In this one, we are pretty much told right at the start (and would have probably guessed even if we weren’t) that this will only lead to doom, but what we don’t see coming is the little twist du Maurier throws in at the end. But soon he becomes embroiled with the young man’s not so savoury uncle as well. He begins to return every evening, and tries to help when he learns the young man wants to work in England. There, after dinner one evening, he sees and is immediately smitten by a young waiter, whom he begins to refer to as Ganymede. Next was Ganymede, where our narrator who usually spends his vacation with his sister and her family, finds himself heading to Venice for his sister cannot have him down this year. Is this just her mind playing games with her or is there a deeper conspiracy involved? Another one with a twist (perhaps not as much of a surprise as in the first story, but one nonetheless), and one which would make a fairly fun Halloween read. But when she opens her eyes after her surgery she is greeted not by the sight of people but of various animals-each person she sets her eyes on is one, a cow, a dog, a snake, and an ape. She is full of hope and excited to see her husband again but also all the nurses and doctors who have been attending her. We have Marda West in hospital for an eye surgery which is supposed to return her vision to her there is to be a fitting of temporary blue lenses followed by permanent ones. The Blue Lenses is probably my favourite, and also the most unnerving in the book, where it isn’t perhaps only the main character who is wondering what game is being played with her, but us as well.

In this story, like in My Cousin Rachel, which I just revisited, I felt du Maurier like a puppet master played with us as well, getting us to see certain things, and then throwing in a twist, and then a further one which we don’t see coming at all. When he arrives there with his art supplies, he begins to find that he is actually enjoying the process of painting. He picks a shabby home in a shabby neighbourhood, where the caretaker is a young woman with a child, and leases a room there in the guise of an artist seeking a quiet space to work. Suddenly disgusted with the world around him, he comes up with a sinister plan-to randomly murder someone. The first story, The Alibi is about James Fenton, an ordinary salaried man, out on a Sunday afternoon walk with his wife when something in him snaps.

The blue lenses daphne du maurier