The story focuses on a 17-year old boy named Billy Weaver who has just stepped into the world of work. Arriving in Bath for a business trip, he looks for a place to stay, and is entranced by a bed and breakfast sign which somehow hypnotizes him into checking out the boardinghouse. He presses the doorbell, and before he can lift his finger from the bell-button, the door opens and a middle-aged landlady appears. She treats him generously, giving him a floor of his own to stay on, and charging him much less than he expected. However, she also emits a sense of spookiness, which, though apparently Billy does not notice, appears quite evident to the reader.
In the inn's guestbook, he sees that only two other guests have stayed there—one older, the other younger, and both having arrived earlier than 2 years prior. Billy finds the names vaguely familiar from the newspaper, and on further reflection recalls that they "were both famous for the same thing." Suspicion continues to generate in the reader when the landlady makes a comment about one of the two boys in past tense, to which Billy comments that he must have only left recently. The landlady replies that both of the guests are still residing at the inn. Billy then notices that the dog by the fireplace and the parrot he had noticed earlier were stuffed as he looks closer and touches the dog to examine it. The landlady says that she herself was the taxidermist, and he is impressed. She then tells him, "I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away," and offers him more tea.
Billy refuses because the tea "tasted faintly of bitter almonds". The author leaves us at the climax of the story. The reader is left to infer or wonder what happens to Billy Weaver.
