The Talented Mr. Ripley

  “Buon giorno,” Tom said. “Have you found anything new?”

  “No,” said the officer on a questioning note. He took the chair that Tom offered him, and opened his brown leather briefcase. “Another matter has come up. You are also a friend of the American Thomas Reepley?”

  “Yes,” Tom said.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “I think he went back to America about a month ago.”

  The officer consulted his paper. “I see. That will have to be confirmed by the United States Information Department. You see, we are trying to find Thomas Reepley. We think he may be dead.”

  “Dead? Why?”

  The officer’s lips under his bushy iron-gray mustache compressed softly between each statement so that they seemed to be smiling. The smile had thrown Tom off a little yesterday, too. “You were with him on a trip to San Remo in November, were you not?”

  They had checked the hotels. “Yes.”

  “Where did you last see him? In San Remo?”

  “No. I saw him again in Rome.” Tom remembered that Marge knew he had gone back to Rome after Mongibello, because he had said he was going to help Dickie get settled in Rome.

  “When did you last see him?”

  “I don’t know if I can give you the exact date. Something like two months ago, I think. I think I had a postcard from—from Genoa from him, saying that he was going to go back to America.”

  “You think?”

  “I know I had,” Tom said. “Why do you think he is dead?”

  The officer looked at his form paper dubiously. Tom glanced at the younger policeman, who was leaning against the bureau with his arms folded, staring impersonally at him.

  “Did you take a boat ride with Thomas Reepley in San Remo?”

  “A boat ride? Where?”

  “In a little boat? Around the port?” the officer asked quietly, looking at Tom.

  “I think we did. Yes, I remember. Why?”

  “Because a little boat has been found sunken with some kind of stains on it that may be blood. It was lost on November twenty-fifth. That is, it was not returned to the dock from which it was rented. November twenty-fifth was the day you were in San Remo with Signor Reepley.” The officers’ eyes rested on him without moving.

  The very mildness of the look offended Tom. It was dishonest, he felt. But Tom made a tremendous effort to behave in the proper way. He saw himself as if he were standing apart from himself and watching the scene. He corrected even his stance, and made it more relaxed by resting a hand on the end post of the bed. “But nothing happened to us on that boat ride. There was no accident.”

  “Did you bring the boat back?”

  “Of course.”

  The officer continued to eye him. “We cannot find Signor Reepley registered in any hotel after November twenty-fifth.”

  “Really?— How long have you been looking?”

  “Not long enough to search every little village in Italy, but we have checked the hotels in the major cities. We find you registered at the Hassler on November twenty-eighth to thirtieth, and then—”

  “Tom didn’t stay with me in Rome—Signor Ripley. He went to Mongibello around that time and stayed for a couple of days.”

  “Where did he stay when he came up to Rome?”

  “At some small hotel. I don’t remember which it was. I didn’t visit him.”

  “And where were you?”

  “When?”

  “On November twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh. That is, just after San Remo.”

  “In Forte dei Marmi,” Tom replied. “I stopped off there on the way down. I stayed at a pension.”

  “Which one?”

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t recall the name. A very small place.” After all, he thought, through Marge he could prove that Tom was in Mongibello, alive, after San Remo, so why should the police investigate what pension Dickie Greenleaf had stayed at on the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh? Tom sat down on the side of his bed. “I do not understand yet why you think Tom Ripley is dead.”

  “We think somebody is dead,” the officer replied, “in San Remo. Somebody was killed in that boat. That was why the boat was sunk—to hide the bloodstains.”

  Tom frowned. “They are sure they are bloodstains?”

  The officer shrugged.

  Tom shrugged, too. “There must have been a couple of hundred people renting boats that day in San Remo.”

  “Not so many. About thirty. It’s quite true, it could have been any one of the thirty—or any pair of the fifteen,” he added with a smile. “We don’t even know all their names. But we are beginning to think Thomas Reepley is missing.” Now he looked off at a corner of the room, and he might have been thinking of something else, Tom thought, judging from his expression. Or was he enjoying the warmth of the radiator beside his chair?

