Mrs. Pargeter's Pound of Flesh Read Online Free PDF Page B

one.'
    Mrs Pargeter did not give an inch, and stayed silent.
    'Surprising, I suppose, that it doesn't happen more often,' Ankle-Deep Arkwright floundered on. 'Presumably for an anorexic girl, there is a kind of logic about it. You're obsessed with losing weight, so you book into a health spa to lose more.'
    'I'm not sure that that's how it'd work. Anorexics rarely draw attention to their condition. It's something very private for them, something whose existence a lot of them won't even admit.'
    'Well . . . Well . . .' He looked lost. 'Clearly in this case the girl's mind worked differently. Listen, Mrs P' – pleading had now been replaced by begging – 'it's very important that we keep what's happened to ourselves. I mean, it could be absolutely disastrous for business if –'
    Mrs Pargeter cut through all this. 'What's the girl's name?'
    'Jenny Hargreaves. Well, that was the name on the things I found in her room. I went up there this morning to check the place out.' He hastily remembered something else. 'And Jenny Hargreaves was of course what she registered under, so I can only assume it was her real name.'
    'You're positive it was only yesterday that she did register?'
    'Of course I am! Really, Mrs P – don't you trust me or something?' He thought better of giving her time to answer the question. 'I can show you the records. Our registration system is all computerized.'
    He went through to the reception area and returned almost immediately with a couple of sheets torn off a computer printout. These he thrust towards her. 'Look, Mrs P, there you are – Jenny Hargreaves checked in at six-forty yesterday evening.'
    The details were undeniably printed out. 'Why is the credit-card reference blank?' asked Mrs Pargeter.
    There was an infinitesimal pause before Ankle-Deep Arkwright replied, 'Not everyone pays by credit card. We accept cheques – or even old-fashioned cash,' he added with an unsuccessful attempt at humour.
    'Hmm . . .' Mrs Pargeter still looked at the print-out in front of her. 'Her address is a college in Cambridge.'
    'So . . . ?'
    'I'd've thought Brotherton Hall was rather an expensive place for a student, wouldn't you?'
    Once again, Ankle-Deep Arkwright just shrugged.
    'Mason de Vere Detective Agency.'
    The voice was terminally lugubrious and immediately recognizable.
    'Truffler. It's Mrs Pargeter.'
    'Oh, how wonderful to hear you,' he said, in the tones of a man who'd just received a ransom demand for his favourite and only daughter. Truffler Mason's manner had been gloomy back in his days of working for the late Mr Pargeter, and when, following his beloved boss's death, he moved into a more publicly acceptable area of private investigation, the gloom had gone with him.
    'What's with all this answering your own phone, Truffler? Haven't you got any staff?'
    'Had to let them go. There is a recession on, you know,' Truffler Mason replied, sounding a little more cheerful now he had something genuinely depressing to talk about.
    'Enough of a recession for you to have time to do a little investigation for me, Truffler?'
    'Doesn't need to be a recession for that, Mrs Pargeter. Recession, boom-time, any time, you know you have only to ask. Anything. Honestly, when I think of all the things the late Mr Pargeter done for me –'
    'Yes, yes. I do appreciate your saying that, Truffler . . .' And she did. It was just that she had heard it so many times before.
    'So what is it then?' he asked, suddenly businesslike. 'You haven't got yourself involved in another murder, have you, Mrs Pargeter?'
    'No. Well, at least I'm fairly sure I haven't. I have got myself involved in an unexplained death, though.'
    'Where are you calling from?'
    'Brotherton Hall, don't know if you know the place. It's a health spa.'
    'Oh? Unexplained death at a health spa . . . I say, that sounds as if someone's been wasted ,' he said from the even deeper gloom which signified that he was telling a joke.
    'You don't know how horribly near the truth