‘You have to somehow make her legitimate. Lots of artefacts get shipped all round the world before they ever get offered for sale. A clever middleman will know which ports will give you an export licence – probably for a small consideration. So she gets shipped from port to port until she’s got a paper trail of export licences. Then she will be lent, free, to some small gallery in Munich or even Japan, and then you can say she has had an exhibition. She is getting even more respectable. They call it “seasoning”. Finally you make up some story that she was bought by some young aristo on his Grand Tour, and by now she’s as respectable as the Queen Mother, and bingo – you get you get your ten million. It’s a risky game, but the Department of Culture here hasn’t got enough people to investigate. That’s why we need Stelios.’

‘And how do you know all this stuff?’ Dora asked, actually quite impressed.

‘The man in the local museum told me all about it. The authorities all know, but there are six thousand Greek islands and who knows how many Venuses, so what can they really do?’

‘Well, he’s not having ours!’ Dora announced, suddenly sounding like Boadicea. ‘How soon can this Stelios get here?’

Karl bowed. ‘He’s coming tomorrow. I’ve asked Nikos to pick him up from Ximonos so that he won’t be seen coming off the ferry right under Mr Georgiades’ nose.’

‘You’re really quite smart, aren’t you?’ Dora acknowledged.

‘Archaeologists can be sexy too, you know,’ replied Karl. ‘I thought I might dress up as Indiana Jones for you. I’m sure I could find a hat like his in the supermarket.’

‘What about the whip?’ she replied archly.

‘You might have to use your imagination for that.’

Takis looked from one to the other and saw how much they were enjoying themselves. ‘So this is why they say the English are mad.’

Nikos decided that the best time for Stelios’s arrival would be the early morning, when Kyri was at its quietest. So the only audience for the event consisted of an old man inspecting the ground for cigarette butts, two very thin cats, and Andreas, the baker, who had come outside for a quick escape from his heat-blasting ovens.

In fact, a rather weary Nell, Dora, Penny and Moira were ranged discreetly behind Dora’s curtains in her room at the front of the hotel to get a first glance at the saviour Karl had selected to find their missing goddess.

The boat docked at the pier and a large man in a floppy black hat and trench coat, tied unflatteringly round the middle, stepped out of the boat onto the quay. He looked round him and, for reasons known only to himself, began to laugh uproariously.

‘By Jupiter,’ said Moira, ‘Karl’s hired an escaped lunatic!’