Jack Savage

Jack Savage is a character created in the In the 2008 ITV adaptation of the novel Why Didn't They Ask Evans?. Although he is derived from and shares some commonalities with John Savage in the original novel, he has a substantially different backstory. Jack died some six months before the events in the episode. There are however scenes of him in flashback to events many years earlier and in these scenes, the younger Jack is portrayed by Rupert Savage. There is also a portrait of the later Jack in his house.

Unlike John Savage, Jack is not a lone and unmarried millionaire with no close relatives. In this adaptation, the Savage and Bassington-ffrench families are merged. Here, Jack is the second husband of Sylvia Savage, a character derived from Sylvia Bassington-ffrench in the original novel. He has two children Tom and Dorothy and is master of the family estate at Castle Savage (a rough equivalent to Merroway Court in the original).

Many years before the events in the episode, Sylvia was married to George Savage who was Jack's elder brother. While in China, Jack met and had an affair with Sylvia, They plotted to kill George and then married each other. With the war coming, Jack left China with Sylvia, and forced her to leave behind and abandon her two children from her first marriage, Alice and Michael.

Years later, while Sylvia and most of the household were on a holiday on the Isle of Wight, Jack Savage, who had been left behind at the family home at Castle Savage, died, apparently of a cardiac arrest. He left behind a strange will made during the time the others were at the Isle of Wright. This will disinherited his family and left everything to the Quang Ho orphanage in Shanghai, China.

John Carstairs, who had known Jack in China believed this was out of character and started investigating but was murdered. The trail was picked up by Miss Marple, Bobby Attfield and Frankie Derwent and the mystery of the will finally uncovered. It turned out that Alice and Michael had survived and had returned as Moira Nicholson and Roger Bassington. They had killed Jack by injecting him with snake venom, which can simulate the effects of cardiac arrest. The motive for killing Jack and faking his will appeared to be retribution rather than personal gain.

On the fake will, "Jack" signs off as Lord Jack Savage, and in the dialogue he is sometimes referred to in the same way, indicating that he is a member of the peerage, having inherited the title from his brother George. Whether he actually inherited the title is a complex matter considering that Michael, George's son, is still alive. Jack is also a wealthy person in his own right, having run a tea empire in China.