Agnes bounced frantically from rumour to rumour. The Ghost had been caught, and it was Walter Plinge. The Ghost had been caught by Walter Plinge. The Ghost had been caught by someone else. The Ghost had escaped. The Ghost was dead.
There were arguments breaking out everywhere.
‘I still can’t believe it was Walter! I mean, good grief. . . Walter?’
‘What about the show? We can’t just stop! You never stop the show, not even if someone dies!’
‘Oh, we have stopped when people died. . .’
‘Yes, but only as long as it took to get the body off-stage!’
Agnes stepped back into the wings, and trod on something. ‘Sorry,’ she said automatically.
‘It was only my foot,’ said Granny Weatherwax. ‘So. . . how is life in the big city, Agnes Nitt?’
Agnes turned. ‘Oh. . . hello, Granny. . .’ she mumbled. ‘And I’m not Agnes here, thank you,’ she added, a shade more defiantly.
‘It’s a good job, is it, bein’ someone else’s voice?’
‘I’m doing what I want to do,’ said Agnes. She drew herself up to her full width. ‘And you can’t stop me!’
‘But you ain’t part of it, are you?’ said Granny conversationally. ‘You try, but you always find yourself watchin’ yourself watchin’ people, eh? Never quite believin’ anything? Thinkin’ the wrong thoughts?’
‘Shut up!’
‘Ah. Thought so.’
‘I have no intention of becoming a witch, thank you very much!’
‘Now, don’t go getting upset just because you know it’s going to happen. A witch you’re going to be because a witch you are, and if you turn your back on him now then I don’t know what’s going to happen to Walter Plinge.’
‘He’s not dead?’
No.
Agnes hesitated. ‘I knew he was the Ghost,’ she began. ‘But then I saw he couldn’t be.’
‘Ah,’ said Granny. ‘Believed the evidence of your own eyes, did you? In a place like this?’
‘One of the stage-hands just told me they chased him up on to the roof and then down into the street and beat him to death!’
‘Oh, well,’ said Granny, ‘you’ll never get anywhere if you believe what you hear. What do you know?’
‘What do you mean, what do I know?’
‘Don’t try cleverness on me, miss.’
Agnes looked at Granny’s expression, and knew when to fold. ‘I know he’s the Ghost,’ she said.
‘Right.’
‘But I can see that he isn’t.’
‘Yes?’
‘And I know. . . I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean any harm.’
‘Good. Well done. Walter might not know his right from his left, but he does know his right from his wrong.’ Granny rubbed her hands together. ‘Well, we’re already home and looking for a clean towel, eh?’
‘What? You haven’t solved anything!’
‘ ‘Course we have. We know that it wasn’t Walter what done the murders, so now we just have to find out who it was. Easy.’
‘Where’s Walter now?’
‘Nanny’s got him somewhere.’
‘She’s all by herself?’
‘I told you, she’s got Walter.’
‘I meant. . . well, he’s a bit strange.’
‘Only where it shows.’
Agnes sighed, and started to say that it wasn’t her problem. And realized it was useless even to try. The knowledge sat like a smug intruder in her mind. Whatever it was, it was her problem.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you if I can, because I’m here. But afterwards. . . that’s it! Afterwards, you’ll leave me alone. Promise?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Well. . . all right, then. . .’ Agnes stopped. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘That was too easy. I don’t trust you.’
‘Don’t trust me?’ said Granny. ‘You’re saying you don’t trust me?’
‘Yes. I don’t. You’ll find a way to wriggle around it.’
‘I never wriggle,’ said Granny. ‘It’s Nanny Ogg who thinks we ought to have a third witch. I reckon life’s difficult enough without some girl cluttering up the place just because she thinks she looks good in a pointy hat.’
There was a pause. Then Agnes said, ‘I’m not falling for that one, either. It’s where you say I’m too stupid to be a witch and I say, oh no I’m not, and you end up winning again. I’d rather be someone else’s voice than some old witch with no friends and having everyone frightened of me and being nothing more than just a bit cleverer than other people and not doing any real magic at all. . .’
Granny put her head on one side.
‘Seems to me you’re so sharp you might cut yourself,’ she said. ‘All right. When it’s all over, I’ll let you go your own way. I won’t stop you. Now show me the way to Mr Bucket’s office. . .’
