Numerous coffee droplets littered the sketch of a second floor. The section corresponded to his latest commission: a three-wing neoclassical mansion. His client, Oswell E. Spencer, wanted a country house that, in addition to a vacation home, would serve as a meeting center or headquarters for his business conglomerate. He told him, when he visited him in his New York office, not to be afraid to be predominantly quality, that he would pay all the bills himself.
Spencer struck him as a likeable individual with a strong English accent and a flamboyant way of speaking. He was very interested in art and architecture and had a long conversation with him about his manor house in Essex, The Spencer Estate, which was rightly built by one of his favorite architects. Over tea, Spencer asked him about Jessica, his wife, and Lisa, his daughter, an unusual concern in this kind of meeting. He told him that Jessica worked at a law firm and that Lisa was in elementary school. When he questioned Spencer about the same, he was evasive, assuring him that he had not yet found the right partner. At the end of the evening, the interested party advanced him a check for one hundred thousand dollars for the plans. An exorbitant amount, much higher than his caché. However, as soon as he received instructions on how to proceed with his work, he understood the underlying meaning of the gesture.
For an unknown reason, out of recklessness or on a whim, Spencer ordered him to integrate a series of traps into the mansion, each one more incredible than the last. Surprise turned to strangeness and strangeness to indifference as he progressed and received the owner's approval. Checks for fifteen thousand dollars for each correctly designed trap arrived in the mail from his office as an incentive. He was never told why or what for, but he avoided questioning the British aristocrat's judgment. With what he earned, he would have enough to move to Chicago and enroll Lisa in an expensive jet-set school. He dreamed of buying a new car and traveling with Jessica in Asia.
He reworked the layout of the side corridor in the east wing, next to the main entrance. The difficult terrain, atop a hill in the Arklay Mountains, forced him to discard a number of unrealistic ideas.
Leaf turning. Second floor. Checked the correctness of the stroke. Adjusted the size of a room next
to the dining room. Checked that the width of the partitions was correct.
Last sheet. Basement. Confirmed that the access stairway and elevator were properly fitted.
It struck him as odd that Spencer did not ask him to add a garden. In any case, it was indifferent to him.
He hung the three papers on a cork board.
"I've got it."
He clenched his fists in triumph.