Sir Henry was gallant. He said, “To me, it is a great pleasure.”
Miss Marple murmured, flushing, “So kind of you.”
“Are you staying here?”
“Well, as a matter of fact we are.”
“We?”
“Mrs. Bantry’s here too.” She looked at him sharply. “Have you heard yet? Yes, I can see you have. It is terrible, is it not?”
“What’s Dolly Bantry doing here? Is her husband here too?”
“No. Naturally, they both reacted quite differently. Colonel Bantry, poor man, just shuts himself up in his study or goes down to one of the farms when anything like this happens. Like tortoises, you know; they draw their heads in and hope nobody will notice them. Dolly, of course, is quite different.”
“Dolly, in fact,” said Sir Henry, who knew his old friend fairly well, “is almost enjoying herself, eh?”
“Well… er… yes. Poor dear.”
“And she’s brought you along to produce the rabbits out of the hat for her?”
Miss Marple said composedly, “Dolly thought that a change of scene would be a good thing and she didn’t want to come alone.” She met his eye and her own gently twinkled. “But of course your way of describing it is quite true. It’s rather embarrassing for me, because, of course, I am no use at all.”
“No ideas? No village parallels?”
“I don’t know much about it all yet.”
“I can remedy that, I think. I’m going to can you into consultation, Miss Marple.”
He gave a brief recital of the course of events. Miss Marple listened with keen interest “Poor Mr. Jefferson,” she said. “What a very sad story. These terrible accidents. To leave him alive, crippled, seems more cruel than if he had been killed too.”
“Yes, indeed. That’s why all his friends admire him so much for the resolute way he’s gone on, conquering pain and grief and physical disabilities.”
“Yes, it is splendid.”
“The only thing I can’t understand is this sudden outpouring of affection for this girl. She may, of course, have had some remarkable qualities.”
“Probably not,” said Miss Marple placidly.
“You don’t think so?”
“I don’t think her qualities entered into it.”
Sir Henry said, “He isn’t just a nasty old man, you know.”
“Oh, no, no!” Miss Marple got quite pink. “I wasn’t implying that for a minute. What I was trying to say was very badly, I know that he was just looking for a nice bright girl to take his dead daughter’s place, and then this girl saw her opportunity and played it for all she was worth! That sounds rather uncharitable, I know, but I have seen so many cases of the kind. The young maidservant at Mr. Harbottle’s, for instance. A very ordinary girl, but quiet, with nice manners. His sister was called away to nurse a dying relative, and when she got back she found the girl completely above herself, sitting down in the drawing room laughing and talking and not wearing her cap or apron. Miss Harbottle spoke to her very sharply, and the girl was impertinent, and then old Mr. Harbottle left her quite dumbfounded by saying that he thought she had kept the house for him long enough and that he was making other arrangements.”
“Such a scandal as it created in the village, but poor Miss Harbottle had to go and live most uncomfortably in rooms in Eastbourne. People said things, of course, but I believe there was no familiarity of any kind. It was simply that the old man found it much pleasanter to have a young, cheerful girl telling him how clever and amusing he was than to have his sister continually pointing out his faults to him, even if she was a good, economical manager.”
There was a moment’s pause and then Miss Marple resumed. “And there was Mr. Badger, who had the chemist’s shop. Made a lot of fuss over the young lady who worked in his cosmetics section. Told his wife they must look on her as a daughter and have her to live in the house. Mrs. Badger didn’t see it that way at all.”
Sir Henry said, “If she’d only been a girl in his own rank of life, a friend’s child-“