‘It’s impossible, I swear—I formally swear to you that the piano never stopped for more than a few seconds. You know what it’s like on a still night. The cessation of a noise like that hits your ears. Albie was probably half-tight. Good Lord, he said himself that the piano went on all the time. Of course it wasn’t Cliff that he saw. I’m amazed that you pay the smallest attention to his meanderings.’ Fabian paused. ‘If he saw any one,’ he added, and his voice changed, ‘I admit that it was probably the murderer. It wasn’t Cliff. You yourself pointed out that it was almost dark.’

‘Then why did Cliff refuse to talk about the whisky?’

‘Schoolboy honour. He’d struck up a friendship with the wretched creature.’

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘That’s tenable.’

‘Then why don’t you accept it?’

‘My dear chap, I’ll accept it if it fits. See here. I want you to do two things for me. The first is easy. When you go indoors, help me to get a toll call through in privacy. Will you?’

‘Of course.’

‘The second is troublesome. You know the pens inside the shearing-shed? With the slatted floor where the unshorn sheep are huddled together?’

‘Well?’

‘You’ve finished crutching today, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m afraid I want to take that slatted floor up.’

Fabian stared at him. ‘Why on earth?’

‘There may be something underneath.’

‘There are the sheep droppings of thirty years underneath.’

‘So I feared. Those of the last year are all that concern me. I’ll want a sieve and a spade and if you can lay your hands on a pair of rejected overalls, I’d be grateful.’

Fabian looked at Alleyn’s hands. ‘And gloves if it could be managed,’ Alleyn said. ‘I’m very sorry about taking up the floor. The police department will pay the damage, of course. It may only be one section—the one nearest the press. I think you might warn the others when we go in.’

‘May I ask what you hope to find?’

‘A light that failed,’ said Alleyn.

‘Am I supposed to understand that?’

‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t.’ They had reached the gate into the lavender walk. Alleyn turned and looked back at the track. He could see the open door into the annexe where they had left Albie Black weeping off the combined effects of confession, betrayal and the hangover from wood alcohol.

‘Was it methylated spirit they’d been drinking?’ he asked. ‘He and the cook?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past them. Or Hokanui.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The local equivalent of potheen.’

‘Why do you keep him?’

‘He doesn’t break out very often. We can’t pick our men in war-time.’

‘I’d love to lock him up,’ Alleyn said. ‘He stinks. He’s a toad.’

‘Then why do you listen to him?’