- It's time for Jim to go to the pub and meet up with Catchpole.
- Jim is prepared to really dislike him.
- Whether Jim likes Margaret or not, he still thinks Catchpole is a jerk for dumping Margaret and provoking her to attempt suicide.
- The two of them don't talk for long, though, before Catchpole tells a very different story about the day Margaret "attempted" to commit suicide.
- Basically, Catchpole says that Margaret did with him exactly what she's done with Jim. The two of them never had a romantic relationship, but Margaret acted as if they did.
- Jim's experienced the exact same thing, so he's inclined to believe Catchpole on this one.
- It also turns out that Catchpole was supposed to go and visit Margaret the same night she tried to commit suicide. But he forgot, and feels terrible about it.
- Jim's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
- But wait a minute. Jim realizes that Margaret asked him to come around on the exact same night. When he mentions this, they realize that both of them were with Margaret earlier that day, when she "bought" the sleeping pills she used to attempt suicide.
- In case this sounds confusing (and it is), here's how it works.
- Margaret basically wanted both Jim and Catchpole to watch her buy sleeping pills, then she wanted both of them to come over and find her after her "attempt" at suicide.
- She was trying to make both of them feel guilty for not loving her enough, and used the same story twice.
- She even went to the trouble of making two separate trips to the pharmacy (one with each guy) and buying two bottles of sleeping pills.
- Jim realizes at this point that Margaret's little plan was based on the assumption that Jim and Catchpole would never meet and compare stories.
- He also realizes that from day one, Margaret has been guilting him into dating her and making up fake stories about Catchpole.
- When he leaves the meeting, Jim decides that he's definitely not going to have anything to do with Margaret anymore.
- When Jim gets home, Bill Atkinson tells him that his girlfriend was calling for him that afternoon.
- Jim dreads talking to Margaret, but Atkinson specifies that it was actually Christine Callaghan on the phone.
- Jim presses Atkinson to hurry up and tell him what Christine's message was.
- Bill tells him that Christine is going to get on a train that afternoon and head back to London, and that she'd like to see him before she leaves.
- Jim can't believe his luck… or bad luck, that is
- Christine's train is leaving soon, and it's going to be hard for him to catch her.
- Jim leaps out of his house and goes running to catch a bus, which he does.
- Traffic is absolutely brutal, and Jim knows there's no way he'll ever catch Christine.
- But he won't give up. Some part of him feels like if he misses Christine this time, he'll never see her again.
- When Jim gets to the station, he realizes that Christine's train left 10 minutes earlier than the time she gave.
- He fears that he's too late.
- But when he turns around, he sees Christine standing behind him and looking confused. It turns out that bumbling old Professor Welch was the man who told her the train schedule, and Welch has a way of always getting those things wrong.
- That means that Jim and Christine have until the evening to hang out before the next train.