Gladys Roberts (née Evans) is the housekeeper at the vicarage in Marchbolt and is the eponymous character of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?.
Before her marriage she was the parlourmaid for a Mr and Mrs Templeton at Tudor Cottage for six months. The Templetons were actually Moira Nicholson and an accomplice, who were members of a drug-smuggling gang along with Roger Bassington-ffrench. They were planning to murder an American millionaire named John Savage for his money. They made sure to keep the real Savage out of the way, have Roger impersonate him making a will leaving seven hundred thousand pounds to Mrs Templeton and called for a respectable lawyer, who would have never seen Savage and could truthfully swear that it was Savage who made the will. But the will needed witnesses and the criminals couldn't ask Evans, because she had seen the real Savage enough times to ruin the plan, so they called for the cook and the gardener, who either hadn't been in their employment very long or hadn't seen Savage.
After the will was made, the real Savage was murdered by an overdose, and Evans finds him dead the next morning.
After that Mrs Templeton dismissed the staff under the pretense of moving abroad, and Gladys Evans moved back to her homeland Wales, got married to Mr Roberts and went into service with him at the vicarage.
Some time later, Mrs. Roberts was contacted by Alan Carstairs, who asked for a meeting to inquire about Mrs. Templeton. He wrote that he had reason to believe that Mrs Roberts' former employer was a dangerous international criminal wanted by the police. But Carstairs was murdered by Roger Bassington-ffrench, before he could meet Mrs Roberts.
When Carstairs' body was discovered, Mrs Roberts didn't connect it with his letter to her, because the dead man was identified as Alex Pritchard, and people would never ask themselves if a man named Pritchard was a man named Carstairs. But when the fake relations, Mr Cayman and Mrs Cayman. visited the vicarage, Mrs Roberts did notice a stunning resemblance between Mr Cayman and Mr Templeton.
Portrayals[]
ITV's Agatha Christie's Marple[]
In the 2008 ITV adaptation, the firstname is changed to "Florrie". In this adaptation, all the other residents and domestic staff of the house had been sent away to a holiday at the Isle of Wight. The imposter of Jack Savage then dismissed the existing gardeners and hired new ones, and used them to witness the will. However Florrie was kept back but given a day off on the day of the signing of the new will. She was not sent on holiday because she was needed to discover the body of the real Jack Savage shortly thereafter. Here Florrie also subsequently ends up working in the house of Bobby Attfield. By this time she had, like Gladys, married one Roberts, and had adopted a new firstname "Florence".
Of Jack Savage, Florrie said he was a "randy beggar". Other members of the family like Dorothy Savage speculated that Jack kept Florrie behind while the others were sent to the Isle of Wight in order to "harass" her.
Florrie is portrayed by Siwan Morris.