
It had seemed like an ideal situation: reasonable rent, near the campus, well-furnished. It had only a few drawbacks, including a relative lack of privacy, since it was just a room in some lady's house, and the fact that the lady seemed a bit odd. She was in her late fifties, he thought, and there wasn't anything he could put his finger on, but her whole attitude seemed just a little off-kilter, as though she was concerned about things most people quietly ignored. Near the end of his first visit, for example, she had asked, out of the blue and [...]