The landlady

The landlady focuses on a young and bright man named Billy Weaver who has just stepped into the world of work. Arriving in Bath for a business trip, he looks for a place to stay, and is recommended to the Bell and Dragon. While headed there, he comes upon a bed and breakfast sign which advertises a cheap room and board, and due to his intense curiosity he goes to check it out. He presses the doorbell, and a middle-aged landlady answers the door immediately as if she had been waiting for him. She treats him generously, but calling him Mr. Perkins and giving him a whole floor of his own to stay on, and charging him much less than he expected. However, she also emits a sense of spookiness, which, though apparently Billy does not notice, appears quite evident to the reader. The old landlady gives him tea with a ginger biscuit. In the inn's guest book, he sees that only two other guests have stayed there—one older, the other younger, and both having arrived earlier than 2 years prior. Billy finds the names vaguely familiar. On further reflection recalls that they "were both famous for the same thing" (going missing). The landlady makes a comment about one of the two boys in past tense, to which Billy replies that they must have only left recently. The landlady replies that both of the guests are still residing at the inn. Billy then notices that the dog by the fireplace and the parrot he had noticed earlier were stuffed as he looks closer and touches the dog to examine it. She then tells him, "I stuff all my pets myself," and offers him more tea. Billy refuses because the tea "tasted faintly of bitter almonds" (a characteristic of cyanide). The story ends with Billy asking if there have been any other guests or visitors in the past few years, to which the landlady replies, "No my dear, Only you." In the televised version, however, Billy then becomes paralyzed and the landlady takes him up to one of her rooms where he finds two dead men whom he