Three Blind Mice Read Online Free PDF Page B

Boyle—which is that both you and he are paying us seven guineas a week. That’s really all that I need to know, isn’t it? And all that concerns me. It doesn’t matter to me whether I like my guests, or whether—” Molly looked very steadily at Mrs. Boyle—“or whether I don’t.”
    Mrs. Boyle flushed angrily. “You are young and inexperienced and should welcome advice from someone more knowledgeable than yourself. And what about this queer foreigner? When did he arrive?”
    “In the middle of the night.”
    “Indeed. Most peculiar. Not a very conventional hour.”
    “To turn away bona fide travelers would be against the law, Mrs. Boyle.” Molly added sweetly. “You may not be aware of that.”
    “All I can say is that this Paravicini, or whatever he calls himself, seems to me—”
    “Beware, beware, dear lady. You talk of the devil and then—”
    Mrs. Boyle jumped as though it had been indeed the devil who addressed her. Mr. Paravicini, who had minced quietly in without either of the two women noticing him, laughed and rubbed his hands together with a kind of elderly satanic glee.
    “You startled me,” said Mrs. Boyle. “I did not hear you come in.”
    “I come in on tiptoe, so,” said Mr. Paravicini, “nobody ever hears me come and go. That I find very amusing. Sometimes I overhear things. That, too, amuses me.” He added softly, “But I do not forget what I hear.”
    Mrs. Boyle said rather feebly, “Indeed? I must get my knitting—I left it in the drawing room.”
    She went out hurriedly. Molly stood looking at Mr. Paravicini with a puzzled expression. He approached her with a kind of hop and skip.
    “My charming hostess looks upset.” Before she could prevent it, he picked up her hand and kissed it. “What is it, dear lady?”
    Molly drew back a step. She was not sure that she liked Mr. Paravicini much. He was leering at her like an elderly satyr.
    “Everything is rather difficult this morning,” she said lightly. “Because of the snow.”
    “Yes.” Mr. Paravicini turned his head round to look out of the window. “Snow makes everything very difficult, does it not? Or else it makes things very easy.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “No,” he said thoughtfully. “There is quite a lot that you do not know. I think, for one thing, that you do not know very much about running a guesthouse.”
    Molly’s chin went up belligerently. “I daresay we don’t. But we mean to make a go of it.”
    “Bravo, bravo.”
    “After all,” Molly’s voice betrayed slight anxiety, “I’m not such a very bad cook—”
    “You are, without doubt, an enchanting cook,” said Mr. Paravicini.
    What a nuisance foreigners were, thought Molly.
    Perhaps Mr. Paravicini read her thoughts. At all events his manner changed. He spoke quietly and quite seriously.
    “May I give you a little word of warning, Mrs. Davis? You and your husband must not be too trusting, you know. Have you references with these guests of yours?”
    “Is that usual?” Molly looked troubled. “I thought people just—just came.”
    “It is advisable always to know a little about the people who sleep under your roof.” He leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder in a minatory kind of way. “Take myself, for example. I turn up in the middle of the night. My car, I say, is overturned in a snowdrift. What do you know of me? Nothing at all. Perhaps you know nothing, either, of your other guests.”
    “Mrs. Boyle—” began Molly, but stopped as that lady herself re-entered the room, knitting in hand.
    “The drawing room is too cold. I shall sit in here.” She marched toward the fireplace.
    Mr. Paravicini pirouetted swiftly ahead of her. “Allow me to poke the fire for you.”
    Molly was struck, as she had been the night before, by the youthful jauntiness of his step. She noticed that he always seemed careful to keep his back to the light, and now, as he knelt, poking the fire, she thought she saw the reason for it.