I'll look after her and do all I can to make her happy."
"Quite - quite.
Still, it's up to Megan herself."
"She'll come round in time," I said.
"But I just thought I'd like to get straight with you about it."
He said he appreciated that, and we parted amicably.
I ran into Miss Emily Barton outside.
She had a shopping basket on her arm.
"Good morning, Mr. Burton, I hear you went to London yesterday." Yes, she had heard all right.
Her eyes were, I thought, kindly, but full of curiosity, too.
"I went to see my doctor," I said.
Miss Emily smiled.
That smile made little of Marcus Kent.
She murmured,
"I hear Megan nearly missed the train.
She jumped in when it was going."
"Helped by me," I said. "I hauled her in."
"How very lucky you were there.
Otherwise there might have been an accident."
It is extraordinary how much of a fool one gentle, inquisitive, old maiden lady can make a man feel!
I was saved further suffering by the onslaught of Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
She had her own tame elderly maiden lady in tow, but she herself was full of direct speech.
"Good morning," she said.
"I hear you've made Megan buy herself some decent clothes?
Very sensible of you.
It takes a man to think of something really practical like that.
I've been worried about that girl for a long time.
Girls with brains are so liable to turn into morons, aren't they?"
With which remarkable statement, she shot into the fish shop.
Miss Marple, left standing by me, twinkled a little and said,
"Mrs. Dane Calthrop is a very remarkable woman, you know.
She's nearly always right."
"It makes her rather alarming," I said.
"Sincerity has that effect," said Miss Marple.
Mrs. Dane Calthrop shot out of the fish shop again and rejoined us.
She was holding a large red lobster.
"Have you ever seen anything so unlike Mr. Pye?" she said.
"Very virile and handsome, isn't it?"
I was a little nervous of meeting Joanna but I found when I got home that I needn't have worried.
She was out and she did not return for lunch.
This aggrieved Partridge a good deal, who said sourly as she proffered two loin chops in an entrйe dish:
"Miss Burton said specially as she was going to be in."
I ate both chops in an attempt to atone for Joanna's lapse.
All the same, I wondered where my sister was.
She had taken to being very mysterious about her doings of late.
It was half past three when Joanna burst into the drawing room.
I had heard a car stop outside and I half expected to see Griffith, but the car drove on and Joanna came in alone.
Her face was very red and she seemed upset.
I perceived that something had happened.
"What's the matter?" I asked.