In a moment a handsome Negro, wearing a goatee, came striding out from the inner regions. "Hello, there," he said with a smile and an easy manner. "I'm Jack Baker." "I have an appointment with Mr. Boulanger," said Qwilleran.
"I'm your man," said the decorator. "Jacques Boulanger to clients, Jack Baker to my relatives and the press.
Come into my office, s'il vous plait." Qwilleran followed him into a pale-blue room that was plush of carpet, velvety of wall, and dainty of chair. He glanced uneasily at the ceiling, entirely covered with pleated blue silk, gathered in a rosette in the center.
"Man, I know what you're thinking." Baker laughed. "This is a real gone pad. Mais malheureusement, it's what the clients expect. Makes me feel like a jackass, but it's a living." His eyes were filled with merriment that began to put Qwilleran at ease. "How do you like the reception salon? We've just done it over." "I guess it's all right if you like lots of white," said Qwilleran.
"Not white!" Baker gave an exaggerated shudder. "It's called Vichyssoise. It has an undertone of Leek Green." The newsman asked: "Is this the kind of work you do for your customers? We'd like to photograph one of your interiors for Gracious Abodes. I understand you do a lot of interiors in Muggy Swamp." The decorator hesitated. "I don't want to seem uncooperative, vous savez, but my clients don't go for that kind of publicity. And, to be perfectly frank, the designing I do in Muggy Swamp is not, qu'est-ce qu'on dit, newsworthy. I mean it!
My clients are all squares. They like tired cliches. Preferably French cliches, and those are the worst! Now, if I could show you design with imagination and daring. Not so much taste, but more spirit." "Too bad," said Qwilleran. "I was hoping we could get an important society name like Duxbury or Penniman." "I wish I could oblige," said the decorator. "I really do. I dig the newspaper scene. It was an American newsman in Paris who introduced me to my first client — Mrs. Duxbury, as a matter of fact." He laughed joyously. "Would you like to hear the whole mad tale? C'est formidable!" "Go ahead. Mind if I light my pipe?" Baker began his story with obvious relish. "I was born right here in this town, on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks, if you know what I mean. Somehow I made college on a scholarship and came out with a Fine Arts degree, which entitled me — ma foi! — to work for a decorating studio, installing drapery hardware. So I saved my pennies and went to Paris, to the Sorbonne. C'est bien a." The decorator's face grew fond." And that's where I was discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Duxbury, a couple of beautiful cats." "Did they know you were from their own city?" "Mais non! For kicks I was speaking English with a French accent, and I had grown this picturesque beard. The Duxburys bought the whole exotic bit — bless them! — and commissioned me to come here and do their thirty-room house in Muggy Swamp. I did it in tones of Oyster, Pistachio, and Apricot. After that, all the other important families wanted the Duxburys' Negro decorator from Paris. I had to continue the French accent, vous savez." "How long have you kept the secret?" "It's no secret any longer, but it would embarrass too many people if we admitted the truth. So we all enjoy the harmless little divertissement. I pretend to be French, and they pretend they don't know I'm not. C'est parfait!" Baker grinned with pleasure as he related it.
The young lady with the ravishing face and figure walked into the office carrying a golden tray. On it were delicate teacups, slices of lemon, a golden teapot.
"This is my niece, Verna," said the decorator.
"Hi!" she said to Qwilleran. "Ready for your fix? Lemon or sugar?" There was no trace of a French accent. She was very American and very young, but she poured from the vermeil teapot with aristocratic grace.
Qwilleran said to Baker, "Who did the decorating in Muggy Swamp before you arrived on the scene?" The decorator gave a twisted smile. "Eh bien, it was Lyke and Starkweather." He waited for Qwilleran's reaction, but the newsman was a veteran at hiding reactions behind his ample moustache.
"You mean you walked away with all their customers?" "C'est la vie. Decorating clients are fickle. They are also sheep, especially in Muggy Swamp." Baker was frank, so Qwilleran decided to be blunt. "How come you didn't get the G. Verning Tait account?" The decorator looked at his niece, and she looked at him. Then Jack Baker smiled an ingratiating smile. "There was some strong feeling in the Tait family," he said, speaking carefully. "Pour-tant, David Lyke did a good job. I would never have used that striped wallpaper in the foyer, and the lamps were out of scale, but David tried hard." His expression changed to sorrow, real or feigned. "And now I've lost my best competition. Without competition, where are the kicks in this game?" "I'm thinking of writing a profile on David Lyke," said Qwilleran. "As a competitor of his, could you make a statement?" "Quotable?" asked Baker with a sly look. "How long had you know Lyke?" "From way back. When we were both on the other side of the tracks. Before his name was Lyke." "He changed his name?" "It was unpronounceable and unspellable. Dave decided that Lyke would be more likable." "Did you two get along?" "Tiens! We were buddies in high school — a couple of esthetes in a jungle of seven-foot basketball players and teen-age goons. Secretly I felt superior to Dave because I had parents, and he was an orphan. Then I came out of college and found myself working for him-measuring windows and drilling screwholes in the woodwork so David Lyke could sell $5,000 drapery jobs and get invited to society debuts in Muggy Swamp. While I'd been grinding my brain at school and washing dishes for my keep, he'd been making it on personality and bleached hair and — who knows what else. It rankled, man; it rankled!" Qwilleran puffed on his pipe and looked sympathetic.
"Dites donc, I got my revenge," Baker smiled broadly. "I came back from Paris and walked away with his Muggy Swamp clientele. And to rub it in, I moved into the same building where he lived, but in a more expensive apartment on a higher floor." "You live at the Villa Verandah? So do I." "Sixteenth floor, south." "Fifteenth floor, north." "Alors, we're a couple of status-seekers," said Baker.
Qwilleran had one more question. "As a competitor of David's, and a former friend, and a neighbor, do you have any educated guesses as to the motive for his murder?" The decorator shrugged. "Qui sait? He was a ruthless man — in his private life as well as in business." "I thought he was the most," said Verna. "Vraiment, chrie, he had a beautiful facade, but he'd cut your throat behind your back, as the saying goes." Qwilleran said, "I've never met anyone with more personal magnetism." "Eh bien!" Baker set his jaw, and looked grim. "Well, I'll probably see you around the mausoleum," said the newsman, as he rose to leave.
"Come up to the sixteenth floor and refuel some evening," the decorator said. "My wife's a real swinger in the kitchen." Qwilleran went back to the office to check proofs, and he found a message to see the managing editor at once.
Percy was in a less than genial mood. "Qwill," he said abruptly, "I know you were not enthusiastic about taking the Gracious Abodes assignment, and I think I was wrong in pressing it on you." "What do you mean?" "I'm not blaming you for the succession of mishaps per se, but it does seem that the magazine has been accident- prone." "I didn't like the idea at the beginning," said Qwilleran, "but I'm strong for it now. It's an interesting beat." "That thing last night," said Percy, shaking his head. "That murder! Why does everything happen on your beat?
Sometimes there are psychological reasons for what we call a jinx. Perhaps we should relieve you of the assignment.