Three Blind Mice
Three Blind Mice
See how they run
See how they run
They all ran after the farmer's wife
She cut off their tails with a carving knife
Did you ever see such a sight in your life
As Three Blind Mice
***
It was very cold. The sky was dark and heavy with unshed snow.
A man in a dark overcoat, with his muffler pulled up round his face, and his hat pulled down over his eyes, came along Culver Street and went up the steps of number 74. He put his finger on the bell and heard it shrilling in the basement below.
Mrs Casey, her hands busy in the sink, said bitterly, "Drat that bell. Never any peace, there isn't."
Wheezing a little, she toiled up the basement stairs and opened the door.
The man standing silhouetted against the lowering sky outside asked in a whisper, "Mrs Lyon?"
"Second floor," said Mrs Casey. "You can go on up. Does she expect you?"
The man slowly shook his head.
"Oh, well, go on up and knock."
She watched him as he went up the shabbily carpeted stairs.
Afterward she said, he "gave her a funny feeling." But actually all she thought was that he must have a pretty bad cold only to be able to whisper like that - and no wonder with the weather what it was.
When the man got round the bend of the staircase he began to whistle softly. The tune he whistled was "Three Blind Mice."
Molly Davis stepped back into the road and looked up at the newly painted board by the gate.
MONKSWELL MANOR GUESTHOUSE
She nodded approval. It looked, it really did look, quite professional. Or, perhaps, one might say almost professional. The T of Guest House staggered uphill a little, and the end of Manor was slightly crowded, but on the whole Giles had made a wonderful job of it.
Giles was really very clever. There were so many things that he could do. She was always making fresh discoveries about this husband of hers. He said so little about himself that it was only by degrees that she was finding out what a lot of varied talents he had. An ex-naval man was always a "handy man," so people said.
Well, Giles would have need of all his talents in their new venture. Nobody could be more raw to the business of running a guest house than she and Giles. But it would be great fun. And it did solve the housing problem.
It had been Molly's idea. When Aunt Katherine died, and the lawyers wrote to her and informed her that her aunt had left her Monkswell Manor, the natural reaction of the young couple had been to sell it.
Giles had asked, "What is it like?"
And Molly had replied, "Oh, a big, rambling old house, full of stuffy, old-fashioned Victorian furniture. Rather a nice garden, but terribly overgrown since the war, because there's been only one old gardener left."
So they had decided to put the house on the market, and keep just enough furniture to furnish a small cottage or flat for themselves.
But two difficulties arose at once. First, there weren't any small cottages or flats to be found, and secondly, all the furniture was enormous.
"Well," said Molly, "we'll just have to sell it all. I suppose it will sell?" The solicitor assured them that nowadays anything would sell.
"Very probably," he said, "someone will buy it for a hotel or guest house in which case they might like to buy it with the furniture complete. Fortunately the house is in very good repair. The late Miss Emory had extensive repairs and modernizations done just before the war, and there has been very little deterioration. Oh, yes, it's in good shape."
And it was then that Molly had had her idea.
"Giles," she said, "why shouldn't we run it as a guest house ourselves?"
At first her husband had scoffed at the idea, but Molly had persisted.
"We needn't take very many people - not at first. It's an easy house to run - it's got hot and cold water in the bedrooms and central heating and a gas cooker. And we can have hens and ducks and our own eggs, and vegetables."
"Who'd do all the work - isn't it very hard to get servants?"
"Oh, we'd have to do the work. But wherever we lived we'd have to do that. A few extra people wouldn't really mean much more to do. We'd probably get a woman to come in after a bit when we got properly started. If we had only five people, each paying seven guineas a week -" Molly departed into the realms of somewhat optimistic mental arithmetic.
"And think, Giles," she ended, "it would be our own house. With our own things. As it is, it seems to me it will be years before we can ever find anywhere to live."
That, Giles admitted, was true. They had had so little time together since their hasty marriage, that they were both longing to settle down in a home.
So the great experiment was set under way. Advertisements were put in the local paper and in the Times, and various answers came.
And now, today, the first of the guests was to arrive. Giles had gone off early in the car to try and obtain some army wire netting that had been advertised as for sale on the other side of the county.
Molly announced the necessity of walking to the village to make some last purchases.
The only thing that was wrong was the weather. For the last two days it had been bitterly cold, and now the snow was beginning to fall.
Molly hurried up the drive, thick, feathery flakes falling on her waterproofed shoulders and bright curly hair. The weather forecasts had been lugubrious in the extreme. Heavy snowfall was to be expected.
She hoped anxiously that all the pipes wouldn't freeze. It would be too bad if everything went wrong just as they started.
She glanced at her watch. Past teatime. Would Giles have got back yet? Would he be wondering where she was?
"I had to go to the village again for something I had forgotten," she would say. And he would laugh and say, "More tins?"
Tins were a joke between them. They were always on the lookout for tins of food. The larder was really quite nicely stocked now in case of emergencies.
And, Molly thought with a grimace as she looked up at the sky, it looked as though emergencies were going to present themselves very soon.
The house was empty. Giles was not back yet.
Molly went first into the kitchen, then upstairs, going round the newly prepared bedrooms. Mrs Boyle in the south room with the mahogany and the four-poster. Major Metcalf in the blue room with the oak. Mr Wren in the east room with the bay window. All the rooms looked very nice - and what a blessing that Aunt Katherine had had such a splendid stock of linen. Molly patted a counterpane into place and went downstairs again.
It was nearly dark. The house felt suddenly very quiet and empty. It was a lonely house, two miles from a village, two miles, as Molly put it, from anywhere.
She had often been alone in the house before - but she had never before been so conscious of being alone in it.
The snow beat in a soft flurry against the windowpanes. It made a whispery, uneasy sound.
Supposing Giles couldn't get back - supposing the snow was so thick that the car couldn't get through? Supposing she had to stay alone here - stay alone for days, perhaps.
She looked round the kitchen - a big, comfortable kitchen that seemed to call for a big, comfortable cook presiding at the kitchen table, her jaws moving rhythmically as she ate rock cakes and drank black tea - she should be flanked by a tall, elderly parlour-maid on one side and a round, rosy housemaid on the other, with a kitchen-maid at the other end of the table observing her betters with frightened eyes. And instead there was just herself, Molly Davis, playing a role that did not yet seem a very natural role to play.
Her whole life, at the moment, seemed unreal - Giles seemed unreal. She was playing a part - just playing a part.
A shadow passed the window, and she jumped - a strange man was coming through the snow. She heard the rattle of the side door. The stranger stood there in the open doorway, shaking off snow, a strange man, walking into the empty house. And then, suddenly, illusion fled.