Chin Soo spoke behind him. "I was coming to help," he said, "but you did not require it."
"You did your bit," Tibbs answered. He was aware at that moment that he had dropped his own gun; he started to reach for it, but Chin picked it up and handed it to him. "Ill watch them," he added. "Turn on the porch light, please."
Chin turned toward the door. "I believe your friends are already here," he stated; within a few seconds he was back with Sanderson and Gamer close behind him.
"We have some customers," Virgil announced dryly. "Take them in and book them for breaking and entering, armed robbery, and resisting arrest. They may not understand English, so take Mr. Soo here with you to act as interpreter."
The two police agents expertly applied handcuffs to their prisoners and reUeved the second of them of a gun concealed under his left armpit. They waited patiently until their charges were once more able to get onto their own feet, then Gamer took the first one by the arm. "Will you please come with me, sir," he said, and steered him toward the door.
Chin turned. "I do not desire to leave," he declared. 154
"I understand," Tibbs said, "but please do. I'll look after things here for a little while."
Still Soo hesitated. "The one who comes next will be the most dangerous, I think. And your face is bleeding,"
"I am fully prepared," Virgil answered. "You will be needed to translate. Those two must have their rights explained to them."
Chin scoffed, but remained silent on that point. "Very well," he conceded, and followed Sanderson, who was already out of the front door.
It was quiet then in the house. Yumeko gave no evidence of her presence upstairs, although she could not have failed to have heard the noise and the smashing impact when the man Tibbs had thrown had hit the floor. At least she knew how to obey orders.
Calmly Virgil picked up the boxes and in two trips restored them to their approximate positions in the jade room. Then he picked up the tiny flashlight that one of the men had dropped and tested it. It still worked very weU within its limitations, which suited him perfectly. He snapped off the light, then went to the front door and made sure that it was stiU unlocked. After that, with the aid of the miniature light he went into the jade room and closed the door behind him. Between two of the display cabinets there was a single chair; he pulled it out and placed it against the far waU where he would have free movement, but still be out of a direct line from the door. He sat down with a sense of gratitude for a few minutes of semicomfort and respite, but he did not aUow himself to be deluded into a false sense of security. He could not afford it. He had enough now on the two Chinese strong-arm types to take them out of the picture for a considerable time and after that they would probably face deportation. But that did not by any means complete his case. So he sat quietly in the darkness and waited, surrounded as he knew by an invisible wonderland of some of the most exquisite art objects to be found in the world- and something better than a hundred pounds of one of the most deadly addictive drugs known to man. The contrast was not lost on him, and as he thought he reflected on the fact that the attempted theft had been aimed at the crys-aUine evU and not at the almost inhumanly beautiful and intricate jades that represented a fortune in themselves.
He sat for more than three quarters of an hour, alone with his thoughts, wondering why things shaped themselves the way that they did, until he heard a slight sound. A
single person had entered the front door, but this time the carpeting muffled any indications of further movements. Virgil sat very still, his hands in his lap, his breathing steady and even. He remained that way when the door to the jade room opened and someone came invisibly inside, and he was ready when without warning the room lights came on. He could not help squinting because he had been in the dark for so long, but otherwise his composure was unruffled.
"Good evening, Mr. Harvey," he said.
He had to admire the way in which the stock trader accepted the shock. He hardly turned a hair. "Good evening, Mr. Tibbs. What brings you here at this hour?"
"I was waiting for you, sir."
"I see. My coming here xminvited is a legal infraction, of course."
"Yes, it is."
For a second Harvey weakened enough to draw a very deep breath and then let it out slowly. "I am a gambler, Mr. Tibbs," he said finally. "I gambled that you had been fully satisfied."
Virgil remained seated, and said nothing.
The seconds passed through the room in slow precision as neither man changed his position, or spoke. Then, finally, Harvey broke the silence. "Why did you wait here for me like this?"
"Because I needed proof. I was quite confident that you would gamble."
"Are you placing me under arrest?"
"Yes, I am."
"On what charge?"
"For the moment, breaking and entering."
"All right," Harvey said. "I see no need to prolong the agony. Can we go now?"
Tibbs rose to his feet. "Before we do, I would like to ask you just one question."
"Yes?"
Virgil looked at the rich red carpeting for a moment and then up again. "I would like to know why you drove that jade stone knife into Wang Fu-sen's chest, when you thought that he was already dead."
CHAPTER 16
Bob McGowan looked up from his desk to acknowledge the man who stood in the doorway of his oflBce. "Come in, Virgil," he invited, and put down the pen that was in his band.
VirgU Tibbs had a sheaf of paper in a folder. "I have the information you wanted on the Chinese narcotics production," he said.
McGowan waved him to a chair, then came from behind [lis desk to join him in the social comer of his office. "I'd like a briefing," he declared. "I'm going into a meeting early this evening where the topic is likely to come up." He relaxed and prepared himself to listen.
Virgil consulted his notes. "Very well, sir. Starting in 1951 the communist Chinese began carrying forward a very aggressive program of illicit narcotics production, including beroin, which, as you know, is purely a drug of addiction tvith no known medical value whatever. In very round figures communist China has about one quarter of the world's population but does less than one percent of the international trade. As a means of developing more foreign exchange, and also weakening potential enemies, they capitalized on the growing market for drugs."
He turned to another page in the papers he was holding. "There are now factories for the production of heroin and other narcotics at Peking, Tientsin, Dairen, Mukden, Chinchow, Kupehkow, Yenki, Shanghai, Hankow, Chungking, Kunming, and a number of other major cities. Within China these plants are known as 'special products processing factories.' During 1970 they produced more than ten thousand tons of illicit drugs which were exported to the free nations through Cuba, North Vietnam, North Korea, Albania, and a number of African nations."
"Did you say ten thousand tonsT McGowan asked.
"Yes, sir, that's the figure. Do you want some more?"
"Please."
Tibbs went back to his notes. "According to Kao Hsiang-kao of the Institute of International Relations, this trade reached a volume of approximately eight hundred million dollars annually as of 1970. Of course some of this was intercepted; in 1969, which is the latest report available, the authorities in Hong Kong confiscated more than five tons of opium, two hundred and fifty pounds of morphine, and three hundred and ten pounds of heroin, all from communist China. That's only one port, of course, and there's no way of telling what percentage of the total shipments this represents. What gets through is very specifically aimed at certain nations, and we top the list."