“No ring. She was very sure of that. She looked for one.”
“What about his voice?”
“He never spoke. Just grunted a few times. The woman behind the camera didn’t say a word, either. Mrs. Merryweather got the feeling that as far as the woman was concerned it was all business. But the man with the birthmark was definitely unbalanced.”
Simon thought about that. “They didn’t speak because they were afraid she might recognize their voices. That indicates they werepeople she might have come in contact with at the hotel. What did she tell you about the bedroom where she was held?”
“The linens were scented with Guppy’s signature scent.”
“Violet,” Simon said.
“Right. She said the towels in the bathroom also came from the hotel. She got a plate of cold breakfast rolls and a pot of herbal tea once a day. All of it was served on hotel dishes. She stopped drinking the tea and eating the rolls, because they were all poisoned with some sort of drug that made her hallucinate and eventually fall into a heavy sleep.”
“Someone is driving to and from the location every day to deliver the food and the tea. The place where they kept her can’t be that far away from the hotel.”
“I agree,” Luther said. “She felt the driving time back to the location where Draper picked her up and took her to the train station was about half an hour.”
“And according to Draper, another half hour or forty minutes into town,” Simon said. “But the kidnappers might have used a circuitous route to confuse their captives. What did Mrs. Merryweather recall about the room besides the four-poster bed?”
“Nice furniture but dated. She said the tile work and the bath fixtures looked like they had been designed for a wealthy individual about a decade ago—shortly before the crash.”
“Someone in ill health who moved to the desert in hopes of benefitting from the mineral springs,” Simon said.
“Mrs. Merryweather also remembers that she was forced to walk up one flight of stairs to get to the bedroom, so we know the house is at least two stories. The windows in the bedroom and bath were boarded up, so she never saw the landscape outside, but she was certain that on the way to the pickup location she was driven downhill for a ways.”
“The cabin is in the foothills,” Simon said. “Sounds like the house is, too. That gives us a lot to work with. Meanwhile, Lyra and I have made some progress here.”
In short, efficient sentences he filled Luther in on the discovery of the murder in the paraffin bath.
“We’re waiting for the body to be found so that we can get a positive ID, but Lyra thinks the victim is one of the treatment ladies, Miss Frampton. She gave Miss Kirk a facial and appears to have been involved in the kidnapping ring.”
“If that’s true, and she’s dead, it probably means she knew too much and had become a liability,” Luther said. “It’s also possible that she tried to blackmail him.”
“Or maybe someone is closing down the business. Did Mrs. Merryweather know if there was a guard posted at the house where they kept her?”
“She said she was chained to the wall and there was a heavy bolt on the other side of the door, but for the most part the house felt empty. With the exception of the man who assaulted her and the photographer, the only other person she came in contact with was the person who brought the food each day. He wore a mask, too, never stayed long, and never spoke.”
“So we’re looking for a large home in the foothills that was probably built in the twenties and is now at least partially boarded up. There can’t be that many houses fitting the description. Where are you? I’ll call you as soon as I have more information.”
“Don’t bother. I’m on my way to Labyrinth Springs.”
Simon hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I’ll be there in two hours. Where shall I meet you?”
Simon abandoned the argument. There was no point. Nothing he could say would stop Luther. Besides, if they were getting close to finding Raina, it would be good to have someone else with a gun handy.
“On the way into town you’ll see a gas station,” he said. “There’s a diner next door to it. It’s a little after five now. It will be open by the time you arrive. Lyra and I will meet you there.”
“Right.”
“Wait, before you hang up, did Irene Ward find out anything about those newspaper clippings that might help us?”
“Just that the story was true, as far as it went. A woman took a sailboat out, apparently got caught in a storm, and was never seen again. The husband moved back to Boston and became a recluse until he died. But there was one new detail. The husband was rumored to have been confined to an asylum for the insane.”
“You think the woman who vanished at sea was Miss Kirk, don’t you?”
“I think there’s a very high probability that the wife who found herself married to a dangerous madman and risked her neck to escape was Raina, yes.”
