Adelaide said with a sigh, "I suppose one can't blame her for that."
Mark said, "Oh, we can't blame anyone for anything!"
Mrs Bantry asked, "Was Ruby Keene very pretty?"
Mark stared at her.
"I thought you'd seen -" Mrs Bantry said hastily,
"Oh, yes, I saw her her body.
But she'd been strangled, you know, and one couldn't tell -" She shivered.
Mark said thoughtfully, "I don't think she was really pretty at all. She certainly wouldn't have been without any make-up.
A thin ferrety little face, not much chin, teeth running down her throat, nondescript sort of nose -"
"It sounds revolting," said Mrs Bantry.
"Oh, no, she wasn't.
As I say, with make-up she managed to give quite an effect of good looks...
Don't you think so, Addie?"
"Yes, rather chocolate-box, pink-and-white business.
She had nice blue eyes."
"Yes, innocent-baby stare, and the heavily blacked lashes brought out the blueness.
Her hair was bleached, of course.
It's true, when I come to think of it, that in colouring, artificial colouring, anyway, she had a kind of spurious resemblance to Rosamund, my wife, you know.
I dare say that's what attracted the old man's attention to her." He sighed. "Well, it's a bad business. The awful thing is that Addie and I can't help being glad, really, that she's dead." He quelled a protest from his sister-in-law. "It's no good, Addie. I know what you feel. I feel the same. And I'm not going to pretend!
But at the same time, if you know what I mean, I really am most awfully concerned for Jeff about the whole business.
It's hit him very hard. I -" He stopped and stared toward the doors leading out of the lounge onto the terrace. "Well, well. See who's here... What an unscrupulous woman you are, Addie."
Mrs Jefferson looked over her shoulder, uttered an exclamation and got up, a slight colour rising in her face.
She walked quickly along the terrace and went up to a tall, middle-aged man with a thin brown face who was looking uncertainly about him.
Mrs Bantry said, "Isn't that Hugo McLean?"
Mark Gaskell said, "Hugo McLean it is. Alias William Dobbin." Mrs Bantry murmured, "He's very faithful, isn't he?" "Dog-like devotion," said Mark. "Addie's only got to whistle and Hugo comes trotting along from any odd corner of the globe.
Always hopes that someday she'll marry him. I dare say she will."
Miss Marple looked beamingly after them.
She said, "I see. A romance?"
"One of the good old-fashioned kind," Mark assured her. "It's been going on for years.
Addie's that kind of woman." He added meditatively, "I suppose Addie telephoned him this morning. She didn't tell me she had."
Edwards came discreetly along the terrace and paused at Mark's elbow.
"Excuse me, sir.
Mr Jefferson would like you to come up."
"I'll come at once." Mark sprang up. He nodded to them, said, "See you later," and went off.
Sir Henry leaned forward to Miss Marple. He said,
"Well, what do you think of the principal beneficiaries of the crime?"
Miss Marple said thoughtfully, looking at Adelaide Jefferson as she stood talking to her old friend, "I should think, you know, that she was a very devoted mother."
"Oh, she is," said Mrs Bantry. "She's simply devoted to Peter."
"She's the kind of woman," said Miss Marple, "that everyone likes. The kind of woman that could go on getting married again and again.
I don't mean a man's woman - that's quite different."
"I know what you mean," said Sir Henry.
"What you both mean," said Mrs Bantry, "is that she's a good listener."
Sir Henry laughed. He said, "And Mark Gaskell?"
"Ah," said Miss Marple. "He's a downy fellow."
"Village parallel, please?"
"Mr Cargill, the builder.
He bluffed a lot of people into having things done to their houses they never meant to do.
And how he charged them for it!
But he could always explain his bill away plausibly.
A downy fellow. He married money.