Mrs. Pargeter's Pound of Flesh by Simon Brett

rotten luck,' Kim sympathized.
    'I know, but . . . well . . .'
    ' C'est la vie ,' Kim supplied, drawing once again on her evening classes.
    'Exactly. Still, I live in hope,' Mrs Pargeter continued with spirit. 'Only ate half my portion at lunchtime today.'
    'Oh. Well done ! said Kim Thurrock.
    CHAPTER 16
    Mrs Pargeter ate her full portion dinner in the 'Allergy Room' that evening. Though still anxious about the news she was expecting from Truffler Mason, she could see no point in spoiling two meals in a row.
    Anyway, she owed it to Gaston to do justice to his Entrecfte e la Bordelaise and Creape e la Mode d'Orleans . It seemed a pity to let any of the Crozes Hermitage go to waste either. And since Gaston had cooked some petit fours specially to go with her coffee, it would have been churlish not to try them.
    In spite of her forebodings, she was in a state of excitement. At last her investigation seemed to be getting somewhere. Truffler would soon be able to tell her whether the body she had seen was that of Jenny Hargreaves.
    And then of course she was due to find out more from Lindy Galton in the Dead Sea Mud Bath unit at nine-fifteen.
    She lingered over her last petit four , checking her watch in a desultory way and waiting till she heard the nervous giggling of guests scuttling to the gym to experience their day's final humiliation at the Nine O'Clock Weigh-In.
    The sounds subsided, and Brotherton Hall was filled with a silence thick as fog, while Mrs Pargeter made her way to the Dead Sea Mud Bath unit.
    Down there, too, all was nearly silent. Only the soft swish of the rotor blade in its tank of mud provided a rhythm that gave texture to the silence.
    The lights were on, but there was no sign of anyone in the central area surrounded by the four cubicles.
    All the doors were shut. Mrs Pargeter opened one and looked in. The cubicle contained nothing but its spotlessly gleaming bath.
    The contents of the second were identical.
    The third cubicle, however, was full of Dead Sea Mud.
    It wasn't just the bath that was full. The outline of that had been lost in the brown sludge which lay thickly over the floor and oozed through the opened doorway to Mrs Pargeter's neatly shod feet.
    She moved back from the encroaching tide and looked towards the control console on the wall. The 'Fill' switch was in its 'Off' position. From the sluice at the bath's head a single stalactite of mud depended.
    Mrs Pargeter was about to turn away to check the last cubicle when she realized that there was something half-submerged in the mud.
    It took a moment to work out what it was. A small archipelago of rounded, mud-slimed promontories broke the surface. And there, against what was presumably the side of the bath, protruded something like a bedraggled marsh plant.
    A catch of horror clasped at her throat as she took in what it really was.
    A muddy hand!
    Mrs Pargeter removed her shoes and stepped forward as quickly as she dared over the treacherous surface. She felt voracious mud close over her feet, instantly penetrating her tights and squeezing obscenely between her toes. Clutching a rail and testing each footstep to keep her from plunging into the bath itself, she edged forward.
    Bracing herself with one arm against the rail she reached for the body and tried to pull it upwards. But she could get no purchase on the slimy limbs, which kept slopping back into the mud.
    At last she contrived a grip under the neck and raised the head above the surface. Mud slipped glutinously back off the features and clogged hair.
    But not enough mud slipped off to make an identification.
    Mrs Pargeter had to wipe at the filthy slime with a towel before she could recognize the face.
    Lindy Galton.
    The girl's mouth gaped open. Inside, it was full of the Dead Sea Mud that had asphyxiated her.
    CHAPTER 17
    There was a house phone in the central area with a sheet of internal numbers stuck on the wall beside it. Mrs Pargeter rang Ankle-Deep Arkwright's extension, but