Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/30

 up to the house stood pillars of reddish stone, each surmounted by a panther and a goat with a serpent at their feet. The panther and the goat held between them a shield upon which no arms had ever been cut. So damaged were the figures by time and weather that a less antiquarian eye than Mr. Winnery's would not have known them for what they were. Straight ahead the avenue lost itself in the shadows of gnarled and ancient trees which hung closely over the road.

After they had gone a little way, the villa itself came into view—a commonplace yellowish villa set among cypresses and olive trees with a flat façade ornamented in the fashion of Spanish rather than Italian baroque. It had an unkempt look with its shutters all closed against the heat and the shrubbery all scraggly and unpruned. At the door, just beside a large clump of sword-like yuccas, stood a smart motor painted black with a delicate red stripe running about the top. It was an eccentric, Latin and expensive car, shining with too much polished metal and too many elegant appurtenances, of the kind known as une voiture de grand sport. The sight of it tended to raise the spirits of Mr. Winnery. It meant that he would not be compelled to encounter the formidable Mrs. Weatherby alone.

As he came nearer still, he saw that a part of the villa on the side next to the valley had been built upon a sort of terrace foundation of a much older period. This, Mr. Winnery saw, was of Roman construction. It might be that underneath it lay an even more ancient foundation of Etruscan origin.

"Extremely interesting," he murmured, so loudly