The Umbrella Man and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

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 couldsee 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.”
    “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.”

Mr. Boggis was driving the car slowly, leaning back comfortably in the seat with one elbow resting on the sill of the open window. How beautiful the countryside, he thought; how pleasant to see a sign or two of summer once again. The primr.oses especially. And the hawthorn. The hawthorn was exploding white and pink and red along the hedges and the primr.oses were growing underneath in little clumps, and it was beautiful.
    He took one hand off the wheel and lit himself a cigarette. The best thing now, he told himself, would be to make for the top of Brill Hill. He could see it about half a mile ahead. And that must be the village of Brill, that cluster of cottages among the trees right on the very summit. Excellent. Not many of his Sunday sections had a nice elevation like that to work from.
    He drove up the hill and stopped the car just short of the summit on the outskirts of the village. Then he got out and looked around. Down below, the countryside was spread out before him like a huge green carpet. He could see for miles. It was perfect. Hetook a pad and pencil from his pocket, leaned against the back of the car, and allowed his practised eye to travel slowly over the landscape.
    He could see one medium farmhouse over on the right, back in the fields, with a track leading to it from the road. There was another larger one beyond it. There was a house surrounded by tall elms that looked as though it might be a Queen Anne, and there were two likely farms away over on the left. Five places in all. That was about the lot in this direction.
    Mr. Boggis drew a rough sketch on his pad showing the position of each so that he’d be able to find them easily when he was down below, then he got back into the car and drove up through the village to the other side of the hill. From there he spotted six more possibles—five farms and one big white Georgian house. He studied the Georgian house through his binoculars. It had a clean prosperous look, and the garden was well ordered. That was a pity. He ruled it out immediately. There was no point in calling on the prosperous.
    In this square then, in this section, there were ten possibles in all. Ten was a nice number, Mr. Boggis told himself. Just the right