"The Landlady" by Roald Dahl

“Try The Bell and Dragon,” the porter answered, pointing down the road.

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 facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect.

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.

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.

On the other hand, a pub would be more congenial than a boardinghouse.

The name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a powerful smell of kippers in the living-room.

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 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, 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.

The compulsion or, more accurately, the desire to follow after her into that house was extraordinarily strong.

But the trouble is that I’m inclined to be just a teeny-weeny bit choosy and particular—if you see what I mean.

“I’m so glad you appeared,” she said, looking earnestly into his face. “I was beginning to get worried.”

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 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.

“Dear me,” she said, shaking her head and heaving a dainty little sigh.

He stood by the piano, watching her as she fussed about with the cups and saucers.

“You know something?” Billy said. “Something that’s really quite extraordinary about all this?”

There is nothing more tantalizing than a thing like this that lingers just outside the borders of one’s memory.

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?

“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 fourth floor, both of them together.”

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.

There wasn’t a blemish on his body.

He waited for her to say something else, but she seemed to have lapsed into another of her silences.

“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?”

The back was hard and cold, and when he pushed the hair to one side with his fingers, he could see the skin underneath, grayish black and dry and perfectly preserved.

The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.

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.