked at him suddenly, and Tom saw that pitiful expression he had noticed the first evening he had met him.

  “No, I— It’s possible. That’s all I can say about it.” He paused. “I’m sorry to say it, Mr. Greenleaf, but I think there’s a possibility that Dickie is dead.”

  Mr. Greenleaf’s expression did not change. “Because of that depression you mentioned in Rome? What exactly did he say to you?”

  “It was his general mood.” Tom frowned. “The Miles thing had obviously shaken him. He’s the sort of man— He really does hate publicity of any kind, violence of any kind.” Tom licked his lips. His agony in trying to express himself was genuine. “He did say if one more thing happened, he would blow his top—or he didn’t know what he would do. Also for the first time, I felt he wasn’t interested in his painting. Maybe it was only temporary, but up until then I’d always thought Dickie had his painting to go to, whatever happened to him.”

  “Does he really take his painting so seriously?”

  “Yes, he does,” Tom said firmly.

  Mr. Greenleaf looked off at the ceiling again, his hands behind him. “A pity we can’t find this Di Massimo. He might know something. I understand Richard and he were going to go together to Sicily.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Tom said. Mr. Greenle
af had got that from Marge, he knew.

  “Di Massimo’s disappeared, too, if he ever existed. I’m inclined to think Richard made him up to try to convince me he was painting. The police can’t find a painter called Di Massimo on their—their identity lists or whatever it is.”

  “I never met him,” Tom said. “Dickie mentioned him a couple of times. I never doubted his identity—or his actuality.” He laughed a little.

  “What did you say before about ‘if one more thing happened to him’? What else had happened to him?”

  “Well, I didn’t know then, in Rome, but I think I know what he meant now. They’d questioned him about the sunken boat in San Remo. Did they tell you about that?”

  “No.”

  “They found a boat in San Remo, scuttled. It seems the boat was missed on the day or around the day Dickie and I were there, and we’d taken a ride in the same kind of boat. They were the little motorboats people rented there. At any rate, the boat was scuttled, and there were stains on it that they thought were bloodstains. They happened to find the boat just after the Miles murder, and they couldn’t find me at that time, because I was traveling around the country, so they asked Dickie where I was. I think for a while, Dickie must have thought they suspected him of having murdered me!” Tom laughed.

  “Good lord!”

  “I only know this, because a police inspector questioned me about it in Venice just a few weeks ago. He said he’d questioned Dickie about it before. The strange thing is that I didn’t know I was being looked for—not very seriously, but still being looked for—until I saw it in the newspaper in Venice. I went to the police station here and presented myself.” Tom was still smiling. He had decided days ago that he had better narrate all this to Mr. Greenleaf, if he ever saw him, whether Mr. Greenleaf had heard about the San Remo boat incident or not. It was better than having Mr. Greenleaf learn about it from the police, and be told that he had been in Rome with Dickie at a time when he should have known that the police were looking for him. Besides, it fitted in with what he was saying about Dickie’s depressed mood at that time.