Billy Weaver had travelled down from
London on the slow afternoon train, with a
change at Swindon on the way, and by the
time he got to Bath it was about nine
o’clock in the evening and the moon was
coming up out of a clear starry sky over
the houses opposite the station entrance.
But the air was deadly cold and the wind
was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but is there a
fairly cheap hotel not too far away from
here?”
“Try The Bell and Dragon,” the porter
answered, pointing down the road. “They
might take you in. It’s about a quarter of a
mile along on the other side.”
Billy thanked him and picked up his
suitcase and set out to walk the quartermile
to The Bell and Dragon. He had
never been to Bath before. He didn’t know
anyone who lived there. But Mr
Greenslade at the Head Office in London
had told him it was a splendid city. “Find
your own lodgings,” he had said, “and
then go along and report to the Branch
Manager as soon as you’ve got yourself
settled.”
Billy was seventeen years old. He was
wearing a new navy-blue overcoat, a new
brown trilby hat, and a new brown suit,
and he was feeling fine. He walked briskly
down the street. He was trying to do
everything briskly these days. Briskness,
he had decided, was the one common
characteristic of all successful
businessmen. The big shots up at Head
Office were absolutely fantastically brisk
all the time. They were amazing.
There were no shops on this wide street
that he was walking along, only a line of
tall houses on each side, all them
identical. They had porches and pillars
and four or five steps going up to their
front doors, and it was obvious that once
upon a time they had been very swanky
residences. But now, even in the
darkness, he could see that the paint was
peeling from the woodwork on their doors
and windows, and that the handsome
white façades were cracked and blotchy from
neglect.
Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was
brilliantly illuminated by a street-lamp not six
yards away, Billy caught sight of a printed
notice propped up against the glass in one of
the upper panes. It said BED AND
BREAKFAST. There was a vase of yellow
chrysanthemums, tall and beautiful, standing
just underneath the notice.
He stopped walking. He moved a bit closer.
Green curtains (some sort of velvety
material) were hanging down on either side of
the window. The chrysanthemums looked
wonderful beside them. He went right up and
peered through the glass into the room, and
the first thing he saw was a bright fire burning
in the hearth. On the carpet in front of the fire,
a pretty little dachshund was curled up asleep
with its nose tucked into its belly.
The room itself, so far as he could see in
the half-darkness, was filled with pleasant
furniture. There was a baby-grand piano and
a big sofa and several plump armchairs; and
in one corner he spotted a large parrot in a
cage. Animals were usually a good sign in a
place like this, Billy told himself; and all in all,
it looked to him as though it would be a pretty
decent house to stay in. Certainly it would be
more comfortable than The Bell and Dragon.
On the other hand, a pub would be more
congenial than a boarding-house. There
would be beer and darts in the evenings, and
lots of people to talk to, and it would probably
be a good bit cheaper, too. He had stayed a
couple of nights in a pub once before and he
had liked it. He had never stayed in any
boarding-houses, and, to be perfectly honest,
he was a tiny bit frightened of them. The
name itself conjured up images of watery
cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a
powerful smell of kippers in the living-room.
After dithering about like this in the cold for
two or three minutes, Billy decided that he
would walk on and take a look at The Bell
and Dragon before making up his mind. He
turned to go. And now a queer thing
happened to him. He was in the act of
stepping back and turning away from the
window when all at once his eye was
caught and held in the most peculiar
manner by the small notice that was there.
BED AND BREAKFAST, it said. BED AND
BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST,
BED AND BREAKFAST. Each word was
like a large black eye staring at him
through the glass, holding him, compelling
him, forcing him to stay where he was and
not to walk away from that house, and the
next thing he knew, he was actually
moving across from the window to the
front door of the house, climbing the steps
that led up to it, and reaching for the bell.
He pressed the bell. Far away in a back
room he heard it ringing, and then at once
– it must have been at once because he
hadn’t even had time to take his finger
from the bell-button – the door swung
open and a woman was standing there.
Normally you ring the bell and you have
at least a half-minute’s wait before the
door opens. But this dame was a like a
jack-in-the-box. He pressed the bell – and
out she popped! It made him jump.
She was about forty-five or fifty years
old, and the moment she saw him, she
gave him a warm welcoming smile.
“Please come in,” she said pleasantly.
