A little way beyond the golf course, we turned in at a gateway where I imagined that before the war there had been an imposing pair of gates. Patriotism or ruthless requisitioning had swept these away. We drove up a long curving drive flanked with rhododendrons and came out on a gravelled sweep in front of the house.

It was incredible! I wondered why it had been called Three Gables. Eleven Gables J would have been more apposite! The curious thing was that it had a strange air of being distorted - and I thought I knew why. It was the type, really, of a cottage, it was a cottage swollen out of all proportion. It was like looking at a country cottage through a gigantic magnifying glass. The slantwise beams, the half-timbering, the gables - it was a little crooked house that had grown like a mushroom in the night!

Yet I got the idea. It was a Greek | restauranteer's idea of something English.

It was meant to be an Englishman's home - built the size of a castle! I wondered what the first Mrs. Leonides had thought of it. She had not, I fancied, been consulted | or shown the plans. It was, most probably, her exotic husband's little surprise. I wondered if she had shuddered or smiled.

Apparently she had lived there quite happily.

"Bit overwhelming, isn't it?" said Inspector Taverner. "Of course, the old gentleman built on to it a good deal -making it into three separate houses, so to speak, with kitchens and everything. It's all tip top inside, fitted up like a luxury hotel."

Sophia came out of the front door. She was hatless and wore a green shirt and a tweed skirt.

She stopped dead when she saw me.

"You?" she exclaimed.

I said: