“Why is that, I wonder?”
“The breaking of a piece of bad news nearly always sets up a defense reaction. It numbs the recipient. They are unable, at first, to take it in. Full realization takes a little time. But the banged door, someone jumping out of a cupboard, the sudden onslaught of a motor as you cross a road, all those things are immediate in their action. The heart gives a terrified leap to put it in layman’s language.”
Superintendent Harper said slowly, “But as far as anyone would know, Mr. Jefferson’s death might easily have been caused by the shock of the girl’s death?”
“Oh, easily.” The doctor looked curiously at the other. “You don’t think-”
“I don’t know what I think,” said Superintendent Harper vexedly.
“But you’ll admit, sir, that the two things would fit in very prettily together,” he said a little later to Sir Henry Clithering. “Kill two birds with one stone. First the girl, and the fact of her death takes off Mr. Jefferson, too, before he’s had any opportunity of altering his will.”
“Do you think he will alter it?”
“You’d be more likely to know that, sir, than I would. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. Before Ruby Keene came on the scene I happen to know that he had left his money between Mark Gaskell and Mrs. Jefferson. I don’t see why he should now change his mind about that. But of course he might do so.”
Superintendent Harper agreed.
“You never know what bee a man is going to get in his bonnet; especially when he doesn’t feel there’s any moral obligation in the disposal of his fortune. No blood relations in this case.”
Sir Henry said, “He is fond of the boy, of young Peter.”
“D’you think he regards him as a grandson? You’d know better than I would, sir.”
Sir Henry said slowly, “No, I don’t think so.”
“There’s another thing I’d like to ask you, sir. It’s a thing I can’t judge for myself. But they’re friends of yours, and so you’d know, I’d like very much to know just how fond Mr. Jefferson is of Mr. Gaskell and young Mrs. Jefferson. Nobody doubts that he was much attached to them both, but he was attached to them, as I see it, because they were, respectively, the husband and the wife of his daughter and his son. But supposing, for instance, one of them had married again?”
Sir Henry reflected. He said, “It’s an interesting point you raise there. I don’t know. I’m inclined to suspect — this is a mere opinion — that it would have altered his attitude a good deal. He would have wished them well, borne no rancor, but I think yes, I rather think that he would have taken very little more interest in them.”
Superintendent Harper nodded. “In both cases, sir?”
“I think so, yes. In Mr. Gaskell’s, almost certainly, and I rather think in Mrs. Jefferson’s also, but that’s not nearly so certain. I think he was fond of her for her own sake.”
“Sex would have something to do with that,” said Superintendent Harper sapiently. “Easier for him to look on her as a daughter than to look on Mr. Gaskell as a son. It works both ways. Women accept a son-in-law as one of the family easily enough, but there aren’t many times when a woman looks on her son’s wife as a daughter.” Superintendent Harper went on, “Mind if we walk along this path, sir, to the tennis court? I see Miss Marple’s sitting there. I want to ask her to do something for me. As a matter of fact, I want to rope you both in.”
“In what way, superintendent?”
“To get at stuff that I can’t get at myself. I want you to tackle Edwards for me, sir.”
“Edwards? What do you want from him?”
“Everything you can think of. Everything he knows and what he thinks. About the relations between the various members of the family, his angle on the Ruby Keene business. Inside stuff. He knows better than anyone the state of affairs. And he wouldn’t tell me. But he’ll tell you. Because you’re a gentleman and a friend of Mr. Jefferson’s.”