The Cool Cottontail

chapter 16

The warm, radiant California sun hung in high glory in the sky and presented the land underneath with a day that not even the native sons could exaggerate. The weather was so splendid that Mrs. Mary Agnew forsook the usual isolation of her rural living room and seated herself on her front lawn, where she could be certain of missing no detail of what went on.

When a conspicuously marked police car drove quietly past, her heart took a quick leap; at long last they were going to raid that nudist colony down the road! She was disconcerted that there was only one car, but it was a beginning. She hoped with a devout passion that they would drag out that blond girl, screaming, and take her away to the city to be a public spectacle.

Mrs. Agnew had a mind shaped like a keyhole. For many years now she had devoted her life almost exclusively to the relentless scrutiny of everything within her range of vision. It was her tightly locked secret that though she had never been married, she had borne a child at eighteen; from that moment she had dedicated herself to learning everything possible about the faults of the rest of mankind. To her the existence of nudists, not only on the same planet but within a mile radius of her chosen home, was almost unbearable. She literally lived for the glorious day when hordes of official vehicles would descend upon the evil place and the fate of Sodom would be re-enacted. The police car gave her a quickened hope and she leaned forward to listen-to hear, if possible, if it would turn into the driveway of That Place.

To her exquisite delight, it did.

Mrs. Agnew, contrary to her usual form, had missed a detail: she had not seen the person behind the wheel. If she had, her inventive mind would have conjured up incredible possibilities concerning his presence at the nudist resort. Mrs. Agnew coughed, and remembered that she had forgotten to take her digitalis.

Virgil Tibbs drove smoothly through the S turn and parked the police car in a corner of the big lot nearest the house. As he got out and stood for a moment in thought, he heard the bright optimism of the unseen birds in the trees and, from the direction of the pool area, the laughing, splashing sounds of children in the water.

He began to walk toward the converted farmhouse and encountered Carole; he had to look twice to recognize her in clothes.

“Hello, Virgil,” she said, and rushed up to make him welcome.

“Hello, Carole.” He held out his hand. The soft pressure of her fingers did not reopen the pain of his raw knuckles and he suddenly felt peaceful and very much at home.

“I made Linda promise I could meet you,” Carole confided. She walked close beside him to the door of the big kitchen. Forrest Nunn met them at the steps and greeted him warmly.

“Thank you,” he said simply, “for what you did for my son.” Perhaps it was the intonation of “my son” that made his few words eloquent.

“I’m glad I was there,” Virgil answered. Between the two men there was no need for more explanation.

Emily was just inside the door and to Tibbs’ surprise there were tears in her eyes. She took his scarred hands in her own. “Virgil, what can I say to you?” she asked.

“George did fine,” he said casually. “I came along in time to finish up the job, that’s all.”

Emily shook her head from side to side and pressed her lips together. “Do come in,” she murmured. It was all she could say.

There was quite a group in the kitchen. Ellen Boardman was there, sitting next to George at the table; apart from the bandage on his forehead and the strap of adhesive tape across his nose, he looked quite normal.

William Holt-Rymers sat, clad in sandals and the briefest of swim trunks, before a littered ash tray and a cup of coffee.

Only Linda was missing, but in a sense she was there, too. In the corner of the room, easel-mounted, there was an un-framed canvas that had captured in oils and brush strokes such glowing and brilliant light that it seemed to be radiant. In the painted greens, yellows, and browns of the grove of trees near the pool there was beauty and serene power, but they were eclipsed by the radiant likeness of the head and shoulders of Linda. She seemed to be transformed into some exalted symbol of all young womanhood, from her clear-blue unafraid eyes to her firm, beautifully formed breasts. It was a wonderful picture.

Virgil turned to Holt-Rymers. “It’s magnificent,” he said.

The artist shrugged. “You catch murderers,” he said. “I paint.”

“Linda is down at the pool teaching the junior swim class,” Carole said. “She’ll be up any time now.”