  Tom recrossed his legs impatiently. What was going on in the Italian’s head was obvious: Dickie Greenleaf had twice been on the scene of a murder, or near enough. The missing Thomas Ripley had taken a boat ride November twenty-fifth with Dickie Greenleaf. Ergo— Tom straightened up, frowning. “Are you saying that you do not believe me when I tell you that I saw Tom Ripley in Rome around the first of December?”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t say that, no indeed!” The officer gestured placatingly. “I wanted to hear what you would say about your—your traveling with Signor Ripley after San Remo, because we cannot find him.” He smiled again, a broad, conciliatory smile that showed yellowish teeth.

  Tom relaxed with an exasperated shrug. Obvious that the Italian police didn’t want to accuse an American citizen outright of murder. “I’m sorry that I can’t tell you exactly where he is right now. Why don’t you try Paris? Or Genoa? He’d always stay in a small hotel, because he prefers them.”

  “Have you got the postcard that he sent you from Genoa?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Tom said. He ran his fingers through his hair, as Dickie sometimes did when he was irritated. He felt better, concentrating on being Dickie Greenleaf for a few seconds, pacing the floor once or twice.

  “Do you know any friends of Thomas Reepley?”

  Tom shook his head. “No, I don’t even know him very well, at least not for a very long time. I don’t know if he has many friends in Europe. I think he said he knew someone in Faenza. Also in Florence. But I don’t remember their names.” If the Italian thought he was protecting Tom’s friends from a lot of police questioning by not giving their names, then let him, Tom thought.

  “Va bene, we shall inquire,” the officer said. He put his papers away. He had made at least a dozen notations on them.

  “Before you go,” Tom said in the same nervous, frank tone, “I want to ask when I can leave the city. I was planning to go to Sicily. I should like very much to leave today if it is possible. I intend to stay at the Hotel Palma in Palermo. It will be very simple for you to reach me if I am needed.”

  “Palermo,” the officer repeated. “Ebbene, that may be possible. May I use the telephone?”

  Tom lighted an Italian cigarette and listened to the officer asking for Capitano Anlicino, and then stating quite impassively that Signor Greenleaf did not know where Signor Reepley was, and that he might have gone back to America, or he might be in Florence or Faenza in the opinion of Signor Greenleaf. “Faenza,” he repeated carefully, “vicino Bologna.” When the man had got that, the officer said Signor Greenleaf wished to go to Palermo today. “Va bene. Benone.” The officer turned to Tom, smiling. “Yes, you may go to Palermo today.”

  “Benone. Grazie.” He walked with the two to the door. “If you find where Tom Ripley is, I wish you would let me know, too,” he said ingenuously.

  “Of course! We shall keep you informed, signore. Buon giorno!”

  Alone, Tom began to whistle as he repacked the few things he had taken from his suitcases. He felt proud of himself for having proposed Sicily instead of Majorca, because Sicily was still Italy and Majorca wasn’t, and naturally the Ita
lian police would be more willing to let him leave if he stayed in their territory. He had thought of that when it had occurred to him that Tom Ripley’s passport did not show that he had been to France again after the San Remo–Cannes trip. He remembered he had told Marge that Tom Ripley had said he was going up to Paris and from there back to America. If they ever questioned Marge as to whether Tom Ripley was in Mongibello after San Remo, she might also add that he later went to Paris. And if he ever had to become Tom Ripley again, and show his passport to the police, they would see that he hadn’t been to France again after the Cannes trip. He would just have to say that he had changed his mind after he told Dickie that, and had decided to stay in Italy. That wasn’t important.

  Tom straightened up suddenly from a suitcase. Could it all be a trick, really? Were they just letting him have a little more rope in letting him go to Sicily, apparently unsuspected? A sly little bastard, that officer. He’d said his name once. What was it? Ravini? Roverini? Well, what could be the advantage of letting him have a little more rope? He’d told them exactly where he was going. He had no intention of trying to run away from anything. All he wanted was to get out of Rome. He was frantic to get out! He threw the last items into his suitcase and slammed the lid down and locked it.