She stepped aside, holding the door wide
open, and Billy found himself
automatically starting forward into the
house. The compulsion or, more
accurately, the desire to follow after her
into that house was extraordinarily strong.
“I saw the notice in the window,” he said,
holding himself back.
“Yes, I know.”
“I was wondering about a room.”
“It's all ready for you, my dear,” she said.
She had a round pink face and very gentle
blue eyes.
“I was on my way to The Bell and
Dragon,” Billy told her. “But the notice in
your window just happened to catch my
eye.”
“My dear boy,” she said, “why don't you
come in out of the cold?”
“How much do you charge?”
“Five and sixpence a night, including
breakfast.”
It was fantastically cheap. It was less than
half of what he had been willing to pay.
“If that is too much,” she added, “then
perhaps I can reduce it just a tiny bit. Do you
desire an egg for breakfast? Eggs are
expensive at the moment. It would be
sixpence less without the egg.”
“Five and sixpence is fine,” he answered. “I
should like very much to stay here.”
“I knew you would. Do come in.”
She seemed terribly nice. She looked
exactly like the mother of one’s best schoolfriend
welcoming one into the house to stay
for the Christmas holidays. Billy took off his
hat, and stepped over the threshold.
“Just hang it there,” she said, “and let me
help you with your coat.”
There were no other hats or coats in the
hall. There were no umbrellas, no walkingsticks
– nothing.
“We have it all to ourselves,” she said,
smiling at him over her shoulder as she led
the way upstairs.
“You see, it isn’t very often I have the
pleasure of taking a visitor into my little nest.”
The old girl is slightly dotty, Billy told
himself. But at five and sixpence a night, who
gives a damn about that? – “I should've
thought you’d be simply swamped with
applicants,” he said politely.
“Oh, I am, my dear, I am, of course I am.
But the trouble is that I'm inclined to be just a
teeny weeny bit choosy and particular – if you
see what I mean.”
“Ah, yes.”
“But I’m always ready. Everything is always
ready day and night in this house just on the
off-chance that an acceptable young
gentleman will come along. And it is such a
pleasure, my dear, such a very great
pleasure when now and again I open the
door and I see someone standing there who
is just exactly right.” She was half-way up the
stairs, and she paused with one hand on the
stair-rail, turning her head and smiling down
at him with pale lips. “Like you,” she added,
and her blue eyes travelled slowly all the way
down the length of Billy's body, to his feet,
and then up again.
On the first-floor landing she said to him,
“This floor is mine.”
They climbed up a second flight. “And this
one is all yours,” she said. “Here’s your room.
I do hope you’ll like it.” She took him into a
small but charming front bedroom,
switching on the light as she went in.
“The morning sun comes right in the
window, Mr Perkins. It is Mr Perkins, isn’t
it?”
“No,” he said. “It’s Weaver.”
“Mr Weaver. How nice. I’ve put a waterbottle
between the sheets to air them out,
Mr Weaver. It’s such a comfort to have a
hot water-bottle in a strange bed with
clean sheets, don’t you agree?
And you may light the gas fire at any time
if you feel chilly.”
“Thank you,” Billy said. “Thank you ever
so much.” He noticed that the bedspread
had been taken off the bed, and that the
bedclothes had been neatly turned back
on one side, all ready for someone to get
in.
“I’m so glad you appeared,” she said,
looking earnestly into his face. “I was
beginning to get worried.”
“That’s all right,” Billy answered brightly.
“You mustn’t worry about me.” He put his
suitcase on the chair and started to open
it.
“And what about supper, my dear? Did
you manage to get anything to eat before
you came here?”
“I’m not a bit hungry, thank you,” he
said. “I think I’ll just go to bed as soon as
possible because tomorrow I’ve got to get
up rather early and report to the office.”
“Very well, then. I’ll leave you now so
that you can unpack. But before you go to
bed, would you be kind enough to pop into
the sitting-room on the ground floor and
sign the book? Everyone has to do that
because it’s the law of the land, and we
don’t want to go breaking any laws at this
stage in the proceedings, do we?” She
gave him a little wave of the hand and
went quickly out of the room and closed
the door.
Now, the fact that his landlady appeared
to be slightly off her rocker didn’t worry
Billy in the least. After all, she was not
only harmless – there was no question
about that – but she was also quite
obviously a kind and generous soul. He
guessed that she had probably lost a son
in the war, or something like that, and had
never got over it.
