‘There was another thing that didn’t strike you, Ursula,’ said Terence Lynne. ‘You may remember that you took the carpet sweeper from me and that I came for it when you’d finished. It wanted emptying and I took it down to the rubbish bin. I noticed there was something twisted round one of the axles, between the wheel and the box. I unwound it.’ Terence paused, looking at her hands. ‘It was a lock of wool,’ she said tranquilly. ‘Natural wool, I mean, from the fleece.’

‘You never told us that,’ said Fabian sharply.

‘I told the detective. He didn’t seem to think it important. He said that was the sort of thing you’d expect to find in the house at shearing-time. He was a town-bred man.’

‘It might have been there for ages, Terry,’ said Ursula.

‘Oh, no. It wasn’t there when you borrowed the sweeper from me. I’m very observant of details,’ said Terence, ‘and I know. And if Mrs Rubrick had seen it she’d have picked it up. She hated bits on the carpet. She had a “thing” about them and always picked them up. I’ll swear it wasn’t there when she was in the room.’

‘How big was it?’ Fabian demanded.

‘Quite small. Not a lock, really. Just a twist.’

‘A teeny-weeny twist,’ said Ursula in a ridiculous voice, suddenly gay again. She had a chancy way with her, one moment nervously intent on her memories, the next full of mockery.

‘I suppose,’ said Alleyn, ‘one might pick up a bit of wool in the shed and, being greasy, it might hang about on one’s clothes?’

‘It might,’ said Fabian lightly.

‘And being greasy,’ Douglas added, ‘it might also hang about in one’s room.’

‘Not in Auntie Floss’s room,’ Ursula said. ‘I always did her room, Douglas, you shan’t dare to say I left greasy wool lying squalidly about for days on the carpet. Pig!’ she mocked at him.

He turned his head lazily and looked at her. Alleyn saw his arm slip down the back of the sofa to Terence Lynne’s shoulders. Ursula laughed and pulled a face at him. ‘It’s all nonsense,’ she said, ‘this talk of locks of wool. Moonshine!’

‘Personally,’ said Terence Lynne, ‘I can’t think it very amusing. For me, and I’d have thought for all of us, the idea of sheep’s wool in her room that morning is perfectly horrible.’

‘You’re hateful, Terry,’ Ursula flashed at her. ‘It’s bad enough to have to talk about it. I mind more than any of you. You all know that. It’s because I mind so much that I can’t be too solemn. You know I’m the only one of us that loved her. You’re cold as ice, Terry, and I hate you.’