Moist hadn’t paid much attention to the Grand Trunk Company. It was too big, and from what he’d heard it practically employed its own army. Things could be tough in the mountains, where you were often a long way from anything that resembled a watchman. It wasn’t a good idea to steal things from people who did their own law enforcement. They tended to be very definite.
But what he was intending wouldn’t be stealing. It might not even be breaking the law. Fooling a maitre d’ was practically a public service.
He looked at the picture again. Now, how would a man like that sign his name?
Hmm . . . flowing yet small, that would be the handwriting of Reacher Gilt. He was so florid, so sociable, so huge a personality that one who was good at this sort of thing might wonder if another shard of glass was trying to sparkle like a diamond. And the essence of forgery is to make, by misdirection and careful timing, the glass look so much more like a diamond than a diamond does.
Well, it was worth a try. It was not as though he was going to swindle anyone, as such.
Hmm. Small yet flowing, yes . . . but someone who’d never seen the man’s writing would expect it to be extravagantly big and curly, just like him . . .
Moist poised the pen over the headed paper, and then wrote:
Maître d’,
Le foie Heuieux,
I would be most grateful if you could find a table for my good friend Mr. Lipwig and his lady at eight o’clock tonight.
Reacher Gilt
Most grateful, that was good. The Reacher Gilt persona probably tipped like a drunken sailor.
He folded the letter, and was addressing the envelope when Stanley and Groat came in.
‘You’ve got a letter, Mr Lipwig,’ said Stanley proudly.
‘Yes, here it is,’ said Moist,
‘No, I mean here’s one for you,’ said the boy. They exchanged envelopes. Moist glanced cursorily at the envelope, and opened it with a thumb.
‘I’ve got bad news, sir,’ said Groat, as Stanley left.
‘Hmm?’ said Moist, looking at the letter.
Postmaster,
The Pseudopolis clacks line will break down at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
The Smoking Gnu
‘Yessir. I went round to the coach office,’ Groat went on, ‘and told them what you said and they said you stick to your business, thank you very much, and they’ll stick to theirs.’
‘Hmm,’ said Moist, still staring at the letter. ‘Well, well. Have you heard of someone called “The Smoking Gnu”, Mr Groat?’
‘What’s a gernue, sir?’
‘A bit like a dangerous cow, I think,’ said Moist. ‘Er . . . what were you saying about the coach people?’
‘They give me lip, sir, that’s what they give me,’ said Groat. ‘I told ‘em, I told ‘em I was the Assistant Head Postmaster and they said “so what?” sir. Then I said I’d tell you, sir, and they said— you want to know what they said, sir?’
‘Hmm. Oh, yes. I’m agog, Tolliver.’ Moist’s eyes were scanning the strange letter over and over again.
‘They said “yeah, right”,’ said Groat, a beacon of righteous indignation.
‘I wonder if Mr Trooper can still fit me in . . .’ mused Moist, staring at the ceiling.
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘Oh, nothing. I suppose I’d better go and talk to them. Go and find Mr Pump, will you? And tell him to bring a couple of the other golems, will you? I want to . . . impress people.’
Igor opened the front door in answer to the knock.
There was no one there. He stepped outside and looked up and down the street.
There was no one there.
He stepped back inside, closing the door behind him – and no one was standing in the hall, his black cloak dripping rain, removing his wide, flat-brimmed hat.
‘Ah, Mithter Gryle, thur,’ Igor said to the tall figure, ‘I thould have known it wath you.’
‘Readier Gilt asked for me,’ said Gryle. It was more a breath than a voice.
The clan of the Igors had had any tendency to shuddering bred out of it generations ago, which was just as well. Igor felt uneasy in the presence of Gryle and his kind.
‘The marthter ith expecting—’ he began.
But there was no one there.
It wasn’t magic, and Gryle wasn’t a vampire. Igors could spot these things. It was just that there was nothing spare about him – spare flesh, spare time, or spare words. It was impossible to imagine Gryle collecting pins, or savouring wine or even throwing up after a bad pork pie. The picture of him cleaning his teeth or sleeping completely failed to form in the mind. He gave the impression of restraining himself, with difficulty, from killing you.