Virgil looked once more at the picture in admiration. He would have given everything he possessed to be able to create a thing of beauty like it. No photograph could do what the portrait did; no film could create the things that Holt-Rymers had put in the painting.

“We’ll be ready as soon as Linda is through and dressed,” Emily said. “It won’t take her long. Please have some coffee.”

Virgil sat down and accepted the hospitality. “How are you feeling, Miss Boardman?” he asked.

Ellen reached out and laid her slim hand on his. She took pride in remembering what the heavier, stronger, now badly bruised hands had done for her.

The door opened and Linda came in, walking briskly and rubbing a towel behind her ears. Virgil glanced at Ellen to see how she would take Linda’s nudity, and read no reaction at all.

“Virgil!” Linda stopped and looked at him, and he was afraid of what she might say. “Why can’t all men be like you?”

In his whole lifetime no one had ever said such a thing to him before. He dropped his head as his throat went tight and dry. He forgot the attractive girl who stood nude before him; he forgot the others who were there, and remembered only that in one fleeting fragment of time he had been judged as a man and had not been found wanting.

He was for those few seconds no longer a Negro: he was not of any race; he was simply a human being who had managed to do something well.

It was one of the greatest moments of his life. He looked at his sore hands, relaxed, and then came back to earth.

“Thank you,” he said, and hoped she would understand.

Emily did. “Why don’t you get dressed,” she said to her daughter, “so we won’t keep Virgil waiting too long?”

Linda shook her blond head. “I can be ready in two minutes,” she exaggerated. “But if Virgil is going to tell us how he found out, and how he learned what he knew, I don’t want to miss a word.”

“Please,” Ellen said.

Carole arrived at the table with a cup of coffee and one of Emily’s home-baked sweet rolls. “Would you rather have iced tea?” she asked.

Virgil wanted very much to say yes, but remembered that the coffee was already poured and that he was a guest. He hesitated for only a moment, and Carole, with the perception of an adult, ran for the refrigerator. Linda hurried from the room.

“I’m sorry we don’t have any cold beer to offer you,” Forrest apologized. “Unfortunately it’s taboo in nudist parks.”

“Iced tea would be wonderful,” Tibbs answered.

The iced tea was provided. Virgil added lemon and sugar, stirred, and drank deeply. He was content just to sit with these agreeable people and enjoy one of the few periods of true relaxation he had known in many days.

In a short time Linda was back, dressed and with a hairbrush in her hand. “O.K.,” she said, and sat down to listen.

Virgil found that everyone was looking at him.

“I promised you an explanation because you are entitled to one,” he began, “but I’m afraid it won’t be very dramatic.”

Forrest spoke to his younger daughter. “Carole, this won’t be very interesting for you, so you can go down to the playground if you would like.”

“Must I?” Carole asked.

“I think it would be a good idea.”

Clearly disappointed, Carole slid off her chair and exited through the doorway to the big lawn. When she was gone, Forrest looked at Tibbs once more and indicated that he should go on.

“You all know the start,” Virgil said. “The body of the late Dr. Roussel was found in your pool entirely stripped except for a set of contact lenses. That looked like a promising clue, but when I ran the lenses down, they led straight up a blind alley. After Miss Boardman mentioned her uncle’s absence, an alert police officer picked it up and we had our first break.”

“Please call me Ellen.”

“Good, I’d like to. To continue, as soon as the identification was positive, several things became apparent, or appeared to do so. One of them was the fact that the death of Dr. Roussel-if you will forgive me, Ellen-seemed to be directly connected with the affairs of his holding company, as indeed it was. This focused our attention on the four surviving stockholders; normally murder takes a pretty strong motive, and a large sum of money comes under that heading.”

“Not to everyone,” Linda interjected.

“True, but of course everyone doesn’t commit murder. All we had to go on at this point, other than what I’ve already told you, was the fact that the body was placed here in the pool to attract attention-in other words, so that it would be widely reported in the papers. That was a guess, but it was the only thing we could think of that fitted the facts.”

