Adelaide Jefferson

In the novel The Body in the Library, Adelaide “Addie” Jefferson is the widow of Frank Jefferson. She has a son, Peter, from a previous marriage to Mike Carmody. She is about thirty-five years old.

Adelaide is described as having a "singularly charming and sympathetic voice", and beautiful "clear hazel eyes". She never seems to say anything remarkable, but is able to stimulate others to talk, and set them at ease. She is also a good listener.

Adelaide and her son Peter had lived with Conway Jefferson since Frank's death, and had been like a family. However, she felt that Conway had not accepted the deaths of his children, Frank and Rosamund. So, he always thought of Adelaide as Frank's wife, and Mark Gaskell as Rosamund's husband.

Adelaide had begun to feel that her relationship with Frank, and her grief when he died, was in the past, and she wanted to move on. When she saw that Ruby Keene amused Conway, she was glad because it left her more free to do her own things, such as taking tennis lessons with Raymond Starr.

After the murder of Ruby Keene, Adelaide asks her friend Hugo McLean to come. Peter says that she sends for Hugo every time she is in some kind of trouble.

At the end of the novel, Adelaide tells Conway that she is going to marry Hugo, and he gives them his blessing.