She stopped, stricken. Her beautiful hazel eyes met Mrs. Bantry’s in a pleading horror. She said, “What an awful thing to say!”
Hugo McLean, coming quietly up behind them, asked, “What’s an awful thing to say?”
“Sit down, Hugo. You know Mrs. Bantry, don’t you?”
McLean had already greeted the older lady. He said, now, in a slow, persevering way, “What was an awful thing to say?”
Addie Jefferson said, “That I’d like to have killed Ruby Keene.”
Hugo McLean reflected a minute or two. Then he said, “No, wouldn’t say that if I were you. Might be misunderstood.” His eyes, steady, reflective gray eyes, looked at her meaningly. He said, “You’ve got to watch your step, Addie.” There was a warning in his voice.
When Miss Marple came out of the hotel and joined Mrs. Bantry a few minutes later, Hugo McLean and Adelaide Jefferson were walking down the path to the sea together. Seating herself Miss Marple remarked, “He seems very devoted.”
“He’s been devoted for years! One of those men.”
“I know. Like Major Bury. He hung round an Anglo-Indian widow for quite ten years. A joke among her friends! In the end she gave in, but, unfortunately, ten days before they were to have been married she ran away with the chauffeur. Such a nice woman, too, and usually so well balanced.”
“People do do very odd things,” agreed Mrs. Bantry. “I wish you’d been here just now, Jane. Addie Jefferson was telling me all about herself, how her husband went through all his money, but they never let Mr. Jefferson know. And then, this summer, things felt different to her.”
Miss Marple nodded. “Yes. She rebelled, I suppose, against being made to live in the past. After all, there’s a time for everything. You can’t sit in the house with the blinds down forever. I suppose Mrs. Jefferson just pulled them up and took off her widow’s weeds, and her father-in-law, of course, didn’t like it. Felt left out in the cold, though I don’t suppose for a minute he realized who put her up to it. Still, he certainly wouldn’t like it. And so, of course, like old Mr. Badger when his wife took up spiritualism, he was just ripe for what happened. Any fairly nice-looking young girl who listened prettily would have done.”
“Do you think,” said Mrs. Bantry, “that that cousin, Josie, got her down deliberately that it was a family plot?”
Miss Marple shook her head. “No, I don’t think so at all. I don’t think Josie has the kind of mind that could foresee people’s reactions. She’s rather dense in that way. She’s got one of those shrewd, limited, practical minds that never do foresee the future and are usually astonished by it.”
“It seems to have taken everyone by surprise,” said Mrs. Bantry. “Addie and Mark Gaskell, too, apparently.”
Miss Marple smiled. “I dare say he had his own fish to fry. A bold fellow with a roving eye! Not the man to go on being a sorrowing widower for years, no matter how fond he may have been of his wife. I should think they were both restless under old Mr. Jefferson’s yoke of perpetual remembrance. Only,” added Miss Marple cynically, “it’s easier for gentlemen, of course.”
At that very moment Mark was confirming this judgment on himself in a talk with Sir Henry Clithering. With characteristic candor Mark had gone straight to the heart of things. “It’s just dawned on me,” he said, “that I’m Favorite Suspect Number One to the police! They’ve been delving into my financial troubles. I’m broke, you know; or very nearly. If dear old Jeff dies according to schedule in a month or two, and Addie and I divide the dibs also according to schedule, all will be well. Matter of fact, I owe rather a lot. If the crash comes, it will be a big one! If I can stave it off, it will be the other way round; I shall come out on top and be very rich.”
Sir Henry Clithering said, “You’re a gambler, Mark.”
“Always have been. Risk everything, that’s my motto! Yes, it’s a lucky thing for me that somebody strangled that poor kid. I didn’t do it. I’m not a strangler. I don’t really think I could ever murder anybody. I’m too easygoing. But I don’t suppose I can ask the police to believe that! I must look to them like the answer to the criminal investigator’s prayer! Motive, on the spot, not burdened with high moral scruples! I can’t imagine why I’m not in the jug already. That superintendent’s got a very nasty eye.” “You’ve got that useful thing, an alibi.” “An alibi is the fishiest thing on God’s earth! No innocent person ever has an alibi! Besides, it all depends on the time of death, or something like that, and you may be sure if three doctors say the girl was killed at midnight, at least six will be found who will swear positively that she was killed at five in the morning and where’s my alibi then?” “Well, you are able to joke about it.” “Damned bad taste, isn’t it?” said Mark cheerfully. “Actually, I’m rather scared. One is, with murder! And don’t think I’m not sorry for old Jeff. I am. But it’s better this way, bad as the shock was, than if he’d found her out.” “What do you mean, found her out?” Mark winked. “Where did she go off to last night? I’ll lay you any odds you like she went to meet a man. Jeff wouldn’t have liked that. He wouldn’t have liked it at all. If he’d found she was deceiving him that she wasn’t the prattling little innocent she seemed, well, my father-in-law is an odd man. He’s a man of great self-control, but that self-control can snap. And then, look out!”