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Very few details are revealed about the landlady, but the little information given to the reader shows her to be unwell, conniving, evil, and possibly supernatural. The first clue that something is off with the landlady is how quickly she opens the door after Billy rings. This quickness indicates a certain greedy eagerness, yet the rest of the landlady’s behavior is courteous and reserved. The effect of this paradox is unsettling and suggests she is hiding something. The landlady’s admission that she is always prepared to welcome someone into her “little nest,” but that she is also very choosy about whom, reveals a calculating and conniving nature. Put together, these clues make the landlady seem truly menacing and possibly evil. Evil is often associated with insanity and the landlady shows signs of this as well. She seems calm and kind, but it is an empty kindness and an emotionless calm, which suggests sociopathy or psychosis. Her forgetfulness, objectifying descriptions of past guests, and obsession with taxidermy only heighten the suspicion that she is unstable at best, and has a lust for death at worst. Finally, Billy’s inexplicable desire to ring the doorbell and the invisible pull he feels to follow the landlady into the house could suggest that he is under the influence of a spell. While Billy’s pull toward the landlady’s bed and breakfast is Dahl’s only implication of the paranormal, it still could indicate that the landlady is not only evil, but possibly supernatural, and uses dark magic to trap her prey.

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