Pustak Mahal Crooked House (HC015)

Towards the end of the Second World War, Charles Hayward is in Cairo and falls in love with Sophia Leonides, a smart, successful Englishwoman who works for the Foreign Office. They put off getting engaged until the end of the war when they will be reunited in England. Hayward returns home and reads an obituary in The Times: Sophia's grandfather, the wealthy entrepreneur Aristide Leonides, has died, aged 85.

Due to the war, the whole family has been living with him in a sumptuous but ill-proportioned house called "Three Gables"–the 'crooked house' of the title. The autopsy reveals that Leonides was poisoned with his own eserine-based eye medicine via an insulin injection. Sophia tells Charles that she can't marry him until the matter is cleared up. The obvious suspects are Brenda Leonides, Aristide's much younger second wife, and Laurence Brown, a conscientious objector who has been living in the house as private tutor to Sophia's younger brother and sister, Eustace and Josephine.

They are rumoured to have been carrying on an illicit love affair under old Leonides's nose. The family members hope these two prove to be the murderers because they despise Brenda as a gold digger and also hope to escape the scandal that a different outcome would bring. The police fail to turn up a suspect. Charles agrees to help his father, an Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, to investigate the crime. He becomes a house guest at Three Gables, hoping that someone might reveal a clue at an unguarded moment.