‘Yes. He seems at home here,’ replied Sheila, thinking of Mrs. Boddy’s tramp.
‘Of course he’s at home,’ said the child with magisterial emphasis. ‘I asked him to make himself at home. And he did.’
‘How friendly of him.’ Sheila’s eyes drank in eagerly the absurd delicious gravity of Rosemary’s thought-puckered face. ‘I wonder what his name is.’
‘His name,’ answered the child casually, ‘is Poker.’ After a pause she added: ‘Poker Morgan his name is. He’s just come home from school.’ Sheila waited with becoming seriousness for further details of Poker Morgan’s eventful life. ‘He goes to school every day,’ Rosemary went on. ‘Every day except Sunday. On Sunday he doesn’t go to school, he doesn’t. He stays at home with his mother.’
‘How nice for Mrs. Morgan,’ said Sheila. ‘And what does Poker learn at school?’
‘Oh, just lessons; that’s all.’ Rosemary dismissed the question with the air of having sufficiently explained everything. ‘May I have another sponge finger, please, Sheila?’
Irresponsibly light-hearted, Sheila retired to bed, joining Rosemary in the little attic room with the homicidal slanting roof. She stood for some time at the east window, bathing in the moonlight, and looking towards the sea which broke within twenty yards of the crumbling wall. The wind fluttered her night-dress.
Nocturnal calm was abruptly shattered by a beer-thickened voice uttering a passionate demand for admittance. Sheila stepped quickly across the room to the western window.
‘You let me in before yourrurt,’ urged the voice. And Sheila, leaning out of the window, saw a gentleman in baggy corduroys that were tied with string at the knees peering up at her malevolently from under a huge cloth cap. The moon focussed her light upon his impressive figure.
‘Mrs. Boddy’s tramp,’ murmured Sheila, secure in the knowledge of having made fast all doors and windows.