“Was that actually so?” Forrest asked.

“Only in part. Right from the beginning there was a major problem and it stopped us for a long time. In this section of the country it would have been much safer to get rid of the body down one of the wild canyons in the mountains; putting it into your pool was far more dangerous, so there had to be a reason. And then where were the clothes and other personal effects?”

“I can think of one thing,” Emily contributed. “And Linda has mentioned it, too. As you must know, Virgil, there are still a lot of people who can’t stand the idea of nudist parks because it runs against their own prejudices. Maybe somebody wanted to get at us and took that horrible way of doing it.”

“No,” Tibbs answered. “Your logic is fine, but there are two possibilities here and you are only considering one of them.”

“What’s the other?” Linda demanded.

Tibbs paused a moment. “You wanted to be a detective and you started out well,” he replied. “Now, see if you can figure it out. You’ll have a few minutes before we come to that part.”

He took another drink from his iced tea.

“The next important item,” he continued, “came from a well-known source-Shakespeare.”

“William Shakespeare?” George inquired, smiling.

Virgil nodded. “Do you remember in Macbeth the moment when the news is brought of the king’s death? Instead of being shocked and grieved by the news, Lady Macbeth said, ‘What, in our house?’-and gave herself away right there.”

Ellen said, “‘Look to the lady:-

“‘And when we have our naked frailties hid,

“‘That suffer in exposure, let us meet,

“‘And question this most bloody piece of work.’”

Tibbs looked at her with admiration.

“I played in it once-in college,” she explained. “Please go on.”

“As part of the routine investigation, I called on Mrs. Pratt-as it happened, at a time when the news of Dr. Roussel’s death was not yet out. That is, the identification of the body found on your premises had not been made public. When I informed Mrs. Pratt that her long-time friend and claimed fiancé was dead, she said, ‘Not the body in the nudist colony!’ and Lady Macbeth came into my mind. Not only that, she named the right body in the right place, which was a most unlikely thing to do, especially since Dr. Roussel’s arrival in this country had not been announced.

“Naturally that focused a good deal of my attention on that little lady. She is physically far too small to have committed the crime herself, but I was certain at that point that she had some measure of what we call ‘guilty knowledge’ concerning it. Either she had something to do with it directly or she knew something about it that she had no intention of revealing.”

“So you pegged her on the first visit?” Holt-Rymers asked.

“Somewhat, but of course a suspicion is far from proof. Also, to be truthful with you, I didn’t quite swallow her story that she and Dr. Roussel were to have been married. If she was his intended bride and was therefore in love with him, she wouldn’t have described him as ‘the body in the nudist colony’-the words were simply too cold and hard.”

Ellen shuddered slightly, but said nothing.

“The next break came when I had a short talk with Mr. McCormack’s chauffeur, Walter Brown. It was purely accidental; I didn’t know that Brown existed when I went to see his employer. He was washing the car and we spoke briefly. During the course of that conversation he told me that his employer was terribly upset because a close friend of his had been killed in a nudist camp. That was a dead giveaway, since he would have no way of knowing that unless Mr. McCormack was involved and had told him, and I felt certain that wasn’t so unless they both were guilty. I checked carefully and the identification had not been made public at that time.”

He turned to Holt-Rymers. “Perhaps you remember telling me when I called on you that you’d just heard the news over the radio. I checked on that, and also your statement that it hadn’t appeared in the morning paper. I verified your story and convinced myself that you weren’t putting on an act for my benefit.”

“Heaven help us sinners.” The artist uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. “Couldn’t the chauffeur have heard an earlier broadcast? I mean, aren’t you cutting the time a little fine here?”

