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Gauthier pulled a flat drawer from his cabinet against a wall. ‘Here they are. And you like the Rembrandt, as I recall.’
    Tom did. Derwatt zinc white and other Derwatt-made colours were available, too, their tubes emblazoned with the bold, downward slanting signature of Derwatt in black on the label, but somehow Tom did not want to paint at home with the name Derwatt catching his eye every time he reached for a tube of anything. Tom paid, and as Gauthier was handing him his change and the little bag with the zinc white in it, Gauthier said:
    ‘Ah, M. Reepley, you recall M. Trevanny, the framer of the Rue St Merry?’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ said Tom who had been wondering how to bring Trevanny up.
    ‘Well, the rumour that you heard, that he is going to die soon, is not true at all.’ Gauthier smiled.
    ‘No? Well, very good! I’m glad to hear that.’
    ‘Yes. M. Trevanny went to see his doctor even. I think he was a bit upset. Who wouldn’t be, eh? Ha-ha! – But you said somebody told you, M. Reepley?’
    ‘Yes. A man who was at the party – in February. Mme Trevanny’s birthday party. So I assumed it was a fact and everybody knew it, you see.’
    Gauthier looked thoughtful.
    ‘You spoke to M. Trevanny?’
    ‘No – no. But I did speak to his best friend one evening, another evening at the Trevannys’ house, this month. Evidently he spoke to M. Trevanny. How these things get around !’
    ‘His best friend ?’ Tom asked with an air of innocence.
    ‘An Englishman. Alain something. He was going to America next day. But – do you recall who told you, M. Reepley?’
    Tom shook his head slowly. ‘Can’t recall his name and not even how he looked. There were so many people that night.’
    ‘Because —’ Gauthier bent closer and whispered, as if there were someone else present. ‘M. Trevanny asked me, you see, who had told me, and of course I didn’t say it was you. These things can be misinterpreted. I didn’t want to get you into trouble. Ha!’ Gauthier’s shiny glass eye did not laugh but looked out from his head with a bold stare, as if there were a different brain from Gauthier’s behind that eye, a computer kind of brain that at once could know everything, if someone just set the programming.
    ‘I thank you for that, because it is not nice to make remarks which are not true about people’s health, eh?’ Tom was grinning now, ready to take his leave, but he added, ‘M. Trevanny does have a blood condition, however, didn’t you say?’
    ‘That is true. I think it’s leukemia. But that is something he lives with. He once told me he’d had it for years.’
    Tom nodded. ‘At any rate, I’m glad he’d not in danger. A bientôt, M. Gauthier. Many thanks.’
    Tom walked in the direction of his car. Trevanny’s shock, though it may have lasted just a few hours until he consulted his doctor, must at least have put a little crack in his self-confidence. A few people had believed, and maybe Trevanny himself had believed, that he was not going to live more than a few weeks. That was because such a possibility wasn’t put of the question for a man with Trevanny’s ailment. A pity Trevanny was now reassured, but that little crack might be all that Reeves needed. The game could now enter its second stage. Trevanny would probably say no to Reeves. End of game, in that case. On the other hand Reeves would approach him as if of course he was a doomed man. It would be amusing if Trevanny weakened. That day after lunch with Heloise and her Paris friend Noëlle, who was going to stay overnight, Tom left the ladies and wrote a letter to Reeves on his typewriter.
    March 28, 19—
    Dear Reeves,
    I have an idea for you, in case you have not yet found what you are looking for. His name is Jonathan Trevanny, early thirties, English, a picture-framer, married to Frenchwoman with small son. [Here Tom gave Trevanny’s home and shop addresses and shop telephone number.] He looks as if he could use some money, and