Three Blind Mice

[Verse 1]

3. 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

No. 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,

"'Drag 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 not.

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

3 Blind Mice.

[Verse 2]

Molly Davis stepped back into the road and

looked up at the newly painted board by

the gate.

Monkswell Manor.

Guest House.

She nodded approval.

It looked, it really did look, quite professional.

Or perhaps I might say almost professional.

The tea 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 handyman,

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 guesthouse 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 Catherine 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 1 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 2 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 Emery 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 5 people each paying 7

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 2 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 tea time.

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.

[Verse 3]

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 Catherine 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, 2 miles from

a village.

2 miles, as Molly put it, from anywhere.

She'd 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 window panes. 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 1 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,