Tibbs shook his head. “Actually the news broke for the first time publicly while I was at lunch. But there is another consideration entirely that drew my serious attention to him: if he had just found out, he wouldn’t have put the information so casually. There is a way we speak of things we have just learned and a very different one when we refer to things that are no longer new. He spoke in the manner of someone who has known a certain fact for some while. That was what impressed me at the time.”

“In other words, he didn’t tell it as fresh news,” Forrest suggested.

“Exactly. In this business you have to look for things like that. Essentially there are two steps in resolving any case. First you have to find out what happened; then, after that, you have to assemble enough proof to secure a conviction in court. It isn’t always the same thing. I couldn’t expect to convince a jury by describing Brown’s manner of speech, but for finding out what happened it was very useful.”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t think I would want your job, Virgil,” she said.

“‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,’” Tibbs quoted. “Now let me fit some pieces together for you. Of the four surviving stockholders in the Roussel Rights Company, two were well established financially and the other two were in desperate, or near-desperate, circumstances. Walter McCormack was clearly secure, but I checked his rating just the same. I also checked up on your statement, Bill, concerning the number of pictures you sold and the price they netted to you.”

“I don’t think I want to know you any more,” Holt-Rymers said. “You’re too dangerous to have around.”

Tibbs smiled a little grimly. “Not if you’re telling the truth,” he said. “And you were. In a murder case you can’t afford to take anything for granted. Which brings us to Mr. Peterson, the broker. Unfortunately for him, he was in a jam all the way around. He had lost most of his clients through giving them bad advice and his business was in serious trouble. In addition, he’d had an affair with his secretary, and when she told him that she was pregnant, he panicked. He gave her a partial settlement out of what he had left and then hurried off to Europe to see Dr. Roussel.”

“Why do people get so mixed up?” Emily asked.

“They do, all the time,” Virgil said. “At least they keep policemen from being unemployed.”

“He went to Europe, then, to try and dispose of his stock?” Ellen asked.

“More or less. According to the terms of the agreement among the partners, none of them could sell without common consent. However, Peterson hoped that Dr. Roussel, being a bachelor and living in Europe, might be sympathetic about his situation. He knew he would have no chance with Walter McCormack, but he thought that Dr. Roussel might be willing to advance him a substantial sum against the sale of the company-something he strongly advised.”

“And badly,” Holt-Rymers added.

“Is he married?” Linda asked.

“Yes, but his wife is suing him for divorce.”

“Then there was only one thing for him to do: let his wife divorce him in Reno and marry the girl he got into trouble,” she said.

Tibbs looked at her and shook his head. “Marrying under those circumstances seldom solves anything, particularly if you consider marriage as something more than a legal convenience. Anyway he couldn’t. She was already married-to a serviceman overseas.”

“Good night!” Forrest said.

“Agreed,” Virgil went on. “And when you add all of these things together, you can see why Peterson might have been in a frame of mind to attempt murder. He had motive and he is a big, powerful man, which made him a definite possibility. However, from the strictly legal standpoint all he had done that was unlawful was to have an affair with a consenting adult. He had plenty to worry about, but from a police point of view he wasn’t in very deep. Also if the company had been sold, most of his difficulties would have been solved for him.”

“How about the girl?” Linda asked.

“She went down to Mexico for a vacation. While there, she had a slight accident and lost her child. Enough about Oswald Peterson. Now, on to Mrs. Pratt.”

“No, thank you,” Holt-Rymers muttered.

“Quiet,” Linda retorted.

Virgil sipped his iced tea.

“Mrs. Pratt is a woman of insane vanity; her whole history proves it. Originally she turned down Dr. Roussel because at that time he couldn’t provide her with enough money. Then she married an older man who could. She was diminutive and ‘cute,’ so that to certain men she was very appealing; she cashed that asset like a traveler’s check. When she was widowed, she was left in very comfortable circumstances-enough to keep her well for the rest of her life. But that wasn’t enough for her, so she planned to remarry-and again to the highest bidder. To accomplish this she bought herself a very expensive and costly-to-maintain home and worked her way into society. If she could find herself a new husband in ample circumstances, fine; if not, she was sure that Albert Roussel still desired her and he was now making lots of money.”

