The worst sign of all was that Roverini, whose messages had been so friendly and explicit up to now, sent him nothing at all in regard to the suitcases and canvases having been found in Venice. Tom spent a sleepless night and then a day, of pacing his house while he tried to finish the endless little chores pertaining to his departure, paying Anna and Ugo, paying various tradesmen, Tom expected the police to come knocking on his door at any hour of the day or night. The contrast between his tranquil self-confidence or five days ago and his present apprehension almost tore him apart. He could neither sleep nor eat nor sit still. The irony of Anna's and Ugo's commiseration with him, and also of the telephone calls from his friends, asking him if he had any ideas as to what might have happened in view of the finding of the suitcases, seemed more than he could bear. Ironic, too, that he could let them know that he was upset, pessimistic, desperate even, and they thought nothing of it. They thought it was perfectly normal, because Dickie after all might have been murdered: everybody considered it very significant that all Dickie's possessions had been in the suitcases in Venice, down to his shaving kit and comb.
Then there was the matter of the will. Mr Greenleaf would get it day after tomorrow. By that time they might know that the fingerprints were not Dickie's. By that time they might have intercepted the Hellenes, and taken his own fingerprints. If they discovered that the will was a forgery, too, they would have no mercy on him. Both murders would come out, as naturally as ABC.
By the time he boarded the Hellenes Tom felt like a walking ghost. He was sleepless, foodless, full of espressos, carried along only by his twitching nerves. He wanted to ask if there was a radio, but he was positive there was a radio. It was a good-sized triple-deck ship with forty-eight passengers. He collapsed about five minutes after the stewards had brought his luggage into his cabin. He remembered lying face down on his bunk with one arm twisted under him, and being too tired to change his position, and when he awakened the ship was moving, not only moving but rolling gently with a pleasant rhythm that suggested a tremendous reserve of power and a promise of unending, unobstructable forward movement that would sweep aside anything in its way. He felt better except that the arm he had been lying on hung limply at his side like a dead member, and flopped against him when he walked through the corridor so that he had to grip it with the other hand to hold it in place. It was a quarter of ten by his watch, and utterly dark outside.
There was some kind of land on his extreme left, probably part of Yugoslavia, five or six little dim white lights, and otherwise nothing but black sea and black sky, so black that there was no trace of an horizon and they might have been sailing against a black screen, except that he felt no resistance to the steadily ploughing ship, and the wind blew freely on his forehead as if out of infinite space. There was no one around him on the deck. They were all below, eating their late dinner, he supposed. He was glad to be alone. His arm was coming back to life. He gripped the prow where it separated in a narrow V and took a deep breath. A defiant courage rose in him. What if the radioman were receiving at this very minute a message to arrest Tom Ripley? He would stand up just as bravely as he was standing now. Or he might hurl himself over the ship's gunwale—which for him would be the supreme act of courage as well as escape. Well, what if? Even from where he stood, he could hear the faint beep-beep-beep from the radio room at the top of the superstructure. He was not afraid. This was it. This was the way he had hoped he would feel, sailing to Greece. To look out at the black water all around him and not be afraid was almost as good as seeing the islands of Greece coming into view. In the soft June darkness ahead of him he could construct in imagination the little islands, the hills of Athens dotted with buildings, and the Acropolis.
There was an elderly Englishwoman on board the ship, travelling with her daughter who herself was forty, unmarried and so wildly nervous she could not even enjoy the sun for fifteen minutes in her deck-chair without leaping up and announcing in a loud voice that she was 'off for a walk'. Her mother, by contrast, was extremely calm and slow, she had some kind of paralysis in her right leg, which was shorter than the other so that she had to wear a thick heel on her right shoe and could not walk except with a cane—the kind of person who would have driven Tom insane in New York with her slowness and her unvarying graciousness of manner, but now Tom was inspired to spend time with her in the deck-chair, talking to her and listening to her talk about her life in England and about Greece, when she had last seen Greece in 1926. He took her for a slow walk around the deck, she leaning on his arm and apologising constantly for the trouble she was giving him, but obviously she loved the attention. And the daughter was obviously delighted that someone was taking her mother off her hands.
Maybe Mrs Cartwright had been a hellcat in her youth, Tom thought, maybe she was responsible for every one of her daughter's neuroses, maybe she had clutched her daughter so closely to her that it had been impossible for the daughter to lead a normal life and marry, and maybe she deserved to be kicked overboard instead of walking around the deck and listened to for hours while she talked, but what did it matter? Did the world always mete out just deserts? Had the world meted his out to him? He considered that he had been lucky beyond reason in escaping detection for two murders, lucky from the time he had assumed Dickie's identity until now. In the first part of his life fate had been grossly unfair, he thought, but the period with Dickie and afterwards had more than compensated for it. But something was going to happen now in Greece, he felt, and it couldn't be good. His luck had held just too long. But supposing they got him on the fingerprints, and on the will, and they gave him the electric chair—could that death in the electric chair equal in pain, or could death itself, at twenty-five, be so tragic, that he could not say that the months from November until now had not been worth it? Certainly not.
