"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.