“She should have grabbed him,” George commented.

“Don’t wish that on Uncle Albert,” Ellen said a little tartly.

“Sorry,” George apologized.

Virgil continued, “She splurged far beyond her income and didn’t receive the romantic returns she expected. She was certainly no longer young and some of her less desirable traits of character were beginning to show through. So when her money began to run out, she wrote to Dr. Roussel and more or less put herself on the block. He turned her down.

“Hurrah!” Ellen said. “One question-how did you find this out?”

“I had quite an extended telephone conversation with her maid. Normally I don’t believe she would have told me this, even if I had asked her officially. But there was a small incident: Mrs. Pratt embarrassed her when she made tea for me during my first visit. Also she was told that I was not to be considered a guest in the house, either because of my profession or, more likely, my race. This did not set well with that young lady, so when the subject came up in our little talk, she told me about it. Of course Mrs. Pratt has very few secrets from her maid, who lives in.”

“I would think not,” Emily agreed.

“Now come the beginnings of murder,” Virgil continued. “She was a woman scorned. This was her prime and basic motivation; to a person of her vanity, having her supposed long-time suitor refuse her hand when it was freely offered was insufferable. It was a gross humiliation and her overdeveloped ego demanded revenge.”

“Hell has no fury like a woman scorned,” Linda said.

“Perhaps that would not have driven her all the way to murder,” Tibbs went on, “but other things piled up. She was well aware that her appeal to men as a prospective bride was all but gone. She was desperate for more money. And, despite the fact that Albert Roussel had declined to marry her, she was still firmly convinced she was his heir, at least in part. When the company was organized, he was grateful for her support and told her that she would never lose by backing him. He offered to put up what assets he had at the time. She suggested to him that a legacy might be more appropriate, just in case something happened to him. This information came to me from his lawyer, who convinced him not to follow that suggestion.”

“I understood that a client’s conversations with his attorney were privileged,” Forrest said, making it a question.

“That’s correct,” Tibbs agreed. “But this was not the same thing. In this case the client had been murdered and I appealed to Mr. Wolfram to help me bring the persons responsible to justice. He was not required to answer me, but he chose to do so.”

“I see,” Forrest acknowledged. “One more thing, Virgil: do people ordinarily go to the extreme of murder just for revenge? In Italian operas, yes, but I find it hard to believe.”

“That’s because you’re a decent and well-adjusted person,” Virgil answered him. “But how many times have you picked up a newspaper and seen something that began with the words ‘estranged husband’? Unfortunately it’s a too familiar pattern. A husband and wife break up; after the separation the woman starts seeing another man. The estranged husband bursts in on them, does some shooting, and often ends up by killing himself.”

“Of course!” Linda interjected.

“As far as money went, she still owned the stock,” George pointed out.

“Yes, she did. But she couldn’t sell it. Dr. Roussel opposed the sale of the company and had told her so.”

“I’m beginning to see,” Emily said. “With Dr. Roussel out of the way, she might be able to force the sale. She probably knew about Peterson and his troubles.”

“That’s right.”

“Wait a minute,” Ellen said. “Suppose she believed that the money in the estate would go to Mother-that is, the cash and assets like that-but that Uncle Albert would have left her the stock-for what she did for him. It would be very logical. In that case she could force the sale and take in twice as much.”

Tibbs nodded slowly. “I had the same thought. I can’t prove it’s right-not without a confession-but I’m sure of it just the same.”

Linda took over. “She knew McCormack’s chauffeur and got him-somehow-to do her dirty work for her.”

