Five pieces of jade

CHAPTER 3

In a tight agony of desolate grief Yumeko sat very still; her eyes were closed so that she could at least partially shut out the world that surrounded her. Misery was nothing new to her; she had known it most of her life because of who and what she was, but all of the buffeting she had endured had not been suflBcient to prepare for her what confronted her now. The one brief happiness she had known had been the time she had spent in Mr. Wang's house, for he was the only person who had been truly kind to her. Now it was all over, finally and completely, because Mr. Wang was dead.

And by the hand of a murderer.

This final chmactic cruelty made her want very much to bring her own life to an end. She had nothing whatever to look forward to, not even the expectation of a smaU amount of normal happiness such as is granted to most people- for a little while at least. Because there was no one else to mourn Mr. Wang she knew that she would have to remain alive at least long enough to see that his memory was properly revered and that aU of the things necessary to insure his complete happiness in the following world were attended to. After that, if she could rejoin him it would represent her dearest wish.

One of the policemen who had answered when she had called in after her terrible discovery squatted down beside her. After an awkward moment of nothingness he laid his hand on top of hers. "I'm terribly sorry. Miss Wang," he said.

His words were painful to her because she wasn't Miss Wang, but she understood that he was attempting to be kind. She opened her eyes and nodded to acknowledge his sympathy.

"I'm afraid," he continued gently, "that we won't be able to move your father for just a little while. Someone is coming-to help. After he has been here, then well take care of everything."

Yumeko struggled to find her voice. "Thank you."

"It won't be very long."

Yumeko had no idea how long it actually was. A blessed numbness took the sharp edge off reality, and the closed draperies before the front window shielded her from the unwanted waning sunlight. She was vaguely aware that someone else did come into Mr. Wang's house, but what had once been an event was no longer of any consequence. Again she was stabbed by the thought that she could no longer serve him and announce his callers.

Outside the rear room Virgil Tibbs hstened quietly while Barry Rothberg, the uniformed officer who had first answered the summons, fiJled him in. "We got the caU just under an hour ago. Apparently there were only two people living here, the victim and his daughter, who discovered the body. She's still here. Badly shocked, I'd say-no one's tried to question her yet."

"Any other witnesses?"

Rothberg shook his head. "None that we know of. Chief McGowan himself passed the word that nothing was to be disturbed until you got here. By which I take it that this one is all yours."

"It looks that way,'* Virgil said. Then he entered the room where the dead man lay on the floor. Calmly, and quite deliberately, he first looked around him at the display cabinets filled with their rare treasures, then at the thick, tightly closed draperies which entirely blocked out the windows. He noted the rich red carpeting and then, the preliminaries over, he gave his full attention to Mr. Wang as he lay in death in the midst of what had been his cherished possessions.

Before he came any closer to the body, Tibbs knelt down and with the palm of his hand tested the ability of the carpeting to hold any kind of a footprint His finding was negative; the pile was of a weave that would betray nothing. That determined he took a step or two forward and carefully studied the bizarre sight before him.

Mr. Wang lay on his back with his hands at his sides as though he had assumed that position voluntarily. His face, while vacant, was almost serene; even his unflinching eyes appeared to be fixed on something of their own choosing. In the center of the room there was a small sturdy table which was draped with a piece of black velvet; a tiny spotlight set in the ceiling directed a pencil of light down toward its center. Between the table and the display cases on the right-hand side of the room the body of Mr. Wang rested at an angle of approximately thirty degrees to the wall. Two of the jade cabinets were open, although they gave no external evidence of having been forced. Their contents were only slightly disturbed. From their resting places on the glass shelves four of the jades had been removed and placed on the floor; they sat in a rough semicircle, two on each side of the head of their late owner. One more piece of jade had also been taken from its display position; the Ya-Chang ritual knife protruded obscenely, and with deadly finality, from the left-hand side of Mr. Wang's chest.

Virgil studied the scene for some time, standing quietly still in one spot, his right hand slowly massaging the underside of his chin. When he had satisfiewi himself he bent over the body where it lay on the floor and studied it carefully. Behind him Agent Floyd Sanderson waited patiently; he had seen Virgil work before and he knew enough not to interfere.

"What did the doctor say?" Tibbs asked.

"Not a great deal; he pronounced him dead and fixed the time of death as of about four or five hours ago."

Virgil took hold of one lifeless hand and flexed the arm slightly. Then he asked another question without looking up. "Has the air conditioning been on?"

