Tom Buchanan's confession in this chapter makes it clear that he is responsible for Jay Gatsby's murder. When the two meet, Nick is reluctant to take his hand and when Tom asks about it, Nick tells him :
You know what I think of you.
Tom tells him that he's crazy and that he does not know what is wrong with him. At this point Nick asks him:
what did you say to Wilson that afternoon?
Nick is referring to the day after Myrtle Wilson's death. Tom replies without a hint of remorse or regret:
“I told him the truth, ... He came to the door while we were getting ready to leave, and when I sent down word that we weren’t in he tried to force his way up-stairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn’t told him who owned the car. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute he was in the house ——” He broke off defiantly. “What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car.”
By implicating Jay, Tom set in motion the events which led to his death'
Mr Wilson had been very distraught after Myrtle had been run over and killed by Daisy. He had an idea that Myrtle was having an affair and had told Michaelis the following:
“I told her she might fool me but she couldn’t fool God. I took her to the window.”— with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it ——” and I said ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’”
Just before this, Wilson had shown Michaelis the dog leash that Tom had bought Myrtle for the puppy he had purchased for her in New York. This convinced Wilson that he had been cuckolded. However, he did not know who it was his wife was with. He had expressed his suspicions about who had killed his wife though, by telling Michaelis:
“I’m one of these trusting fellas and I don’t think any harm to nobody, but when I get to know a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn’t stop.”
Wilson suspected that he was the same man Myrtle had been seeing. When he confronted Tom Buchanan he wanted to know who had been driving the yellow car and Tom had given him all the details. Once Wilson knew who he thought it was, he went on an enquiry and on discovering that it was Jay Gatsby, he went and shot him.
It is not entirely clear whether Daisy had confessed to Tom that she had actually killed Myrtle and that he then decided to lie about it to protect her or whether Daisy had been dishonest and denied responsibility. All we know is the following that Nick witnessed soon after the accident:
Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of cold fried chicken between them, and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.
They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale — and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.
If Daisy had lied to Tom, then she is, in fact, responsible for Jay Gatsby's death.
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