The only thing he regretted was that he had not seen all the world yet. He wanted to see Australia. And India. He wanted to see Japan. Then there was South America. Merely to look at the art of those countries would be a pleasant, rewarding life's work, he thought. He had learned a lot about painting, even in trying to copy Dickie's mediocre paintings. At the art galleries in Paris and Rome he had discovered an interest in paintings that he had never realised before, or perhaps that had not been in him before. He did not want to be a painter himself, but if he had the money, he thought, his greatest pleasure would be to collect paintings that he liked, and to help young painters with talent who needed money.
His mind went off on such tangents as he walked with Mrs Cartwright around the deck, or listened to her monologues that were not always interesting. Mrs Cartwright thought him charming. She told him several times, speaking with fervour, how much he had contributed to her enjoyment of the voyage, and they made plans about meeting at a certain hotel in Crete on the second of July, Crete being the only place their itineraries crossed. Mrs Cartwright was travelling by bus on a special tour. Tom acquiesced to all her suggestions, though he never expected to see her again once they got off the ship. He imagined himself seized at once and taken on board another ship, or perhaps a plane, back to Italy. No radio messages had come about him—that he knew of—but would they necessarily inform him if any had come? The ship's paper, a little one-page mimeographed sheet that appeared every evening at each place on the dinner tables, was entirely concerned with international political news, and would not have contained anything about the Greenleaf case even if something important had happened. During the brief voyage Tom lived in a peculiar atmosphere of doom and of heroic, unselfish courage. He imagined strange things: Mrs Cartwright's daughter falling overboard and he jumping after her and saving her. Or fighting through the waters of a ruptured bulkhead to close the breach with his own body. He felt possessed of a preternatural strength and fearlessness.
When the boat approached the mainland of Greece Tom was standing at the rail with Mrs Cartwright. She was telling him how the port of Piraeus had changed in appearance since she had seen it last, and Tom was not interested at all in the changes. It existed, that was all that mattered to him. It wasn't a mirage ahead of him, it was a solid hill that he could walk on, with buildings that he could touch -if he got that far.
The police were waiting on the dock. He saw four of them, standing with folded arms, looking up at the ship. Tom helped Mrs Cartwright to the very last, boosted her gently over the kerb at the end of the gangplank, and said a smiling good-bye to her and her daughter. He had to wait under the R's and they under the C's to receive their luggage, and the two Cartwrights were leaving right away for Athens on their special bus.
With Mrs Cartwright's kiss still warm and slightly moist on his cheek, Tom turned and walked slowly towards the policemen. No fuss, he thought, he'd just tell them himself who he was. There was a big newsstand behind the policemen, and he thought of buying a paper. Perhaps they would let him. The policemen stared back at him from over their folded arms as he approached them. They wore black uniforms with visored caps. Tom smiled at them faintly. One of them touched his cap and stepped aside. But the others did not close in. Now Tom was practically between two of them, right in front of the newsstand, and the policemen were staring forward again, paying no attention to him at all.
Tom looked over the array of papers in front of him, feeling dazed and faint. His hand moved automatically to take a familiar paper of Rome. It was only three days old. He pulled some lire out of his pocket, realised suddenly that he had no Greek money, but the newsdealer accepted the lire as readily as if he were in Italy, and even gave him back change in lire.
'I'll take these, too,' Tom said in Italian, choosing three more Italian papers and the Paris Herald-Tribune. He glanced at the police officers. They were not looking at him.
Then he walked back to the shed on the dock where the ship's passengers were awaiting their luggage. He heard Mrs Cartwright's cheerful halloo to him as he went by, but he pretended not to have heard. Under the R's he stopped and opened the oldest Italian paper, which was four days old.
NO ONE NAMED ROBERT S. FANSHAW FOUND, DEPOSITOR OF GREENLEAF BAGGAGE said the awkward caption on the second page. Tom read the long column below it, but only the fifth paragraph interested him: The police ascertained a few days ago that the fingerprints on the suitcases and paintings are the same as the fingerprints found in Greenleaf's abandoned apartment in Rome. Therefore, it has been assumed that Greenleaf deposited the suitcases and the paintings himself...
Tom fumbled open another page. Here it was again: ... In view of the fact that the fingerprints on the articles in the suitcases are identical with those in Signor Greenleaf s apartment in Rome, the police have concluded that Signor Greenleaf packed and dispatched the suitcases to Venice, and there is speculation that he may have committed suicide, perhaps in the water in a state of total nudity. An alternative speculation is that he exists at present under the alias of Robert S. Fanshaw or another alias. Still another possibility is that he was murdered, after packing or being made to pack his own baggage—perhaps for the express purpose of confusing the police inquiries through fingerprints... In any case, it is futile to search for 'Richard Greenleaf' any longer, because, even if he is alive, he has not his 'Richard Greenleaf' passport...