Nanny smiled her jolly-wrinkled-old-apple smile. ‘Now, you just hand it over, Walter,’ she said. ‘No harm in letting me see it, is there? Not old Nanny.’
‘Can’t see it till it’s finished!’
‘Well, now,’ said Nanny, hating herself for dropping the atom bomb, ‘I’m sure your main wouldn’t want to hear that you’ve been a bad boy, would she?’
Expressions floated over Walter’s waxen features as he struggled with several ideas at once. Finally, without a word, he thrust the bundle at her, his arms trembling with tension.
‘There’s a good boy,’ said Nanny.
She glanced at the first few pages, and then moved them nearer to the light. ‘Hmm.’
She treadled the harmonium for a while and played a few notes with her left hand. They represented most of the musical notes she knew how to read. It was a very simple little theme, such as might be picked out on the keyboard with one finger. ‘Hey. . .’
Her lips moved as she read the narrative.
‘Well now, Walter,’ she said, ‘isn’t this a sort of opera about a ghost who lives in an opera house?’ She turned a page. ‘Very smart and debonair, he is. He’s got a secret cave, I see. . .’
She played another short riff. ‘Catchy music, too.’
She read on, occasionally saying things like ‘Well, well’ and ‘Lawks’. Every now and again she’d give Walter an appraising look.
‘I wonder why the Ghost wrote this, Walter?’ she said, after a while. ‘Quiet sort of chap, ain’t he? Put it all into his music.’
Walter stared at his feet. ‘There’s going to be a lot of trouble Mrs Ogg.’
‘Oh, me and Granny will sort it all out,’ said Nanny.
‘It’s wrong to tell lies,’ said Walter.
‘Probably,’ said Nanny, who’d never let it worry her up to now.
‘It wouldn’t be right for our mum to lose her job Mrs Ogg.’
‘It wouldn’t be right, no.’
The feeling drifted over Nanny that Walter was trying to put across some sort of message. ‘Er. . . what sort of lies would it be wrong to tell, Walter?’
Walter’s eyes bulged. ‘Lies. . . about things you see Mrs Ogg! Even if you did see them!’
Nanny thought it was probably time to present the Oggish point of view. ‘It’s all right to tell lies if you don’t think lies,’ she said.
‘He said our mum would lose her job and I’d be locked up if I said Mrs Ogg!’
‘Did he? Which “he” was he?’
‘The Ghost Mrs Ogg!’
‘I reckon Granny ought to have a good look at you, Walter,’ said Nanny. ‘I reckon your mind’s all tangled up like a ball of string what’s been dropped.’ She pedalled the harmonium thoughtfully. ‘Was it the Ghost that wrote all this music, Walter?’
‘It’s wrong to tell lies about the room with the sacks in it Mrs Ogg!’
Ah, thought Nanny. ‘That’d be down here, would it?’
‘He said I wasn’t to tell anyone!’
‘Who did?’
‘The Ghost Mrs Ogg!’
‘But you’re-‘ Nanny began, and then tried another way. ‘Ah, but I ain’t anyone,’ she said. ‘Anyway, if you was to go to this room with the sacks and I was to follow you, that wouldn’t be telling anyone, would it? It wouldn’t be your fault if some ole woman followed you, would it?’
Walter’s face was an agony of indecision but, erratic though his thinking might have been, it was no match for Nanny Ogg’s meretricious duplicity. He was up against a mind that regarded truth as a reference point but certainly not as a shackle. Nanny Ogg could think her way through a corkscrew in a tornado without touching the sides.
‘Anyway, it’s all right if it’s me,’ she added for good measure. ‘In fact, he prob’ly meant to say “except for Mrs Ogg”, only he forgot.’
Slowly, Walter reached out and picked up a candle. Without saying a word he walked out of the door and into the damp darkness of the cellars.
Nanny Ogg followed him, her boots making squelching noises in the mud.
It didn’t seem like much of a distance. As far as Nanny could work out they were no longer under the Opera House, but it was hard to be sure. Their shadows danced around them and they walked through other rooms, even more dark and dripping than the ones they’d been in. Walter stopped in front of a pile of timber that glistened with rot, and pulled a few of the spongy planks aside.