夜雨聆风How lucky you were there. Otherwise there might have been an acci-dent.”
It is extraordinary how much of a fool one gentle inquisitive old maidenlady 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 fullof direct speech.
“Good morning,” she said. “I heard you’ve made Megan buy herselfsome decent clothes? Very sensible of you. It takes a man to think of some-thing really practical like that. I’ve been worried about that girl for a longtime. 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’snearly 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. Shewas holding a large red lobster.
“Have you ever seen anything so unlike Mr. Pye?” she said—“very virileand handsome, isn’t it?”
