After the death scene is cleaned up the final conclusion of police investigators is simply that George Wilson had been a madman. His suspicions about Myrtle being involved with another man are cast aside since Catherine swears that no such thing ever occurred. Nick Carraway remains the one man still faithful to Gatsby since he had understood him so well. He tries to call Daisy to tell her about his death only to find that she and Tom have abruptly packed their bags and disappeared without leaving a date of their return. Next he tries to talk to Wolfsheim although this man too is quite inaccessible. At last he sends the butler off to his office bearing a letter to explain about Gatsby's murder, uncertain of what else to do. He persists in feeling a loyalty and allegiance to the dead man. Had he not taken responsibility of arranging the funeral and informing his associates of Jay's death there really was no one else who would have, tragically enough despite the hundreds that had been in attendance at his parties. Wolfsheim replies to his letter stating that he is unable to assist Nick in these matters due to his busy schedule and that he has no information concerning the whereabouts of Jay's family. An odd business call comes to the house, which Nick answers and hears a man mutter something about "bonds over the counter." The man hangs up on Nick after he tells the man he is not Gatsby and that Gatsby is dead.
The shady business Gatsby had been involved with at the time seems to involve something with bonds, ironically the same profession Nick is in. His work had been honest after turning down an opportunity to become a part of whatever illegal dealings Jay and Wolfsheim had been involved in.
A turning point comes at last after receiving a message from Jay's father, Henry C. Gatz in Minnesota. He comes at once to attend the funeral, a sparse old man full of nervousness after seeing the news of his son's death reported in a Chicago newspaper. After viewing Gatsby's body Mr. Gatz becomes more interested in exploring the expanse of the house since "He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendor of the hall...his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride." Chapter 9, pg. 168-9. He talks about how ambitious his son had been and what a great man he would have become had he not been slain at such an early age. His son had always liked the East best, he said, since it was there that he had earned all of his wealth and had even bought Henry's home in Minnesota for him. Despite Jay's efforts to disguise his meager family history, he nevertheless had felt some connection or he would not have gone so far as to buy his father a house. Mr. Gatz was a simple man and Nick did not see any need to inform him of the complications with Daisy or about the illegal means by which his money was earned, but rather let Gatz enjoy the pride he felt for his son.
That evening another phone call is received, this time from Klipspringer, who had lived in the mansion for awhile as Gatsby's guest and played the piano for him and Daisy the afternoon of their reunion. Klipspringer calls not to pay his respects but instead to request that a pair of shoes he had left at the house be mailed to him. He says must miss the funeral to go to a picnic with some friends instead. Disgusted, Nick hangs up on the man. Having heard nothing more from Meyer Wolfsheim and unable to reach him via the telephone, he goes himself into New York City to see him at his office. A secretary insists that he is in Chicago, although Nick hears him moving about in the next room. After Nick mentions Gatsby's name, she quickly informs her boss of this guest.
Taking Carraway into his office, Meyer discusses Jay's potential, much like Mr. Gatz had done, declaring that he himself had been responsible for making Jay so successful. He recalls the first days they had spent together when they had met on Forty-third Street. However, Meyer, as Gatsby's closest friend, is still unable to attend the funeral: "'When a man gets killed I never like to get mixed up in it in any way. I keep out. When I was a young man it was different...I stuck with them to the end....Let us learn to show friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead...." Chapter 9, pg. 173. He sees the good times he spent with Gatsby when he had been living as enough, and does not perceive simply showing up at a man's funeral to be such a great testament of friendship. Like Mr. Gatz, he has taken an accepting, accustomed view of death.
Returning to West Egg, Mr. Gatz speaks more about Jay's childhood and the pride he felt for his son. He pulls out a wrinkled picture of the mansion he had sent to him - revealing that despite attempts to conceal that he had any family still living, Gatsby had nevertheless remained in contact with his farm family. Next a tattered copy of Hopalong Cassidy is pulled from a pocket with writing dated September 12, 1906 listing resolutions and a schedule the young Gatsby - then called James Gatz - had tried to adhere to. Even at an early age he had tried to remodel his personality. The old man lingers upon those words written in the book even though it is over fifteen years old and the boy who had written them had already lived to be a man and died. After all of his grand plans to remodel himself to be better, his obsession with Daisy had begun and he began to improve himself to be more attractive to her. Regardless of the obvious love and pride his father felt for his son, Jay saw fit to pretend his father was dead because of his low social class. But it is his father and not Daisy who has come to say good-bye in the end.
The funeral procession begins during a heavy rain shower, similar to that of the day Jay and Daisy had their reunion at Nick's home. There is only Mr. Gatz, Nick, a minister, Gatsby's servants and the postman from West Egg in attendance. Surprisingly, Owl Eyes is mysteriously already waiting at the cemetery as they arrive. Daisy still had sent nothing to pay her respects, not even a message or a flower. "The poor son-of-a-bitch," Owl Eyes laments upon seeing the small group of people.
Nick relates an experience of his childhood, at what a welcome and comforting feeling it had always been to head home to the Middle West on a train after being away:
"That's my Middle West...the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark....I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house....I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all - Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life." Chapter 9, pg. 177
Nick leaves Long Island and West Egg at the end of summer with the winter quickly approaching. He returns to what is comfortable to him, to his home and his family. Tom and Daisy too had left, Gatsby had died, and Wilson and Myrtle had planned to move West before their deaths. There remains only Jordan Baker whom Nick meets before his departure to close things up, just as he had put closure on his dealings with the girl in the West before pursuing Jordan. She expresses only disappointment in him and offense at his coldness to her during the last phone conversation. Jordan, too, had not attended the funeral. She claims she is engaged to be married which Nick doubts and nor does he feel badly since he's tired of this entire group of people in the East. The disconnection he has felt throughout the book finally consumes him and, willing to bear it no longer, he turns back again. Nick runs into Tom Buchanan on the street in New York and shows to him only contempt, blaming him for Gatsby's death. It was to his home at East Egg that Wilson had run off in search of the station wagon's owner. Tom insists that George was in a maddened state of mind and that he himself would have been killed had he not given Gatsby's name. Nick does not forgive him but rather understands his reasoning.
Nick spent his last days in the East thinking about that summer and the wild parties next door , though Gatsby's mansion is now emptied and dead and its lawn is as long and ragged as his own. There is a sense of loss intermingled with a joy about the past, even as he packs up his car to head back West. Before leaving, he wanders down to the beach at night where Jay had gazed out across the bay at Daisy's green light. Carraway is suddenly overwhelmed with the same feelings of memory that had so filled the head of Wolfsheim, Mr. Gatz, and even Gatsby himself.
His mind wanders to think of the first settlers of that place on Long Island and of what their dreams and hopes for the continent of North America must have been when it seemed so new. Daisy's problem was that she had done it all, seen it all, and Gatsby's problem was similar, of having had too many experiences so that there was little left to discover. Nick turns westward again, homeward, bound for new things. In leaving he himself glances backwards and recalls the image of "Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock....his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him." Chapter 9, pg. 182. Nick concludes by divining that "tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And one fine morning ----- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Chapter 9, pg. 182. Gatsby and all the rest carry the same deficiency, hoping to reclaim something that was lost at some point in the past. Nick ends his story with these words after reliving each moment of that summer back in 1922, when he had been a next door neighbor to the great Jay Gatsby.
