The visitor had returned to the shearing-board. Suddenly and quite clearly a long thin object was revealed, lying near the doorway. It was taken up and Alleyn saw that it was a green branch. The visitor padded back to the sheep pens. The light jogged and wavered over the barrier and was finally directed inside. Alleyn began to slough his covering. Now he squatted on his heels with the press between himself and the light. Now he rose until he crouched behind it and could look with his left eye round the corner. The visitor fumbled and thumped softly. The light darted eccentrically about the walls and, for a brief flash, revealed its owner astride the barrier. A movement and the figure disappeared. Alleyn looked over the edge of the press into blackness. He could hear Markins breathing. He reached down and his fingers touched short coarse hair.

‘When you hear me,’ he breathed, and a tiny voice replied, ‘OK.’

He slipped off his too tight jacket and moving sideways glided across the shed and along the wall, until his back was against the portholes. He peered across the shearing-board towards the pens, now faintly lit by reflected light from the visitor’s torch. A curious sound came from them, a mixture of rattle and scuffle.

Alleyn drew in his breath. He was about to discover whether the post-mortem on Florence Rubrick’s character, the deduction he had drawn from it, and the light it had seemed to cast on her associates, were true or false. The case had closed in upon a point of light still hidden from him. He felt an extraordinary reluctance to take the final step. For a moment time stood still. ‘Get it over,’ he thought, and lightly crossed the shearing-board. He rested his hand on the partition and switched on his torch.

It shone full in the eyes of Douglas Grace.

EPILOGUE

According to Alleyn

PART OF A letter from Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn to Detective Inspector Fox.

…you asked for the works, Br’er Fox, and you’ll get them. I enclose a copy of my report, but it may amuse you to have the pointers as I saw them. All right. First pointer. The leakage of information through the Portuguese journalist.

Not being a believer in fairies or in stories of access to sealed rooms, you’ll have decided that Fabian Losse, Douglas Grace, and, possibly, Florence Rubrick, were the only persons who had a hope of extracting blueprints and handing them on. Remembering they were copies, not originals, you’ll see that Florence Rubrick is ruled out. She hadn’t the ability to make copies or the apparatus to photograph originals.