  The phone again! Tom snatched it up. “Pronto?”

  “Oh, Dickie—!” breathlessly.

  It was Marge and she was downstairs, he could tell from the sound. Flustered, he said in Tom’s voice, “Who’s this?”

  “Is this Tom?”

  “Marge! Well, hello! Where are you?”

  “I’m downstairs. Is Dickie there? Can I come up?”

  “You can come up in about five minutes,” Tom said with a laugh. “I’m not quite dressed yet.” The clerks always sent people to a booth downstairs, he thought. The clerks wouldn’t be able to overhear them.

  “Is Dickie there?”

  “Not at the moment. He went out about half an hour ago, but he’ll be back any minute. I know where he is, if you want to find him.”

  “Where?”

  “At the eighty-third police station. No, excuse me, it’s the eighty-seventh.”

  “Is he in any trouble?”

  “No, just answering questions. He was supposed to be there at ten. Want me to give you the address?” He wished he hadn’t started talking in Tom’s voice: he could so easily have pretended to be a servant, some friend of Dickie’s, anybody, and told her that Dickie was out for hours.

  Marge was groaning. “No-o. I’ll wait for him.”

  “Here it is!” Tom said as if he had found it. “Twenty-one Via Perugia. Do you know where that is?” Tom didn’t, but he was going to send her in the opposite direction from the American Express, where he wanted to go for his mail before he left town.

  “I don’t want to go,” Marge said. “I’ll come up and wait with you, if it’s all right.”

  “Well, it’s—” He laughed, his own unmistakable laugh that Marge knew well. “The thing is, I’m expecting somebody any minute. It’s a business interview. About a job. Believe it or not, old believe-it-or-not Ripley’s trying to put himself to work.”

  “Oh,” said Marge, not in the least interested. “Well, how is Dickie? Why does he have to talk to the police?”

  “Oh, just because he had some drinks with Freddie that day. You saw the papers, didn’t you? The papers make it ten times more important than it was for the simple reason that the dopes haven’t got any clues at all about anything.”

  “How long has Dickie been living here?”

  “Here? Oh, just overnight. I’ve been up north. When I heard about Freddie, I came down to Rome to see him. If it hadn’t been for the police, I’d never have found him!”

  “You’re telling me! I went to the police in desperation! I’ve been so worried, Tom. He might at least have phoned me—at Giorgio’s or somewhere—”

  “I’m awfully glad you’re in town, Marge. Dickie’ll be tickled pink to see you. He’s been worried about what you might think of all this in the papers.”

  “Oh, has he?” Marge said disbelievingly, but she sounded pleased.

  “Why don’t you wait for me in Angelo’s? It’s that bar right down the street in front of the hotel going toward the Piazza di Spagna steps. I’ll see if I can sneak out and have a drink or a coffee with you in about five minutes, okay?”

  “Okay. But there’s a bar right here in the hotel.”

  “I don’t want to be seen by my future boss in a bar.”

  “Oh, all right. Angelo’s?”

  “You can’t miss it. On the street straight in front of the hotel. Bye-bye.”

  He whirled around to finish his packing. He really was finished except for the coats in the closet. He picked up the telephone and asked for his bill to be prepared, and for somebody to carry his luggage. Then he put his luggage in a neat heap for the bellboys and went down via the stairs. He wanted to see if Marge was still in the lobby, waiting there for him, or possibly still there making another telephone call. She couldn’t have been downstairs waiting when the police were here, Tom thought. About five minutes had passed between the time the police left and Marge called up. He had put on a hat to conceal his blonder hair, a raincoat which was new, and he wore Tom Ripley’s shy, slightly frightened expression.

  She wasn’t in the lobby. Tom paid his bill. The clerk handed him another message: Van Houston had been here. The message was in his own writing, dated ten minutes ago.

  Waited for you half an hour. Don’t you ever go out for a walk? They won’t let me up. Call me at the Hassler.

  Van

  Maybe Van and Marge had run into each other, if they knew each other, and were sitting together in Angelo’s now.