"I'm not sure, Virg," Sanderson answered. "Perhaps the girl can tell you. From the feel of things when we arrived here, I'd guess not."

Tibbs nodded. "I think you're right; it's quite warm in here."

He continued his inspection of the body of the dead man, dropping down on his knees to do so, but being very careful in his movements not to disturb the jades that had been placed on the rug. "How about pictures?" he asked.

"Already taken, both black-and-white and color. No prints yet, though-he's on his way."

"Good. He may be here a while. These pieces could have been chosen at random, in which case others may have been handled too. Do you see any reason for this kind of a display?"

Sanderson shook his head. "It beats me; I've never encountered anything like it before."

"Neither have I, except in the second act of Tosca. I have a suspicion that there may be a lot more here than is visible right now. Two or three things don't fit."

"Such as?"

Tibbs got back to his feet. "I'm not sure of anything yet. Give me time."

He turned as the fingerprint man came into the room. **I don't envy you this job," Virgil said, then looked around him. "There must be close to a hundred and fifty pieces in those cabinets."

The fingerprint expert set his kit down on the small center table. "You want me to do them all, Virg?" he asked.

Tibbs reconsidered. "Why don't you examine the pieces in the unlocked cabinets. Leave the locked ones as they are. Later on, if there's a need, you can check the others."

"Good idea." Opening his kit the identification specialist prepared to go to work. He laid out some camel's hair brushes, several bottles of assorted kinds of black powder, and rolls of extra-wide Cellophane tape.

Satisfied that for the moment there was nothing more for him to do in the room, Virgil looked again at Sanderson. "You mentioned a girl," he said.

The sergeant gestured. "His daughter, I believe. She's in the front parlor. One of the boys tried to talk to her, but she was up pretty tight."

Virgil nodded. "I'll see what I can do. Keep things under control, will you?" He turned and reentered what was the dining room. It was done in excellent taste; the furniture had about it a casual suggestion of the Orient but it was subdued so that the beauty of the teakwood had a full opportunity to reveal itself. Tibbs ran his hand over the back of one of the chairs and confirmed the fine workmanship. Mr. Wang had not been a man who had sacrificed everything else to expand and develop his jade collection; clearly he had been a person of substantial means and with a fine appreciation of the good things of life.

The draperies hung at the windows were partly open, but their weight and texture again gave evidence of Mr. Wang's obvious love of privacy. Chinese were a rarity in this section of Pasadena and it was a possibility that Mr. Wang had preferred to keep his presence as inostentatious as possible. Under the window there was an aquarium in which a number of exotic fish swam lazily about. The whole atmosphere of the room was one of tranquillity, a place where food could have been consumed to the accompaniment of enlightened and even brilliant conversation. At that moment Tibbs wished that he might have had the privilege of dining with Mr. Wang. It would have been an event. 20

That conclusion reached and disposed of, he walked quietly across the fine carpeting and entered the hving room.

The girl who sat there looked up at him as he came in, but with eyes which had been dulled by shock and pain. After perhaps a second they changed and a certain hardness appeared, a hostility which was not necessarily directed against him, but perhaps at what he stood for and represented. He did not understand it until he looked a little more closely at the girl herself. Then he knew that she was not the daughter of Mr. Wang.

Without waiting to be asked to do so he sat down, choosing a chair close enough to talk comfortably with the girl, but not so close that he intruded either on her privacy or her grief. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, human, and considerate. "I am terribly sorry to have to disturb you at a time hke this."

It took the girl a few seconds to react to his words; he understood this and waited. Then she answered him. "It is all right."

Virgil studied her without appearing to do so. "I know that Mr. Wang was your very dear friend. May I ask your name?"

The girl came to life enough to brush her black hair away from her face. "My name is Yumeko Nagashima." It was left as a simple statement of fact.

"You are Japanese, then."

She looked at him steadily, almost reproachfully, for a long moment. "You know what I am," she said. "You have eyes and you should know. I am ainoko."

Tibbs did not know that word, but he was fairly sure that he could guess its meaning. "You were bom in Japan?"

"Yes."

"How long ago?"

She answered the question without feeling. "I have twenty-six years."

"Are you married?"

"No."

"May I call you Yumeko?"

"If it is your wish."

"Where did you learn English, Yumeko?"

"In school. In Japan."

"Your English is excellent. My Japanese is limited to just a few words."

"It is not necessary that you leam." There was a tinge

of contempt in that, only a very slight hint, but Virgil caught it and it shaped his next question.

