In The Landlady by Roald Dahl, Billy Weaver, a young naive businessman gets lured into a bed and breakfast by a strange old lady, and presumably, gets murdered and stuffed. One of the themes of the story is that first impressions can be wrong.
The story starts out with Billy arriving at Bath and looking for a place to stay. He is directed towards a pub, but on the way, he finds a bed and breakfast and decides to go there instead due to how inviting it seemed. Inside, he finds the landlady, who welcomes him, and Billy was completely convinced to stay there at the mention of the low price and hospitality of the lady. The landlady then has him sign a book, which each previous customer signed, saying that there were only two other guests ever, who the landlady insists are still staying with her. It is then revealed that her pets are both stuffed and almost perfectly preserved, and Billy was given tea, which he notes tasted like almonds.
The story ends pretty quickly, and with the evidence, the old lady poisoned Billy’s tea with cyanide, which is said to smell like almonds. after killing Billy, she probably stuffed him and put him away with the previous guests, who were probably also stuffed.
The moral in the story is don’t judge a book by its cover. Billy came to the landlady because she had pets and her bed and breakfast looked nice. He continued to stay because she was friendly and had good service for cheap. Because of how nice the landlady was at first, Billy didn’t pay too much attention to suspicious details, leading to him getting killed and stuffed.