  “If anybody else asks for me, would you say that I’ve left the city?” Tom said to the clerk.

  “Va bene, signore.”

  Tom went out to his waiting taxi. “Would you stop at the American Express, please?” he asked the driver.

  The driver did not take the street that Angelo’s was on. Tom relaxed and congratulated himself. He congratulated himself above all on the fact that he had been too nervous to stay in his apartment yesterday and had taken a hotel room. He never could have evaded Marge in his apartment. She had the address from the newspapers. If he had tried the same trick, she would have insisted on coming up and waiting for Dickie in the apartment. Luck was with him!

  He had mail at the American Express—three letters, one from Mr. Greenleaf.

  “How are you today?” asked the young Italian girl who had handed him his mail.

  She’d read the papers, too, Tom thought. He smiled back at her naïvely curious face. Her name was Maria. “Very well, thanks, and you?”

  As he turned away, it crossed his mind that he could never use the Rome American Express as an address for Tom Ripley. Two or three of the clerks knew him by sight. He was using the Naples American Express for Tom Ripley’s mail now, though he hadn’t claimed anything there or written them to forward anything, because he wasn’t expecting anything important for Tom Ripley, not even another blast from Mr. Greenleaf. When things cooled off a little, he would just walk into the Naples American Express some day and claim it with Tom Ripley’s passport, he thought.

  He couldn’t use the Rome American Express as Tom Ripley, but he had to keep Tom Ripley with him, his passport and his clothes in order for emergencies like Marge’s telephone call this morning. Marge had come damned close to being right in the room with him. As long as the innocence of Dickie Greenleaf was debatable in the opinion of the police, it was suicidal to think of leaving the country as Dickie, because if he had to switch back suddenly to Tom Ripley, Ripley’s passport would not show that he had left Italy. If he wanted to leave Italy—to take Dickie Greenleaf entirely away from the police—he would have to leave as Tom Ripley, and re-enter later as Tom Ripley and become Dickie again once the police investigations were over. That was a possibility.

  It seemed simple and safe. All he h
ad to do was weather the next few days.

  19

  The boat approached Palermo harbor slowly and tentatively, nosing its white prow gently through the floating orange peels, the straw, and the pieces of broken fruit crates. It was the way Tom felt, too, approaching Palermo. He had spent two days in Naples, and there had been nothing of any interest in the papers about the Miles case and nothing at all about the San Remo boat, and the police had made no attempt to reach him that he knew of. But maybe they had just not bothered to look for him in Naples, he thought, and were waiting for him in Palermo at the hotel.

  There were no police waiting for him on the dock, anyway. Tom looked for them. He bought a couple of newspapers, then took a taxi with his luggage to the Hotel Palma. There were no police in the hotel lobby, either. It was an ornate old lobby with great marble supporting columns and big pots of palms standing around. A clerk told him the number of his reserved room, and handed a bellboy the key. Tom felt so much relieved that he went over to the mail counter and asked boldly if there was any message for Signor Richard Greenleaf. The clerk told him there was not.

  Then he began to relax. That meant there was not even a message from Marge. Marge would undoubtedly have gone to the police by now to find out where Dickie was. Tom had imagined horrible things during the boat trip: Marge beating him to Palermo by plane, Marge leaving a message for him at the Hotel Palma that she would arrive on the next boat. He had even looked for Marge on the boat when he got aboard in Naples.

  Now he began to think that perhaps Marge had given Dickie up after this episode. Maybe she’d caught on to the idea that Dickie was running away from her and that he wanted to be with Tom, alone. Maybe that had even penetrated her thick skull. Tom debated sending her a letter to that effect as he sat in his deep warm bath that evening, spreading soapsuds luxuriously up and down his arms. Tom Ripley ought to write the letter, he thought. It was about time. He would say that he’d wanted to be tactful all this while, that he hadn’t wanted to come right out with it on the telephone in Rome, but that by now he had the feeling she understood, anyway. He and Dickie were very happy together, and that was that. Tom began to giggle merrily, uncontrollably, and squelched himself by slipping all the way under the water, holding his nose.