She shivered. “Probably.”
He stopped abruptly in front of the room markedparaffin bath. “Put the briefcase down.”
“Gladly. But what’s wrong?”
“A lot of energy. Different people, I think. But it’s a few hours old.”
Simon twisted the knob and pushed the door inward. He swung the beam around the room. Apparently satisfied that it was empty, he moved inside.
“There’s a bathtub in here,” he said.
Lyra came to stand in the doorway. “There’s a reason they call it a paraffin bath, you know.”
Simon aimed the flashlight into the tub. “Looks like someone decided to take a late-night bath.”
“What?” Lyra took a few steps into the room. She stared down into the tub. “Dear heaven.”
A full-sized wax figure of a woman reclined in the tub.No, not a wax statue,she thought.A woman shroudedhead to toein hardened paraffin.
Comprehension iced her nerves.
“Murder,” she whispered.
Simon studied the paraffin-shrouded body. “I can’t make out her face.”
“Paraffin baths are one of the treatments offered here,” Lyra said. She gazed at the body in the tub, shaken. “They’re supposed to soften the skin. Earlier today I declined that particular therapy, along with the mummy wrap.”
“Any idea who she is?”
“I’d have to peel the paraffin off her face in order to try to identify her. I really don’t want to do that.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to touch the body. She’ll be discovered in the morning by someone on the spa staff. If we report this tonight, there’s a high degree of probability we’ll land at the top of a list of suspects. We can’t afford to get tangled up in a murder investigation. We’ll lose too much time trying to talk our way out of it.”
“Agreed,” Lyra said. “Finding Raina is our first priority. Wait. Point your flashlight at her again.”
Simon did so without comment. Lyra took a cautious step toward the tub and forced herself to take a closer look at the victim. The hardened paraffin had formed a thick white shell over the entire body, including the head. The woman appeared to be nearly nude, but there was a chunky beaded necklace around her throat.
Lyra got a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Miss Frampton, the woman who gave me the facial treatment today—the one who did Raina’s facial—wore a necklace of violet Bakelite beads that was the same shape and size as that necklace. She said it was a gift from Madam Guppy, a reward for selling the most products last month.”
Chapter 31
What are we going to do now?” Lyra stalked across the front room of the suite, arms tightly folded. “We can’t just sit around and wait for something else to happen.”
“We could do that,” Simon said. “But it would be smarter to get some sleep.”
Lyra stopped in the middle of the room and glared at him. They had made it back to their suite by way of the service stairs. As far as they could tell, no one had seen them. Simon had poured each of them a glass of whiskey. Then he had settled into a reading chair to drink his nightcap. He looked far too calm, she decided. Controlled. In charge of the situation.
It was annoying.
She, on the other hand, could not sit still. She had swallowed some whiskey and begun pacing the room. She could not get the picture of the woman encased in paraffin out of her head.
“I couldn’t possibly sleep,” she announced.
“There’s nothing else we can do until we hear from Luther.” Simonglanced at his watch. “It’s nearly dawn. He should be in Pasadena soon, if he isn’t there already. Even if he’s successful in locating Angela Merryweather and persuading her to talk, it’s going to be a while before we hear from him.”
“We should confront Guppy.”