"Are you a teacher?"

"No."

He relaxed deliberately and shifted his tack a little. "My karate sensei tells me that I should leam Japanese."

"You are karatekaV That was what he wanted, some initiative from her, no matter how limited.

"Shodan desu," he said. That was a measurable percentage of his total Japanese vocabulary.

Her eyes widened slightly at that and the dullness receded a little. "You are black belt?"

"Yes."

"You have certificate from Japan?*'

"Yes."

That halted things while she studied the man who sat near her and reevaluated him in the light of her new knowledge. "You are policeman?" she asked finally. It was a rhetorical question which provided another opening.

"Yes, I am. Yumeko, what does ainoko mean?"

She let her head dip until she was looking at her fingers in her lap. "It is translated 'love child.' My mother and my father did not become married He was a U.S. GI." She looked up and met his eyes fuUy. "His name I do not know; my mother would never tell me. But he was a black man- like you."

Tibbs looked at her and read again the story of her ancestry. Her eyes were unmistakably Oriental, her nose sUghtly flattened, her skin dark enough to be clearly Negroid. And he knew without being told the hell that her life so far had been. He at least was a member of a specific group. The whites had largely despised him in the Deep South, but amongst his own fellows he had found companionship and full equality. This girl, he knew, would be rejected by the Japanese, and the sensitive Negro community would have none of her. She was Japanese and she was not; she was Negro and she was not. Only in such places as Jamaica, Brazil, or possibly Hawaii would she be likely to find others like herself or else full disregard of her mixed origin.

Yumeko began to speak again, almost as if she were doing penance. "My mother was a lovely lady; she was married and had two sons-my half brothers. Then in the war her husband was killed. When it was over and the GIs came, we were starving. She could find no work, for she was a housewife, not a business person. But because she was beau-22

tiful, many Americans wanted to shack up with her. She did this so that my brothers could have food and a place to live. Later, when I was bom, my father had already leaved. He did not know."

"Your mother is in Japan now?"

Yumeko shook her head with finality. Virgil guessed at the truth and diverted her to another topic. "Mr. Wang was your benefactor?" he asked.

The girl swallowed hard and then forced herself to reply. "He was my life," she said simply. "For a little time he gave me happiness. I would do anything for him-anything."

Tibbs understood that in the way that it was meant. "Did he bring you to this country?"

Yumeko nodded. "I was of small service to him when he was in Japan. He wished an interpreter and he was willing to accept me. When he found out-the conditions of my life-^he made offer to me to come and keep his house for him. As you say, without strings. Within the months that I was here with him I found for the first time what it is to be happy.** Quite simply, without preliminaries, she broke down into silent tears.

Virgil waited until she began to recover, then, silently, he handed her a clean handkerchief. She took it and wiped her eyes. There had been times when others had refused that accommodation from him. "Do you have any other friends here?" he asked.

Yumeko answered by shaking her head.

"I believe that I can arrange for someone to look after you."

Again the girl shook her head; then she spoke. "I wUl care for myself," she said.

"You can be comfortable here?'*

^'Yes.'*

"Then in that case I would like to ask you not to leave until we know a little more than we do now. We may need you to help us." He put it that way in order to give her something to hang onto; to provide a bit of moral support. When her first surge of grief passed, she might well become completely unstrung.

"Before I go, Yumeko, may I ask just a few more questions?"

She nodded.

"Mr. Wang was, I take it, a man of considerable wealth.*'

"I do not know."

"Let me put it this way: did Mr. Wang have any business activities that you know of?"

"Yes," she said. "He sold jade."

That cast a new light on the matter. "Then all of the pieces that I saw were not his private collection-they were his stock in trade-is that right?"

Yumeko composed herself and tried to sit a little straighter in her chair. "Mr. Wang sold jade and he received visitors here who wished to buy. But not all of the pieces were for sale. Some he would sell, others were his own- treasures. Sometimes people came just to look. He would allow this, when he knew the person who asked."

"Mr. Wang was an authority on jade, I take it."

"Yes, he was very very wise. And very honest. When he receive a carving that was false jade, he would not sell it. Once when a man wanted one very much, Mr. Wang said that he sold only genuine stones and gave it to him instead. And he was a rich man who came to buy."

"When was this, Yumeko?"

"It was yesterday."

Tibbs took out his notebook. "Do you remember the name of the man?" he asked.

Once more she nodded. "Yes, it was Mr. Donald Washburn."