2. Roald Dahl's emphasis on the Landlady's quick response to the door in "The Landlady" suggests she might have a hidden agenda or deceptive nature. This quickness could foreshadow her eagerness or even desperation for guests, hinting at darker intentions beneath her outwardly hospitable demeanor.
3.
Billy should have been suspicious of the Landlady from the moment he noticed the absence of other guests, the peculiar presence of stuffed animals, and the Landlady's overly eager behavior. These details should have raised red flags for him. As a reader, I would have been suspicious from the start due to these oddities and the Landlady's unsettling demeanor.
4.Dahl includes the description of the absence of hats, coats, umbrellas, and walking sticks in the hall to highlight the eerie atmosphere of the bed and breakfast and to emphasize the lack of other guests, contributing to the growing sense of unease experienced by both the protagonist and the reader.
5. The first alert that something may be wrong comes when Billy notices that the guest-book entries are over two years old, suggesting that guests might not leave frequently or at all.
6. The Landlady’s interruptions prevent Billy from fully remembering the connections between the boys, thereby delaying his realization of the danger, which adds to the suspense.
7. The reader can infer that the missing boys, Christopher Mulholland and Gregory Temple, met a grim fate, likely at the hands of the Landlady. This suggests a similar danger for Billy.
8. The evidence suggesting a fatal outcome for Billy includes the Landlady's knowledge of taxidermy and the tea tasting of bitter almonds, which is often associated with cyanide, a lethal poison.