“Please-who was he?”
“I’m sure you didn’t even know of him. He was an American scientist who was living in France.”
“You were right!” she exclaimed over the line. “Everything you said was true. I don’t know about the swimming part, but I bet you were right there, too.”
Tibbs noted with mild disapproval that Bob had elected to listen in.
“Linda, how is the weather out there?” he asked.
“Beautiful. I just came out of the water. I’m on the pool-side extension now. Come and take a swim.”
Bob puckered his lips and looked toward the ceiling.
“Thank you for inviting me. And when you get back to the house, I’d like to ask you to do me a favor,” Tibbs went on smoothly. “A close friend of mine would like an application for membership. A Mr. Robert Nakamura. Would you send him one in care of the Pasadena Police Department?”
“Is he a single?” Linda asked.
“No, he has a lovely wife; you’ll like her.” Tibbs’ face showed no sign of emotion. “And a son six, a daughter four.”
“That’s fine, Virgil. If they’re friends of yours, then I know we would like to have them. I’ll send you an application, too.”
Recognizing instantly that he was being flanked, Tibbs said a quick “Thank you” and hung up. “You’re in,” he said to Bob with pleasant candor.
“So are you.”
Tibbs shook his head. “I don’t think so. They don’t accept singles; you heard her. And besides-” He stopped.
The frivolity was gone.
Bob picked his words carefully. “She invited you. You didn’t even have to ask. And she called you Virgil.”
“They call everybody by his first name,” Tibbs explained, almost too quickly. “It’s a custom they have.”
On the way to Beverly Hills and on through to Bel Air, Tibbs was annoyed with himself. Linda had pulled his leg, just as he had been pulling hers. But regardless of her friendliness, and that of her family, he felt that it was one more place closed to him because of his background. The neighbors had apparently accepted the nudist park well enough, but what would their attitude be if they spotted Negro members going in and out of the gate? He remembered the applicant he had encountered on his first visit. If a Negro family were to join the club, how many others would resign in protest? There would be some, he felt sure of that.
He consulted the address slip clipped to the hot sheet and then turned in through an ornate gateway to the exclusive residential area. The winding roadway climbed slowly up toward the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, passing the elaborate mansions of the movie colony and the owners of electronics plants. Sprinkled along the curb were the neat compact trucks of the Japanese-American gardeners who maintained the carefully combed appearance of the lawns and shrubbery.
The residence of Mrs. Joyce Bachelor Pratt was a little smaller than some of its neighbors, which put it somewhere in the eighty- to one-hundred-thousand-dollar bracket. An asphalt driveway led uphill to a three-car garage and a small parking area beside the house. For a moment Tibbs contemplated leaving his car at the curb and walking the rest of the way; then he decided to drive in, as any other visitor would do.
He ignored the sign that pointed the way to the rear entrance, and pressed the button at the front door. A Negro maid answered; when she saw Tibbs, her face broke into a pleasant smile. “Yes, sir?” she inquired.
Tibbs offered his calling card. The maid glanced at it, lifted her eyebrows slightly, and opened the door wider. “Please come in, sir,” she said. As Tibbs stepped inside, she added, “I’ll see if Mrs. Pratt is at home.”
She disappeared with the card; as she walked away Tibbs noted with approval that she kept her hips still and her body straight.
Presently he heard voices from another room. He caught the words “This gentleman is calling to see you, Madam.”
He was fully prepared for Mrs. Pratt to be an impressive woman, not necessarily large, but somewhat in the grande-dame style. When she appeared, he was reminded again never to jump to conclusions. She was very small, just touching five feet, and slender enough to suggest that she did not weigh much over a hundred pounds. He had expected her to be fifty, which she obviously was despite considerable effort on her part to halt the progress of time. There was about her mouth and still-dimpled chin a certain kittenishness and the hint of a seductive pout. In her youth she had clearly been the little warm thing who was fragile, “cute,” and who offered sex potential in a compact package. Her hair was light and had been cut just short enough to frame the small features of her face.
When she saw Tibbs, she stopped dead and the half smile that had curved her mouth disappeared. “You wished to see me?” she asked, and let a trace of emphasis linger on the first word.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pratt. Yes, I would-officially.”
Joyce Pratt wrinkled her small brow and looked at his card once more. “I haven’t been in Pasadena for almost two months,” she protested.
The maid, who was standing behind her, watched Tibbs intently.
“This concerns you only indirectly, Mrs. Pratt,” he told her. “But it is necessary for me to ask you a few questions.”
The maid stepped back to enable her to invite him in.
Mrs. Pratt took her time. “Did you want to come in?” she asked in a tone that clearly suggested a negative answer.
“Thank you,” Tibbs replied, and walked in. He found himself in a living room that was half boudoir; the furniture was extremely feminine as were the many varicolored pillows scattered about and the curtains that spanned the wide windows. The painstakingly created atmosphere told him a lot about the owner and why the big man who lay in the morgue in San Bernardino had found her attractive. Her petite size and her apparent need for protection had been, and were, her stock in trade.
He turned and waited until his hostess had reluctantly followed him in. When at last she sank into a chair with studied care, he chose one end of an astonishingly soft davenport, where he could be near enough to talk easily but still far enough away to avoid any familiarity.
“Mrs. Pratt,” he began, “I understand you are a close friend of Dr. Albert Roussel’s, and a stockholder in the company that markets his patents.”
There was no femininity in her voice when she answered him; her tone was cold and sapphire hard. “I do not care to discuss Dr. Roussel. If you want to know anything about him, I suggest that you speak to him personally, if he will see you. Will that be all?”
Tibbs pushed his fingers together to give her time to understand he was not that easily dismissed. “Mrs. Pratt,” he said presently, “I dislike very much to bring you distressing news, but it may not be possible to do that.”
She looked sharply at him. “What do you mean?” She snapped the words out, hard and brittle, as though she would not allow him to tell her such a thing.
“Mrs. Pratt,” Tibbs spoke very slowly. “I greatly regret to inform you that a man closely answering Dr. Roussel’s description was found dead a few days ago. Although there has been no formal identification as yet, we believe it to be him.”
“Not the body in the nudist colony!” She almost barked the words and then pointed with obvious distaste to the morning paper that lay folded on a table.
“That is the man.”
“It’s outrageous.”
Tibbs nodded in agreement. “Murder usually is.”
They were interrupted by the maid, who appeared pushing in a mahogany cart that held an exquisite Japanese tea service on its glass top. She advanced quietly into the room and stopped beside her mistress.
Joyce Pratt turned and looked at her. “What is that for?” she demanded.
“You instructed me to prepare tea for all guests, Madam,” the maid said.
“This man is not a guest.”
The maid backed the teacart, swung it around, and left the room without looking at either of the occupants.