Tom felt shaky and lightheaded. The glare of sunlight under the edge of the roof hurt his eyes. Automatically he followed the porter with his luggage towards the customs counter, and tried to realise, as he stared down at his open suitcase that the inspector was hastily examining, exactly what the news meant. It meant he was not suspected at all. It meant that the fingerprints really had guaranteed his innocence. It meant not only that he was not going to jail, and not going to die, but that he was not suspected at all. He was free. Except for the will.
Tom boarded the bus for Athens. One of his table companions was sitting next to him, but he gave no sign of greeting, and couldn't have answered anything if the man had spoken to him. There would be a letter concerning the will at the American Express in Athens, Tom was sure. Mr Greenleaf had had just time to reply. Perhaps he had put his lawyers on to it right away, and there would be only a polite negative reply in Athens from a lawyer, and maybe the next message would come from the American police, saying that he was answerable for forgery. Maybe both messages were awaiting him at the American Express. The will could undo it all. Tom looked out of the window at the primitive, dry landscape. Nothing was registering on him. Maybe the Greek police were waiting for him at the American Express. Maybe the four men he had seen had not been police but some kind of soldiers.
The bus stopped. Tom got out, corralled his luggage, and found a taxi.
'Would you stop at the American Express, please?' he asked the driver in Italian, but the driver apparently understood 'American Express' at least, and drove off. Tom remembered when he had said the same words to the taxi driver in Rome, the day he had been on his way to Palermo. How sure of himself he'd been that day, just after he had given Marge the slip at the Inghilterra!
He sat up when he saw the American Express sign, and looked around the building for policemen. Perhaps the police were inside. In Italian, he asked the driver to wait, and the driver seemed to understand this too, and touched his cap. There was a specious ease about everything, like the moment just before something was going to explode. Tom looked around inside the American Express lobby. Nothing unusual. Maybe the minute he mentioned his name - 'Have you any letters for Thomas Ripley?' he asked in a low voice in English.
'Reepley? Spell it, if you please.'
He spelt it.
She turned and got some letters from a cubbyhole.
Nothing was happening.
'Three letters,' she said in English, smiling.
One from Mr Greenleaf. One from Titi in Venice. One from Cleo, forwarded. He opened the letter from Mr Greenleaf.
Dear Tom,
Your letter of 3 June received yesterday.
It was not so much of a surprise to my wife and me as you may have imagined. We were both aware that Richard was very fond of you, in spite of the fact he never went out of his way to tell us this in any of his letters. As you pointed out, this will does, unhappily, seem to indicate that Richard has taken his own life. It is a conclusion that we here have at last accepted—the only other chance being that Richard has assumed another name and for reasons of his own has chosen to turn his back on his family.
My wife concurs with me in the opinion that we should carry out Richard's preferences and the spirit of them, whatever he may have done with himself. So you have, insofar as the will is concerned, my personal support. I have put your photostat copy into the hands of my lawyers, who will keep you informed as to their progress in making over Richard's trust fund and other properties to you.
Once more, thank you for your assistance when I was overseas.
Let us hear from you.
With best wishes
Herbert Greenleaf
Was it a joke? But the Burke-Greenleaf letter/paper in his hand felt authentic -thick and slightly pebbled and the letterhead engraved—and besides, Mr Greenleaf wouldn't joke like this, not in a million years. Tom walked on to the waiting taxi. It was no joke. It was his! Dickie's money and his freedom. And the freedom, like everything else, seemed combined, his and Dickie's combined. He could have a house in Europe, and a house in America too, if he chose. The money for the house in Mongibello was still waiting to be claimed, he thought suddenly, and he supposed he should send that to the Greenleafs, since Dickie put it up for sale before he wrote the will. He smiled, thinking of Mrs Cartwright. He must take her a big box of orchids when he met her in Crete, if they had any orchids in Crete.
He tried to imagine landing in Crete—the long island, peaked with the dry, jagged lips of craters, the little bustle of excitement on the pier as his boat moved into the harbour, the small-boy porters, avid for his luggage and his tips, and he would have plenty to tip them with, plenty for everything and everybody. He saw four motionless figures standing on the imaginary pier, the figures of Cretan policemen waiting for him, patiently waiting with folded arms. He grew suddenly tense, and his vision vanished. Was he going to see policemen waiting for him on every pier that he ever approached? In Alexandria? Istanbul? Bombay? Rio? No use thinking about that. He pulled his shoulders back. No use spoiling his trip worrying about imaginary policemen. Even if there were policemen on the pier, it wouldn't necessarily mean - 'A donda, a donda?' the taxi driver was saying, trying to speak Italian for him.
'To a hotel, please,' Tom said. 'Il meglio albergo. Il meglio, il meglio!'
The End