Venice
3 June, 19—
Dear Mr Greenleaf:
While packing a suitcase today, I came across an envelope that Richard gave me in Rome, and which for some unaccountable reason I had forgotten until now. On the envelope was written 'Not to be opened until June' and, as it happens, it is June. The envelope contained Richard's will, and he leaves his income and possessions to me. I am as astounded by this as you probably are, yet from the wording of the will (it is typewritten) he seems to have been in possession of his senses.
I am only bitterly sorry I did not remember having the envelope, because it would have proven much earlier that Dickie intended to take his own life. I put it into a suitcase pocket, and then I forgot it. He gave it to me on the last occasion I saw him, in Rome, when he was so depressed.
On second thought, I am enclosing a photostat copy of the will so that you may see it for yourself. This is the first will I have ever seen in my life, and I am absolutely unfamiliar with the usual procedure. What should I do?
Please give my kindest regards to Mrs Greenleaf and realise that I sympathise deeply with you both, and regret the necessity of writing this letter. Please let me hear from you as soon as possible. My next address will be: c/o American Express Athens, Greece Most sincerely yours, Tom Ripley In a way it was asking for trouble, Tom thought. It might start a new investigation of the signatures, on the will and also the remittances, one of the relentless investigations that insurance companies and probably trust companies also launched when it was a matter of money out of their own pockets. But that was the mood he was in. He had bought his ticket for Greece in the middle of May, and the days had grown finer and finer, making him more and more restless. He had taken his car out of the Fiat garage in Venice and had driven over the Brenner to Salzburg and Munich, down to Trieste and over to Bolzano, and the weather had held everywhere, except for the mildest, most spring-like shower in Munich when he had been walking in the Englischer Garten, and he had not even tried to get under cover from it but had simply kept on walking, thrilled as a child at the thought that this was the first German rain that had ever fallen on him. He had only two thousand dollars in his own name, transferred from Dickie's bank account and saved out of Dickie's income, because he hadn't dared to withdraw any more in so short a time as three months. The very chanciness of trying for all of Dickie's money, the peril of it, was irresistible to him. He was so bored after the dreary, eventless weeks in Venice, when each day that went by had seemed to confirm his personal safety and to emphasise the dullness of his existence. Roverini had stopped writing to him. Alvin McCarron had gone back to America (after nothing more than another inconsequential telephone call to him from Rome), and Tom supposed that he and Mr Greenleaf had concluded that Dickie was either dead or hiding of his own will, and that further search was useless. The newspapers had stopped printing anything about Dickie for want of anything to print. Tom had a feeling of emptiness and abeyance that had driven him nearly mad until he made the trip to Munich in his car. When he came back to Venice to pack for Greece and to close his house, the sensation had been worse: he was about to go to Greece, to those ancient heroic islands, as little Tom Ripley, shy and meek, with a dwindling two-thousand-odd in his bank, so that he would practically have to think twice before he bought himself even a book on Greek art. It was intolerable.
He had decided in Venice to make his voyage to Greece an heroic one. He would see the islands, swimming for the first time into his view, as a living, breathing, courageous individual—not as a cringing little nobody from Boston. If he sailed right into the arms of the police in Piraeus, he would at least have known the days just before, standing in the wind at the prow of a ship, crossing the wine-dark sea like Jason or Ulysses returning. So he had written the letter to Mr Greenleaf and mailed it three days before he was to sail from Venice. Mr Greenleaf would probably not get the letter for four or five days, so there would be no time for Mr Greenleaf to hold him in Venice with a telegram and make him miss his ship. Besides, it looked better from every point of view to be casual about the thing, not to be reachable for another week or so until he got to Greece, as if he were so unconcerned as to whether he got the money or not, he had not let the fact of the will postpone even a little trip he had planned to make.
Two days before his sailing, he went to tea at the house of Titi della Latta-Cacciaguerra, the countess he had met the day he had started looking for a house in Venice. The maid showed him into the living room, and Titi greeted him with the phrase he had not heard for many weeks: 'Ah, ciao, Tomaso! Have you seen the afternoon paper? They have found Dickie's suitcases! And his paintings! Right here in the American Express in Venice!' Her gold earrings trembled with her excitement.
