‘Oh, ma’am!’ said Mrs. Boddy. ‘To think that you should have got ’ere before me, without a bit of tea ready or nothing.’ The sight of those inglorious festal remains was the culminating assault on her feelings. ‘There! Just look at that.’
Sheila nodded, smiling. ‘Some one’s been here evidently. The question is, Who?’
‘And how?’ added Mrs. Boddy. ‘’Ow?’ she repeated, by way of emphasis. ‘And oh,’ she cried, enveloping Rosemary, ‘here’s the dear little ducky duck. Hasn’t she got a kiss for the wicked old woman that didn’t get her mother’s tea ready?’
Having released Rosemary, Mrs. Boddy stood brooding. ‘There’s been a man here. One of those persons of the tramp class.’
After a moment’s contemplation of this hypothetical tramp, ‘It’s not at all nice,’ she added, and drew away from the polluted table. ‘You might be murdered in your beds.’
‘Well, if one must be murdered, one could hardly choose a more comfortable place,’ said Sheila. ‘Let’s try to make a fire to boil the kettle on, shall we? I’m longing for my tea.’
Mrs. Boddy became the embodiment of bustle. She shot out of the house in search of dry sticks for the fire.
‘And do you know what I would do if I were you, ma’am?’ she enquired, reappearing after a brief and successful forage. ‘I’d have my tea and go straight back to town. Straight back. I wouldn’t stay another minute.’
‘Not stay!’ echoed Sheila in weak astonishment. ‘Not stay for a holiday?’
‘Not to be murdered, I wouldn’t.’