“That’s a little too fast,” Tibbs said. “Basically you’re right, but it isn’t that simple. It begins with the fact that Brown at one time was a decent enough man. He worked for Mr. McCormack for a considerable time. I learned that when he described the late Mrs. McCormack to me and said that she had died some time before. He was much better off than he realized; despite a limited education he had steady employment, a comfortable place on the estate to live, and, like all the members of Mr. McCormack’s household, he had been generously remembered in his employer’s will. He was to have received a legacy of two thousand dollars for each year of continuous service, which is a lot more than most people are able to save. He didn’t know that, but he should have realized that since his employer had no visible heirs, he would very likely be liberal toward those who had served him faithfully. But he didn’t reason this out and I guess McCormack’s attitude toward his staff was not encouraging.”

“Do you know what got him off the track?” Forrest asked.

Tibbs hesitated. “Unfortunately I do. Part of it is due to the fact that he is a Negro and part of it is due directly to the scheming of Mrs. Pratt. Like myself, Brown came originally from the Deep South and his people are still down there. When the racial demonstrations first hit the place where he had lived, his only sister took an active part in a local biracial committee which was working toward peaceful equality-that is, until she was seized by some local white degenerates and raped. When Brown learned of this, he promptly joined one of the most militant of the Negro radical groups, and within a short time he built up a considerable hatred of Caucasians. He went so far as to take the club’s full course in street fighting-and, believe me, it’s a good one.”

Virgil shook his head; when he went on, his voice was in a lower key, and flatter. He was simply reciting facts.

“Mrs. Pratt knew Brown because Mr. McCormack, who is handicapped, seldom leaves his home and he frequently sent his car for her when there was business to discuss.”

“I can verify that,” Holt-Rymers contributed.

“Once or twice Brown had invited out Mrs. Pratt’s maid, who is a most respectable young lady. In telling me about it she informed me that Brown was among those arrested in the Watts riots which took place in the summer of 1965 in Los Angeles. She learned of it through a Negro newspaper; when she saw Brown’s name and photograph, she told her mistress about it to caution her. That’s what actually started things off.”

Virgil stopped and finished his iced tea. Linda promptly refilled his glass and then looked at him with lifted eyebrows.

“Knowing what she did about Brown, Mrs. Pratt dealt one off the bottom of the deck,” he said. “She told him that her people had once lived in the South and that she herself was one-sixteenth Negro-which, thank heavens for my people, was a lie-and that when she had told Dr. Roussel of this, he had broken their engagement and refused to marry her.”

“Of all things!” Linda exploded.

Tibbs drank some tea and continued. “When she had Brown thoroughly enraged at this supposed insult, she offered him a substantial sum of money to arrange some sort of ‘accident.’ Each time Dr. Roussel had visited the States in recent years, Mr. McCormack had sent his car to the airport to meet him, since they were very close friends. She gave Brown five hundred dollars in advance, by check, and wrote on it ‘for landscaping.’

“Wasn’t that plain stupid?” George asked.

“Of course it was, but she had the idea that when the check came back from the bank, she would be able to hold it over Brown’s head forever. She didn’t know, or had forgotten, that all checks which go through the clearinghouse are photographed. Anyway, I saw it before it was returned to her. It surprised me very much, so I got in touch with the gardeners’ association and found out who takes care of her place. I have a statement from him that no one else has worked on the property for some time.

“I’ll make the rest brief, if I may. Brown’s recent hatred of Caucasians, which was prejudice in direct reverse, was inflamed by the Watts affair and fanned even more by his belief that Dr. Roussel had refused to marry Mrs. Pratt because of her supposed Negro blood. He was well trained in violence and ready to act. Then Mrs. Pratt pushed him even farther, and it was her undoing. I have explained that she was a woman scorned-a vicious, arrogantly egotistical, totally undisciplined, and spiteful woman-who wanted revenge and demanded it in spades. When the Western Sunbathing Association held its annual convention here, you got a great deal of publicity, as you know. That gave Mrs. Pratt her idea. She not only wanted Dr. Roussel killed; she wanted his body specifically left on your grounds.”

