Miss Marple interrupted him. “Oh, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfactory from his point of view. It’s like King Cophetua and the beggar maid. If you’re really rather a lonely tired old man, and if, perhaps, your own family have been neglecting you” she paused for a second “well, to befriend someone who will be overwhelmed with your magnificence, to put it rather melodramatically, but I hope you see what I mean, well, that’s much more interesting. It makes you feel a much greater person, a beneficent monarch! The recipient is more likely to be dazzled, and that, of course, is a pleasant feeling for you.” She paused and said, “Mr. Badger, you know, bought the girl in his shop some really fantastic presents, a diamond bracelet and a most expensive radio-gramophone. Took out a lot of his savings to do it. However, Mrs. Badger, who was a much more astute woman than poor Miss Harbottle, marriage, of course, helps, took the trouble to find out a few things. And when Mr. Badger discovered that the girl was carrying on with a very undesirable young man connected with the racecourses, and had actually pawned the bracelet to give him the money well, he was completely disgusted and the affair passed over quite safely. And he gave Mrs. Badger a diamond ring the following Christmas.”
Her pleasant, shrewd eyes met Sir Henry’s. He wondered if what she had been saying was intended as a hint. He said, “Are you suggesting that if there had been a young man in Ruby Keene’s life, my friend’s attitude toward her might have altered?”
“It probably would, you know. I dare say in a year or two he might have liked to arrange for her marriage himself though more likely he wouldn’t. Gentlemen are usually rather selfish. But I certainly think that if Ruby Keene had had a young man she’d have been careful to keep very quiet about it.” “And the young man might have resented that?” “I suppose that is the most plausible solution. It struck me, you know, that her cousin, the young woman who was at Gossington this morning, looked definitely angry with the dead girl. What you’ve told me explains why. No doubt she was looking forward to doing very well out of the business.” “Rather a cold-blooded character, in fact?”
“That’s too harsh a judgment, perhaps. The poor thing has had to earn her living, and you can’t expect her to sentimentalize because a well-to-do man and woman as you have described Mr. Gaskell and Mrs. Jefferson are going to be done out of a further large sum of money to which they have really no particular moral right. I should say Miss Turner was a hardheaded, ambitious young woman with a good temper and considerable joie de vivre. A little,” added Miss Marple, “like Jessie Golden, the baker’s daughter.” “What happened to her?” asked Sir Henry. “She trained as a nursery governess and married the son of the house, who was home on leave from India. Made him a very good wife, I believe.” Sir Henry pulled himself clear of these fascinating side issues. He said, “Is there any reason, do you think, why my friend Conway Jefferson should suddenly have developed this “Cophetua complex,” if you like to call it that?”
“There might have been.”
“In what way?”
Miss Marple said, hesitating a little “I should think it’s only a suggestion, of course that perhaps his son-in-law and daughter-in-law might have wanted to get married again.”
“Surely he couldn’t have objected to that?”
“Oh, no, not objected. But, you see, you must look at it from his point of view. He has a terrible shock and loss; so have they. The three bereaved people live together and the link between them is the loss they have all sustained. But Time, as my dear mother used to say, is a great healer. Mr. Gaskell and Mrs. Jefferson are young. Without knowing it themselves, they may have begun to feel restless, to resent the bonds that tied them to their past sorrow. And so, feeling like that, old Mr. Jefferson would have become conscious of a sudden lack of sympathy without knowing its cause. It’s usually that. Gentlemen so easily feel neglected. With Mr. Harbottle it was Miss Harbottle going away. And with the Badgers it was Mrs. Badger taking such an interest in spiritualism and always going out to seances.”