Great-Aunt Elodie’s house was a towering white block of stone, laced in archways and columns. It backed on to the Bosphorus Strait. To its left was a beautiful garden, sleeping for the winter. At the front were wide stone steps, leading up to a black front door.

On either side of the door were chained two dogs that seemed to be made all of triangles – hackles raised into triangles that trembled behind triangular faces that hung open to reveal triangular teeth. They sat alert, waiting for intruders.

Today, there would be four.

The spurned admirer

At 10.03, a young man in tweed rang the doorbell. He put down a large basket on the step, polished his glasses on his jacket, put them back on his nose, ran a hand through his hair and waited.

It was answered by a butler with permanently raised eyebrows, who listened politely to the man’s vague rambling, bowed stiffly, and disappeared inside to deliver his message. A minute later, a young woman with mismatched eyes and a dragon smile appeared. She did not smile the smile, and both the mismatched eyes matched each other in their anger. She stayed a foot inside the doorway.

“Rupert!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

The man sneezed twice, then heaved up the basket from the steps and put it inside the hallway, at her feet. The dogs stretched their chains to sniff the basket, heads cocked, puzzled.

“I had to find you,” said Rupert. “I sleep-walked off that train before I could tell you that I love you.”

The woman raised her eyebrows at that, but she didn’t say anything.

“I brought you a hundred roses,” said the man, indicating the basket. “One for every year that I will love you.”

“Right. You’re planning to live to be one hundred and, what, thirty-five?”

“Twenty-eight!” The man seemed, for a moment, less vague somehow; sharper round the edges. Then he cleared his throat, and melted again. More softly, he said, “Twenty-eight – my love.”

“Fine. You’re planning to live to be one hundred and twenty-eight?”

“Well, I mean, that is, the roses are more of a metaphor…”

“Rupert,” said the woman. “Go away.” And she nudged the dogs back on to the step, and shut the door, leaving the man outside – one hundred roses poorer and no richer in love.

He didn’t seem too upset. As he walked away, he got sharper round the edges again, and he was whistling.

The bitter rival

At 10.20, a man built like a small mountain rang the doorbell. An elderly woman covered in furs poked him out of the way with her stick and rang the doorbell herself, four times, just to make sure.