So a few minutes later, after unpacking his
suitcase and washing his hands, he trotted
downstairs to the ground floor and entered
the living-room. His landlady wasn’t there, but
the fire was glowing in the hearth, and the
little dachshund was still sleeping in front of it.
The room was wonderfully warm and cosy.
I’m a lucky fellow, he thought, rubbing his
hands. This is a bit of all right.
He found the guest-book lying open on the
piano, so he took out his pen and wrote down
his name and address. There were only two
other entries above his on the page, and, as
one always does with guest-books, he started
to read them. One was a Christopher
Mulholland from Cardiff. The other was
Gregory W. Temple from Bristol. That’s
funny, he thought suddenly. Christopher
Mulholland. It rings a bell. Now where on
earth had he heard that rather unusual name
before?
Was he a boy at school? No. Was it one of
his sister’s numerous young men, perhaps, or
a friend of his father’s? No, no, it wasn’t any
of those. He glanced down again at the book.
Christopher Mulholland, 231 Cathedral Road,
Cardiff. Gregory W. Temple, 27 Sycamore
Drive, Bristol. As a matter of fact, now he
came to think of it, he wasn’t at all sure that
the second name didn’t have almost as much
of a familiar ring about it as the first.
“Gregory Temple?” he said aloud,
searching his memory. “Christopher
Mulholland? …”
“Such charming boys,” a voice behind him
answered, and he turned and saw his
landlady sailing into the room with a large
silver tea-tray in her hands. She was holding
it well out in front of her, and rather high up,
as though the tray were a pair of reins on a
frisky horse.
“They sound somehow familiar,” he said.
“They do? How interesting.”
“I’m almost positive I’ve heard those names
before somewhere. Isn’t that queer? Maybe it
was in the newspapers. They weren’t famous
in any way, were they? I mean famous
cricketers or footballers or something like
that?”
“Famous,” she said, setting the tea-tray
down on the low table in front of the sofa. “Oh
no, I don’t think they were famous. But
they were extraordinarily handsome, both
of them, I can promise you that. They
were tall and young and handsome, my
dear, just exactly like you.”
Once more, Billy glanced down at the
book.
“Look here,” he said, noticing the dates.
“This last entry is over two years old.”
“It is?”
“Yes, indeed. And Christopher
Mulholland’s is nearly a year before that –
more than three years ago.”
“Dear me,” she said, shaking her head
and heaving a dainty little sigh. “I would
never have thought it. How time does fly
away from us all, doesn’t it, Mr Wilkins?”
“It’s Weaver,” Billy said. “W-e-a-v-e-r.”
“Oh, of course it is!” she cried, sitting
down on the sofa. “How silly of me. I do
apologise. In one ear and out the other,
that’s me, Mr Weaver.”
“You know something?” Billy said.
‘Something that’s really quite
extraordinary about all this?”
“No, dear, I don’t.”
“Well, you see – both of these names,
Mulholland and Temple, I not only seem to
remember each one of them separately,
so to speak, but somehow or other, in
some peculiar way, they both appear to be
sort of connected together as well. As
though they were both famous for the
same sort of thing, if you see what I mean
– like … like Dempsey and Tunney, for
example, or Churchill and Roosevelt.”
“How amusing,” she said. “But come
over here now, dear, and sit down beside
me on the sofa and I’ll give you a nice cup
of tea and a ginger biscuit before you go
to bed.”
“You really shouldn’t bother,” Billy said.
“I didn’t mean you to do anything like that.”
He stood by the piano, watching her as
she fussed about with the cups and
saucers. He noticed that she had small,
white, quickly moving hands, and red
finger-nails.
“I’m almost positive it was in the
newspapers I saw them,” Billy said. “I’ll
think of it in a second. I’m sure I will.”
There is nothing more tantalising than a
thing like this which lingers just outside the
borders of one’s memory. He hated to give
up.
“Now wait a minute,” he said. “Wait just a
minute. Mulholland ... Christopher Mulholland
... wasn’t that the name of the Eton schoolboy
who was on a walking-tour through the West
Country, and then all of a sudden ...”
“Milk?” she said. “And sugar?”
“Yes, please. And then all of a sudden ...”
