There is nothing more tantalizing 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 realized 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 care for it.
'You did sign the book, didn't you?'
'Oh, yes.'