A look of comprehension came over Linda’s face. “The other possibility!” she exclaimed. “It wasn’t to embarrass us; it was to reflect on him!”

“Yes, but it took me quite some time to figure that one out. Brown went along with it because he thought that in a nudist resort any unwanted bodies would be disposed of without a word said. He supposed that you lived on the wrong side of the law.”

Forrest slowly shook his head. “That’s one of the things Comstock did to this country,” he said quietly.

George had been thinking. “The body being nude, it took a lot longer to identify, which probably cut down the risk. I’ll bet he got rid of the clothing and whatever luggage there was in one of the canyons. If he’d done the same thing with the body, we might not have found it yet.”

“I agree,” Tibbs said. “If we obtain a confession-and I think we will-then we’ll get Brown to show us the spot so we can recover the evidence.”

“One question more,” Linda cut in. “How did he explain Dr. Roussel’s non-arrival to Mr. McCormack?”

“That’s a very good point,” Virgil complimented her. “Brown had planned a simple story. He had been directed to pick up Dr. Roussel at the airport and to drive him to his sister’s lodge in the mountains. Since the plane was due in from Europe at a very late hour, he decided to say that the doctor had hesitated to disturb his sister and her family after midnight and had asked instead to be dropped in front of a hotel in San Bernardino. Of course Brown would have been expected to obey any such instructions. He planned to say that he had done as requested-had dropped the doctor in front of the hotel and had then returned home. At that hour there would be no doorman; he was quite sure of that. It could not be held against him that there were no witnesses. Certainly it was not a very good fabrication, but its simplicity gave it some merit and it would have been very difficult to disprove. He would be interrogated very closely, but he’d had experience with the law and he was confident that nothing could be proved against him.”

“Lie detector?” Holt-Rymers asked.

“The subject has to volunteer and the evidence obtained can’t be admitted in court if it tends to establish guilt. Which is something to remember: if you are ever wrongly accused of a crime, ask at once for a polygraph test. Most police departments have one. We do. A suspect who does this is almost always innocent. If the machine establishes that he is speaking the truth, then for all practical purposes his worries are over.”

“Thank you. That’s useful to know. But go on.”

“As it worked out, Brown never told his story. The flight was delayed and came in after Mr. McCormack had retired. Brown took the call from the airport and, as instructed, went down. After his return he had the car refilled with gas, put it away, and was never asked for an explanation. I suppose McCormack thought Dr. Roussel was at his sister’s. Brown debated telling his employer that he had picked up Dr. Roussel, but since he seemed to have got an unexpectedly good break, he decided to say nothing. He could always claim later that he had assumed Mr. McCormack knew. He sensed his proposed explanation was a little thin, and not having to use it seemed a good deal safer. In that he was right.”

Ellen sat still, her hands in her lap. She was quiet for a long time; then she sighed and looked up.

“Thank you-Virgil,” she said.

“You’re very welcome,” he answered. “It was only my job.”

In a few minutes the atmosphere began to clear. The dark shadows of murder yielded to the intense California sunlight that seemed almost to be burning sharp designs through the windowpanes and onto the floor. The singing of birds penetrated into the kitchen and Carole, somehow aware that she was now permitted, slipped quietly back into the room.

Ellen stood up and looked down at the others. “You’ve all been a comfort,” she said. Bill Holt-Rymers, who had been watching her for some time, grinned and then made an announcement.

“I shall paint you,” he declared in a voice that allowed of no discussion.

Ellen glanced at the portrait of Linda and hesitated. “Can you do pictures-with clothes on?” she asked.

“I can,” Holt-Rymers replied. “But my heart isn’t in it. Still-”

Virgil glanced at his watch. “Since we have an appointment with Captain Lindholm-” he began.

“I’ll take Ellen in my car,” George volunteered. “You’ll have a full load.”

“I’m staying, if you don’t mind,” Holt-Rymers said as he rose to his feet. “I’m getting allergic to clothes on hot days, and I have work to do.”

