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Matthias steps back from the padlocked door, craning his neck to see along the building's outline. He searches for any windows or likely alternate entrances to the structure such as a loft winch.

It is no problem for Christopher to enter building #3, the doors have only latches that keep them to the door frames (and others that keep the upper and lower halves together). Like these doors suggest, the building is a stable, with three roomy stalls on each side of the aisle and pegs for harness and saddles on the rear wall. There are trapdoors in the ceiling, probably to throw down the hay stored above. A cat hisses at Christopher, distorbed in its sleep. The stalls are negilently cleaned.

(Can Eloise hear the hiss?)

"Oh, leave off, Gyb. I am not here for you," Christopher says, poking around the room.

[OOC] The stalls are negligently cleaned - does that mean there are still droppings among the straw, or that the floors of the stalls are mostly bare, but with bits of straw remaining? In either case, how old does the stuff look - are the droppings dried out? Is the straw mouldy? (Yes, I've mucked a few stalls in my life.) [/OOC]

The Stoney Barn has no opening except the two gatelike double doors. In the other part of the building, the loft winch was inside, in the gap between the outer wall and the floor/ceiling separating the storeys.

Eloise and Thelma are, to my information, at the gate to the inner courtyard. There are walls and a few dozen yards between them and the cat.

In one of the stalls, some bits of straw remain. When Christopher looks more closely, he sees they are kind of caked to the floor by animal droppings. Those look suspiciously more like rests of cowpats than like horse droppings. They're dry, but not old enough to be from last year's harvest time, not even the cabbage harvest.

(Shame, hope someone tells her it is there!)

Eloise lifts the bar off the gate with Thelmas help, and opens the gate, "Shall we take a look inside?" She says with a wink, noting Dale is behind them.

Saul muses to anyone within earshot, "I know we're searching for scoundrels at the moment, but we ARE guests here. Should we not close up behind ourselves, rather than leave the gates ajar all willy-nilly?"

The two young women open the gate, which reveals a tunnel very much like the one of the first gate tower: Stone floor, barrel vault with holes in it. Here, however, the portcullis is down, blocking their way with iron rods and bands. A cat could make its way through, but no man, woman or horse, not even a child.

"Well Mrs Kitty is getting through the holes, but we can't..." Eloise muses, "I wonder if there is a lock or something..?" Turning to Thelma she grins. "That's your department."

The women can't see that clearly, because this time, the gate at the other end of the tower is closed, and they only have the light coming through the gate they just opened. The tunnel is sloping upwards quite steeply - the inner courtyard is obviously quite higher than the lower - so the light is quite dim.

The portculiss's vertical bars are arranged in groups, after every four slim bars, there is a thicker one. But even the thinner bars look to thick for someone with normal strength to bend. The bars are joined together horizontally, every two feet or so, by iron bands about two inches wide and half an inch thick that are joined together by two rivets each between the bars.

Does Thelma (or someone else) inspect the portcullis more closely, and how?

"That's my job," says Thelma as she looks closely at the device for both locks and traps. She inspects it carefully.

"Do you think we will find the girl?", she asks Eloise.

With Dale close to the two women, he tells the group. "We will find her, have some faith."

In the dim light, Thelma has to rely on her fingers as well as her eyes. Methodically, she inspects one bar after the other and soon notices one has grease on it. Closer inspection reveals that this bar has gaps at regular intervals that are masked by the dirty grease.

(I'll wait 24 hrs to know what Thelma thinks, it'll be more interesting with a heureka moment than if I describe the mechanism in one go. No rolls needed, just some thinking.)

"This one," Thelma points it out, "Does it turn?" She looks to see of it has a base that turns.

Dale calls out to Saul. "What if we should need to leave quickly?"