Ripley's Game Read Free

that some ten days later, on 22 March, Jonathan Trevanny, who lived in the Rue St Merry, Fontainebleau, received a curious letter from his good friend Alan McNear. Alan, a Paris representative of an English electronics firm, had written the letter just before leaving for New York on a business assignment, and oddly the day after he had visited the Trevannys in Fontainebleau. Jonathan had expected – or rather not expected – a sort of thank-you letter from Alan for the send-off party Jonathan and Simone had given him, and Alan did write a few words of appreciation, but the paragraph that puzzled Jonathan went:
    Jon, I was shocked at the news in regard to the old blood ailment, and am even now hoping it isn’t so. I was told that you knew, but weren’t telling any of your friends. Very noble of you, but what are friends for? You needn’t think we’ll avoid you or that we’ll think you’ll become so melancholy that we won’t want to see you. Your friends (and I’m one) are here – always. But I can’t write anything I want to say, really. I’ll do better when I see you next, in a couple of months when I wangle myself a vacation, so forgive these inadequate words.
    What was Alan talking about? Had his doctor, Dr Perrier, said something to his friends, something he wouldn’t tell him? Something about not living much longer? Dr Perrier hadn’t been to the party for Alan, but could Dr Perrier have said something to someone else?
    Had Dr Perrier spoken to Simone? And was Simone keeping it from him, too?
    As Jonathan thought of these possibilities, he was standing in his garden at 8.30 a.m., chilly under his sweater, his fingers smudged with earth. He’d best speak with Dr Perrier today. No use with Simone. She might put up an act. But darling, what’re you talking about? Jonathan wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell if she was putting up an act or not.
    And Dr Perrier – could he trust him? Dr Perrier was always bouncing with optimism, which was fine if you had something minor – you felt fifty per cent better, even cured. But Jonathan knew he hadn’t anything minor. He had myeloid leukemia, characterized by an excess of yellow matter in the bone marrow. In the past five years, he’d had at least four blood transfusions per year. Every time he felt weak, he was supposed to get to his doctor, or to the Fontainebleau hospital for a transfusion. Dr Perrier had said (and so had a specialist in Paris) that there would come a time when the decline might be swift, when transfusions wouldn’t do the trick any longer. Jonathan had read enough about his ailment to know that himself. No doctor as yet had come up with a cure for myeloid leukemia. On the average, it killed after six to twelve years, or six to eight even. Jonathan was entering his sixth year with it.
    Jonathan set his fork back in the little brick structure, formerly an outside toilet, that served as a tool shed, then walked to his back steps. He paused with one foot on the first step and drew the fresh morning air into his lungs, thinking, ‘How many weeks will I have to enjoy such mornings?’ He remembered thinking the same thing last spring, however. Buck up, he told himself, he’d known for six years that he might not live to see thirty-five. Jonathan mounted the eight iron steps with a firm tread, already thinking that it was 8.’2 a.m., and that he was due in his shop at 9 a.m. or a few minutes after.
    Simone had gone off with Georges to the Ecole Maternelle, and the house was empty. Jonathan washed his hands at the sink and made use of the vegetable brush, which Simone would not have approved of, but he left the brush clean. The only other sink was in the bathroom on the top floor. There was no telephone in the house. He’d ring Dr Perrier from his shop the first thing.
    Jonathan walked to the Rue de la Paroisse and turned left, then went on to the Rue des Sablons which crossed it. In his shop, Jonathan dialled Dr Perrier’s number, which he knew