He walked to the easel and took down the portrait. Carrying it carefully by the edges, he handed it to Virgil. “Yours,” he said.

“I can’t accept-” Tibbs began.

“Yes, you can. This time I got the drop on you. I phoned Chief Addis, and he approved. Your picture, as a token of my appreciation.”

Virgil took the valuable canvas between his hands and looked at it unbelievingly.

“It’s not an accident,” Linda said. “We wanted you to have it. I sat for it and Bill painted it. Of course what he did was far more than I could do, but it’s for you anyway.”

“I …” Virgil Tibbs ran out of words.

“It might look quite nice in your office,” Holt-Rymers suggested. His face gave no clue as to whether he was serious or not.

Virgil assumed that he was. “It’s to your credit that you don’t know much about police stations,” he said. “At the office I’m supposed to get some work done. With this wonderful picture on the wall, I’d have no privacy. If it’s really mine, then please may I put it in my apartment.”

“Then it’s for your apartment. You pay for the frame. Cheers.”

Carrying the exquisite portrait, Virgil walked with the Nunns to the parking lot. He put Emily and Linda in the back of the official car and entrusted the picture to their care. Then he assigned Carole to the middle of the front seat and asked Forrest to sit on the right. George took Ellen in his own car and prepared to follow.

Tibbs started the engine, drove out of the grounds, and turned westward toward Pasadena. “This won’t be an ordeal,” he assured his guests. “There will be a few formalities and that’s all.”

“I want to ask something,” Forrest said from across the seat. “Now that Ellen isn’t here, why was an attempt made on her life? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Virgil glanced in the mirror and saw that George and Ellen were following at a safe distance. “Because she was due to inherit the estate Mrs. Pratt was after. Brown learned all about it when he drove Mr. McCormack out to see her. If something happened to Ellen before she formally inherited, then Mrs. Pratt saw herself as next in line. Her vanity is such that she couldn’t believe Dr. Roussel wouldn’t remember her generously, and affectionately.

“As for Brown,” Virgil said, “he wanted the money he had been promised, and what he thought was revenge against the whites who had insulted his people. So there you have it.”

When they reached Highway 66, it amused Forrest to note how the motorists suddenly went on their good behavior as soon as they saw the police car. Virgil drove calmly, largely in the right-hand lane, and stayed carefully within the shifting speed limits. Soon he and Forrest dropped into a conversation about the final third of the baseball season, and Carole became excessively bored. In the back seat Emily and Linda rode in silence, the painting on the seat between them. The thing was over now, but the shadows it had cast refused to go away entirely. Emily looked out the window and lost herself in thought.

They passed Santa Anita, moved along the foothills, and crossed Sierra Madre Villa. Then Virgil picked up the microphone, spoke with it close to his lips, and after a moment replaced it in the clip.

Reaching under the dashboard, he flipped a switch; a red light on the panel went on. In the light traffic he picked up speed until the car was doing a little under forty. Then he hit the siren.

Carole came immediately and fully to life. Ramrod straight she sat up in the seat, her eyes aglow. “Are the red lights on?” she demanded.

“They are,” Tibbs answered. “When I make a promise, I keep it.”

“Oh, golly!” Carole cried.

“With permission,” Virgil answered, largely for her father’s benefit.

A red traffic light loomed ahead. The commanding voice of the siren held traffic motionless while Tibbs expectly cut to the left around the stopped cars and then pulled back onto the right side. In full Code 3 condition the police car moved down Colorado Boulevard.

Linda leaned forward and looked at her little sister’s glowing face. “Can we do this again sometime?” Carole asked.

“The next time you help me catch a murderer,” Virgil answered her.

“I’ll try,” she promised eagerly.

For her the shock of all that had happened was over.

Virgil smiled a little grimly. With sharp professional skill he swung around a minor street excavation, straightened out the car once more, and headed down the famous street into the center of the city he called home.