Thoughtfully, Igor went down to his room off the kitchen and checked that his little leather bag was packed, just in case.
In his study, Reacher Gilt poured a small brandy. Gryle looked around him with eyes that seemed not at home with the limited vistas of a room.
‘And for yourself?’ said Gilt.
‘Water,’ said Gryle.
‘I expect you know what this is about?’
‘No.’ Gryle was not a man for small talk or, if it came to it, any talk at all.
‘You’ve read the newspapers?’
‘Do not read.’
‘You know about the Post Office.’
‘Yes.’
‘How, may I ask?’
‘There is talk.’
Gilt accepted that. Mr Gryle had a special talent, and if that came as a package with funny little ways then so be it. Besides, he was trustworthy; a man without middle grounds. He’d never blackmail you, because such an attempt would be the first move in a game that would almost certainly end in death for somebody; if Mr Gryle found himself in such a game he’d kill right now, without further thought, in order to save time, and assumed that anyone else would, too. Presumably he was insane, by the usual human standards, but it was hard to tell; the phrase ‘differently normal’ might do instead. After all, Gryle could probably defeat a vampire within ten seconds, and had none of a vampire’s vulnerabilities, except perhaps an inordinate fondness for pigeons. He’d been a real find.
‘And you have discovered nothing about Mr Lipwig?’ Gilt said.
‘No. Father dead. Mother dead. Raised by grandfather. Sent away to school. Bullied. Ran away. Vanished,’ said the tall figure.
‘Hmm. I wonder where he’s been all this time? Or who he has been?’
Gryle didn’t waste breath on rhetorical questions.
‘He is . . . a nuisance.’
‘Understood.’ And that was the charm. Gryle did understand. He seldom needed an order, you just had to state the problem. The fact that it was Gryle that you were stating it to went a long way towards ensuring what the solution was likely to be.
‘The Post Office building is old and full of paper. Very dry paper,’ said Gilt. ‘It would be regrettable if the fine old place caught fire.’
‘Understood.’
And that was another thing about Gryle. He really did not talk much. He especially did not talk about old times, and all the other little solutions he had provided for Reacher Gilt. And he never said things like ‘What do you mean?’ He understood.
‘Require one thousand, three hundred dollars,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ said Gilt. ‘I will clacks it to your account in—’
‘Will take cash,’ said Gryle.
‘Gold? I don’t keep that much around,’ said Gilt. ‘I can get it in a few days, of course, but I thought you preferred—’
‘I do not trust the semaphore now.’
‘But our ciphers are very well—’
‘I do not trust the semaphore now,’ Gryle repeated.
‘Very well.’
‘Description,’ said Gryle.
‘No one seems to remember what he looks like,’ said Gilt. ‘But he always wears a big golden hat, with wings, and he has an apartment in the building.’
For a moment something flickered around Gryle’s thin lips. It was a smile panicking at finding itself in such an unfamiliar place.
‘Can he fly?’ he said.
‘Alas, he doesn’t seem inclined to venture into high places,’ said Gilt.
Gryle stood up. ‘I will do this tonight.’
‘Good man. Or, rather—’
‘Understood,’ said Gryle.
Chapter Nine
Bonfire
Slugger and Leadpipe – Gladys Pulls It Off- The Hour of the Dead –
Irrational Fear of Dental Spinach – ‘A proper brawl doesn’t just happen’
– How the Trunk Was Stolen – Stanley’s Little Moment – The etiquette
of knives – Face to Face – Fire
The mail coaches had survived the decline and fall of the Post Office because they had to. Horses needed to be fed. But in any case, the coaches had always carried passengers. The halls went silent, the chandeliers disappeared along with everything else, even things that were nailed down, but out back in the big yard the coach service flourished. The coaches weren’t exactly stolen, and weren’t exactly inherited . . . they just drifted into the possession of the coach people.