'What?' Tom hadn't seen the papers. He had been too busy packing that afternoon.
'Read it! Here! All his clothes deposited only in February! They were sent from Naples. Perhaps he is here in Venice!'
Tom was reading it. The cord around the canvases had come undone, the paper said, and in wrapping them again a clerk had discovered the signature of R. Greenleaf on the paintings. Tom's hands began to shake so that he had to grip the sides of the paper to hold it steady. The paper said that the police were now examining everything carefully for fingerprints.
'Perhaps he is alive!' Titi shouted.
'I don't think—I don't see why this proves he is alive. He could have been murdered or killed himself after he sent the suitcases. The fact that it's under another name—Fanshaw -' He had the feeling the countess, who was sitting rigidly on the sofa staring at him, was startled by his nervousness, so he pulled himself together abruptly, summoned all his courage and said, 'You see? They're looking through everything for fingerprints. They wouldn't be doing that if they were sure Dickie had sent the suitcases himself. Why should he deposit them under Fanshaw, if he expected to claim them against himself? His passport's even here. He packed his passport.'
'Perhaps he is hiding himself under the name of Fanshaw! Oh, caro mio, you need some tea!' Titi stood up. 'Giustinal Il te, per piacere, subitissimo!'
Tom sank down weakly on the sofa, still holding the newspaper in front of him. What about the knot on Dickie's body? Wouldn't it be just his luck to have that come undone now?
'Ah, carissimo, you are so pessimistic,' Titi said, patting his knee. 'This is good news! Suppose all the fingerprints are his? Wouldn't you be happy then? Suppose tomorrow, when you are walking in some little street of Venice, you will come face to face with Dickie Greenleaf, alias Signer Fanshaw!' She let out her shrill, pleasant laugh that was as natural to her as breathing.
'It says here that the suitcases contained everything, shaving kit, toothbrush, shoes, overcoat, complete equipment,' Tom said, hiding his terror in gloom. 'He couldn't be alive and leave all that. The murderer must have stripped his body and deposited his clothes there because it was the easiest way of getting rid of them.'
This gave even Titi pause. Then she said, 'Will you not be so downhearted until you know what the fingerprints are? You are supposed to be off on a pleasure trip tomorrow. Ecco il te!'
The day after tomorrow, Tom thought. Plenty of time for Roverini to get his fingerprints and compare them with those on the canvases and in the suitcases. He tried to remember any flat surfaces on the canvas frames and on things in the suitcases from which fingerprints could be taken. There was not much, except the articles in the shaving kit, but they could find enough, in fragments and smears, to assemble ten perfect prints if they tried. His only reason for optimism was that they didn't have his fingerprints yet, and that they might not ask for them because he was not yet under suspicion. But if they already had Dickie's fingerprints from somewhere? Wouldn't Mr Greenleaf send Dickie's fingerprints from America the very first thing, by way of checking? There could be any number of places they could find Dickie's fingerprints: on certain possessions of his in America, in the house in Mongibello -.
'Tomaso! Take your tea!' Titi said, with another gentle press of his knee.
'Thank you.'
'You will see. At least this is a step toward the truth, what really happened. Now let us talk about something else, if it makes you so unhappy! Where do you go from Athens?'
He tried to turn his thoughts to Greece. For him, Greece was gilded, with the gold of warriors' armour and with its own famous sunlight. He saw stone statues with calm, strong faces, like the women on the porch of the Erechtheum. He didn't want to go to Greece with the threat of the fingerprints in Venice hanging over him. It would debase him. He would feel as low as the lowest rat that scurried in the gutters of Athens, lower than the dirtiest beggar who would accost him in the streets of Salonika. Tom put his face in his hands and wept. Greece was finished, exploded like a golden balloon.
Titi put her firm, plump arm around him. 'Tomaso, cheer up! Wait until you have reason to feel so downcast!'
'I can't see why you don't see that this is a bad sign!' Tom said desperately. 'I really don't!'