‘Could the doors have been rolled open from outside?’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Were they fastened inside?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Is it remotely possible that there was somebody hiding in here when you knocked off?’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Mrs Rubrick must have come in by the sacking door?’

Mr Wilson grunted.

‘She was very short. She couldn’t reach up to fit the baton on the cross beam where it now rests. So she probably pushed it in a little way. Is that right, should you say?’

‘Might be.’

‘And her murderer must have gained entrance by the same means, if we wash out the possibility of shoving up one of the traps and coming in that way?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Where was the branding iron left, when you knocked off?’

‘Inside the door, on the floor.’

‘The sacking door, that is. And the pot of paint was there too, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was the iron in its right place next morning?’

‘Young Cliff says it was shifted,’ said Mr Wilson in a sudden burst of loquacity.

‘Had he put it away?’

‘That’s right. He says it was shifted. It was him first drew attention to the thing. He put the police on to it.’

‘Did you notice anything unusual that morning, Mr Wilson? Anything at all, however trivial?’

Mr Wilson fixed his pale blue gaze upon a duster of ewes at the far end of the paddock and said, ‘Look.’ Alleyn looked at the ewes. ‘Listen,’ Mr Wilson continued, ‘I told Sergeant Clark what I seen when I come in and I told Sub-Inspector Jackson and they both wrote it down. The men told them what they seen and they wrote that down too, although it was the same as what I seen.’

‘I know,’ said Alleyn, ‘I know. It seems silly but I would rather like to hear it for myself now. I’ve seen the place. You see, there was nothing new or confusing about a wool-shed to Clark and Jackson. They’re New Zealanders, dyed in the wool, and they understand.’

Mr Wilson laughed surprisingly and with unexampled contempt. ‘Them?’ he said. ‘They were as much at home in the shed as a couple of ruddy giraffes, those two jokers.’

‘In that case,’ said Alleyn with a mental apology to his colleagues, ‘I should certainly prefer to hear the story from you.’

‘There isn’t a story,’ said Mr Wilson piteously. ‘That’s what I keep telling you. There isn’t a ruddy story.’

‘Just give Mr Alleyn an account of the way you opened up the shed and got going, Ben,’ said Fabian.