“Eton schoolboy?” she said. “Oh no, my
dear, that can’t possibly be right because my
Mr Mulholland was certainly not an Eton
schoolboy when he came to me. He was a
Cambridge undergraduate. Come over here
now and sit next to me and warm yourself in
front of this lovely fire. Come on. Your tea’s
all ready for you.” She patted the empty place
beside her on the sofa, and she sat there
smiling at Billy and waiting for him to come
over. He crossed the room slowly, and sat
down on the edge of the sofa. She placed his
teacup on the table in front of him.
“There we are,” she said. “How nice and
cosy this is, isn’t it?”
Billy started sipping his tea. She did the
same. For half a minute or so, neither of them
spoke. But Billy knew that she was looking at
him. Her body was half-turned towards him,
and he could feel her eyes resting on his
face, watching him over the rim of her teacup.
Now and again, he caught a whiff of a
peculiar smell that seemed to emanate
directly from her person. It was not in the
least unpleasant, and it reminded him – well,
he wasn’t quite sure what it reminded him of.
Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the
corridors of a hospital?
“Mr Mulholland was a great one for his tea,”
she said at length. “Never in my life have I
seen anyone drink as much tea as dear,
sweet Mr Mulholland.”
“I suppose he left fairly recently,” Billy said.
He was still puzzling his head about the two
names.
He was positive now that he had seen them
in the newspapers – in the headlines.
“Left?” she said, arching her brows. “But my
dear boy, he never left. He’s still here. Mr
Temple is also here. They’re on the third
floor, both of them together.”
Billy set down his cup slowly on the table,
and stared at his landlady. She smiled back
at him, and then she put out one of her white
hands and patted him comfortingly on the
knee. “How old are you, my dear?” she
asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen!” she cried. “Oh, it’s the
perfect age! Mr Mulholland was also
seventeen. But I think he was a trifle
shorter than you are, in fact I’m sure he
was, and his teeth weren’t quite so white.
You have the most beautiful teeth, Mr
Weaver, did you know that?”
“They’re not as good as they look,” Billy
said.
“They’ve got simply masses of fillings in
them at the back.”
“Mr Temple, of course, was a little
older,” she said, ignoring his remark. “He
was actually twenty eight. And yet I never
would have guessed it if he hadn’t told
me, never in my whole life. There wasn’t a
blemish on his body.”
“A what?” Billy said.
“His skin was just like a baby’s.”
There was a pause. Billy picked up his
teacup and took another sip of his tea,
then he set it down again gently in its
saucer. He waited for her to say
something else, but she seemed to have
lapsed into another of her silences. He sat
there staring straight ahead of him into the
far corner of the room, biting his lower lip.
“That parrot,” he said at last. “You know
something? It had me completely fooled
when I first saw it through the window
from the street. I could have sworn it was
alive.”
“Alas, no longer.”
“It’s most terribly clever the way it’s been
done,” he said. “It doesn’t look in the least
bit dead. Who did it?”
“I did.”
“You did?”
“Of course,” she said. “And have you
met my little Basil as well?” She nodded
towards the dachshund curled up so
comfortably in front of the fire. Billy looked
at it. And suddenly, he realised that this
animal had all the time been just as silent
and motionless as the parrot. He put out a
hand and touched it gently on the top of its
back. The back was hard and cold, and
when he pushed the hair to one side with
his fingers, he could see the skin
underneath, greyish-black and dry and
perfectly preserved.
“Good gracious me,” he said. “How
absolutely fascinating.” He turned away from
the dog and stared with deep admiration at
the little woman beside him on the sofa. “It
must be most awfully difficult to do a thing
like that.”
“Not in the least,” she said. “I stuff all my
little pets myself when they pass away. Will
you have another cup of tea?”
“No, thank you,” Billy said. The tea tasted
faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much
480 care for it.
“You did sign the book, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“That’s good. Because later on, if I happen
to forget what you were called, then I can
always come down here and look it up. I still
do that almost every day with Mr Mulholland
and Mr . . .Mr...”
“Temple,” Billy said. “Gregory Temple.
Excuse my asking, but haven’t there been
any other guests here except them in the last
two or three years?”
Holding her teacup high in one hand,
inclining her head slightly to the left, she
looked up at him out of the corners of her
eyes and gave him another gentle little smile.
“No, my dear,” she said. ‘Only you.'