Mrs. Bantry was with Adelaide Jefferson. The former came up to Sir Henry and exclaimed, “You!”
“I, myself.” He took both her hands and pressed them warmly. “I can’t tell you how distressed I am at all this, Mrs. B.”
Mrs. Bantry said mechanically, “Don’t call me Mrs. B!” and went on, “Arthur isn’t here. He’s taking it all rather seriously. Miss Marple and I have come here to sleuth. Do you know Mrs. Jefferson?”
“Yes, of course.”
He shook hands. Adelaide Jefferson said, “Have you seen my father-in-law?”
“Yes. I have.”
“I’m glad. We’re anxious about him. It was a terrible shock.”
Mrs. Bantry said, “Let’s go out on the terrace and have drinks and talk about it all.” The four of them went out and joined Mark Gaskell, who was sitting at the extreme end of the terrace by himself. After a few desultory remarks and the arrival of the drinks, Mrs. Bantry plunged straight into the subject with her usual zest for direct action. “We can talk about it, can’t we?” she said. “I mean we’re all old friends except Miss Marple, and she knows all about crime. And she wants to help.”
Mark Gaskell looked at Miss Marple in a somewhat puzzled fashion. He said doubtfully, “Do you… er write detective stories?” The most unlikely people, he knew, wrote detective stories. And Miss Marple, in her old-fashioned spinster’s clothes, looked a singularly unlikely person. “Oh, no, I’m not clever enough for that.” “She’s wonderful,” said Mrs. Bantry impatiently. “I can’t explain now, but she is…. Now, Addie, I want to know all about things. What was she really like, this girl?”
“Well-” Adelaide Jefferson paused, glanced across at Mark and half laughed. She said, “You’re so direct.” “Did you like her?” “No, of course I didn’t.”
“What was she really like?” Mrs. Bantry shifted her inquiry to Mark Gaskell.
Mark said deliberately, “Common or garden gold digger. And she knew her stuff. She’d got her hooks into Jeff all right.” Both of them called their father-in-law “Jeff.”
Sir Henry thought, looking disapprovingly at Mark, indiscreet fellow. Shouldn’t be so outspoken. He had always disapproved a little of Mark Gaskell. The man had charm, but he was unreliable, talked too much, was occasionally boastful not quite to be trusted, Sir Henry thought. He had sometimes wondered if Conway Jefferson thought so too.
“But couldn’t you do something about it?” demanded Mrs Bantry.
Mark said dryly, “We might have, if we’d realized it in time.”
He shot a glance at Adelaide and she colored faintly. There had been reproach in that glance.
She said, “Mark thinks I ought to have seen what was coming.”
“You left the old boy alone too much, Addie. Tennis lessons and all the rest of it.”
“Well, I had to have some exercise.” She spoke apologetically. “Anyway, I never dreamed-”
“No,” said Mark, “neither of us ever dreamed. Jeff has always been such a sensible, levelheaded old boy.”
Miss Marple made a contribution to the conversation. “Gentlemen,” she said with her old maid’s way of referring to the opposite sex as though it were a species of wild animal, “are frequently not so levelheaded as they seem.”
“I’ll say you’re right,” said Mark. “Unfortunately, Miss Marple, we didn’t realize that. We wondered what the old boy saw in that rather insipid and meretricious little bag of tricks. But we were pleased for him to be kept happy and amused. We thought there was no harm in her. No harm in her! I wish I’d wrung her neck.”
“Mark,” said Addie, “you really must be careful what you say.”
He grinned at her engagingly. “I suppose I must. Otherwise people will think I actually did wring her neck. Oh, well, I suppose I’m under suspicion anyway. If anyone had an interest in seeing that girl dead, it was Addie and myself.”
“Mark,” cried Mrs. Jefferson, half laughing and half angry, “you really mustn’t!”
“All right, all right,” said Mark Gaskell pacifically. “But I do like speaking my mind. Fifty thousand pounds our esteemed father-in-law was proposing to settle upon that half-baked, nit-witted little sly puss-”
“Mark, you mustn’t! She’s dead!”
“Yes, she’s dead, poor little devil. And after all, why shouldn’t she use the weapons that Nature gave her? Who am I to judge? Done plenty of rotten things myself in my life. No, let’s say Ruby was entitled to plot and scheme, and we were mugs not to have tumbled to her game sooner.”