‘That’s right, sir.’
‘And it’s the replica Scone.’
‘Yes, sir. Either they broke in just after we left, or,’ Carrot licked his lips nervously, ‘they were hiding while we were there.’
‘Not rats, then.’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’
Vimes fastened his cloak and took his helmet off its peg.
‘So someone has stolen a replica of the Scone of Stone a few weeks before the real one is due to be used in a very important ceremony,’ he said. ‘I find this intriguing.’
‘That’s what I thought too, sir.’
Vimes sighed. ‘I hate the political ones.’
When they’d gone, Lady Sybil sat for a while staring at her hands. Then she took a lamp into the library and pulled down a slim volume bound in white leather on which had been embossed in gold the words ‘Our Wedding’.
It had been a strange event. AnkhMorpork’s high society – so high that it’s stinking, Sam always said – had turned up, mostly out of curiosity. She was AnkhMorpork’s most eligible spinster, who’d never thought she’d be married, and he was ‘a mere captain of the guard who tended to annoy a lot of people.
And here were the iconographs of the event. There she was, looking rather more expansive than radiant, and there Sam was, scowling at the viewer with his hair hastily smoothed down. There was Sergeant Colon with his chest inflated so much his feet had almost left the ground, and Nobby grinning widely or perhaps just making a face; it was so hard to tell with Nobby.
Sybil turned over the pages with care. She had put a sheet of tissue between each one to protect them.
In many ways, she told herself, she was very lucky. She was proud of Sam. He worked hard for a lot of people. He cared about people who
weren’t important. He always had far more to cope with than was good for him. He was the most civilized man she’d ever met. Not a gentleman, thank goodness, but a gentle man.
She never really knew what it was he did. Oh, she knew what the job was, but by all accounts he didn’t spend much time behind his desk. When he eventually came to bed, he tended to drop his clothes straight into the laundry basket, so she’d only hear later from the laundry girl about the bloodstains and the mud. There were rumours of chases over rooftops, hand-to-hand and knee-togroin fights with men who had names like Harry ‘The Boltcutter’ Weems …
There was a Sam Vimes she knew, who went out and came home again, and out there was another Sam Vimes who hardly belonged to her and lived in the same world as all those men with the dreadful names.
Sybil Ramkin had been brought up to be thrifty, thoughtful, genteel in an outdoor sort of way, and to think kindly of people.
She looked at the pictures again, in the silence of the house. Then she blew her nose loudly and went off to do the packing and other sensible things.
Corporal Cheery Littlebottom pronounced her name ‘Cheri’. She was a she, and therefore a rare bloom in AnkhMorpork.
It wasn’t that dwarfs weren’t interested in sex. They saw the vital need for fresh dwarfs to-leave their goods to and continue the mining work
after they had gone. It was simply that they also saw no point in distinguishing between the sexes anywhere but in private. There was no such thing as a dwarfish female pronoun or, once the children were on solids, any such thing as women’s work.
Then Cheery Littlebottom had arrived in AnkhMorpork and had seen that there were men out there who did not wear chainmail or leather underwear*, but did wear interesting colours and exciting make-up, and these men were called ‘women’.t And in the little bullet head the thought had arisen: ‘Why not me?’
Now she was being denounced in cellars and dwarf bars across the city, as the first dwarf in AnkhMorpork to wear a skirt. It was hardwearing brown leather and as objectively erotic as a piece of wood but, as some older dwarfs would point out, somewhere under there were his knees.$
Worse, they were now finding that among their sons were some – they choked on the word -‘daughters’. Cheery was only the frothy bit on the tip of the wave. Some younger dwarfs were shyly wearing eyeshadow and declaring that, as a matter of fact, they didn’t like beer. A current was running through dwarf society.
Dwarf society was not against a few wellthrown rocks in the direction of those bobbing on the current, but Captain Carrot had put the word
*At least, of the sort she normally wore. tAnd, just lately, Corporal Nobbs. $They couldn’t bring themselves to utter the word ‘her’.
on the street that this would be assault on an officer, a subject on which the Watch held views, and however short the miscreants their feet really would not touch the ground.
Cheery had retained her beard and round iron helmet, of course. It was one thing to declare that you were female, but quite unthinkable to declare that you weren’t a dwarf. ‘
‘Open and shut case, sir,’ she said when she saw Vimes come in. ‘They opened the window in the back room to get in, a very neat job, and didn’t shut the front door after they left. Smashed the Scone’s case. There’s the glass all round the stand. Didn’t take anything else that I can see. Left a lot of footprints in the dust. I took a few pictures, but they’re scuffed up and weren’t much good in the first place. That’s about it, really.’
‘No dropped fag-ends, wallets or bits of paper with an address on them?’ said Vimes.
‘No, sir. They were inconsiderate thieves.’
‘They certainly were,’ said Carrot grimly.
‘A question that springs to mind,’ said Vimes, ‘is: why does it reek even worse of cat’s piss now?’
‘It is rather sharp, isn’t it?’ said Cheery. ‘With a hint of sulphur, too. Constable Ping said it was like this when he arrived, but there’s no cat prints.’
Vimes crouched down and looked at the broken glass. ‘How did we find out about this?’ he said, prodding a few fragments.
‘Constable Ping heard the tinkle, sir. He went round the back and saw the window was open.
Then the crooks got out through the front door.’ ‘Sorry about that, sir,’ said Ping, stepping forward and saluting. He was a cautious-looking young man who appeared permanently poised to answer a question.
‘We all make mistakes,’ said Vimes. ‘You heard glass break?’
‘Yessir. And someone swore.’
‘Really? What did they say
‘Er… “Bugger”, sir.’
‘And you went around the back and saw the broken window and you … ?’
‘I called out, “Is there anyone there?” sir.’
‘Really? And what would you have done if a voice had said “No”? No, don’t answer that. What happened next?’
‘Er … I heard a lot more glass break and when I got round to the front the door was open and they were gone. So I legged it back to the Yard and told Captain Carrot, sir, knowing he sets a lot of store by this place.’
‘Thank you … Ping, is it?’
‘Yessir.’ Entirely unasked, but obviously prepared to answer, Ping said, ‘It’s a dialect word meaning “watermeadow”, sir.’
‘Off you go, then.’
The lanceconstable visibly sagged with relief, and left.
Vimes let his mind unfocus a little. He enjoyed moments like these, the little bowl of time when the crime lay before him and he believed that the world was capable of being solved. This was the time you really looked to see what was there, and sometimes the things that weren’t
there were the most interesting things of all.
The Scone had been kept on a plinth about three feet high, inside a case made of five sheets of glass forming a box that was screwed down on the plinth.
‘They smashed the glass by accident,’ he said eventually.
‘Really, sir?’
‘Look here, see?’ Vimes pointed to three loose screws, neatly lined up. ‘They were trying to take the box apart carefully. It must have slipped.’
‘But what’s the point?’ said Carrot. ‘It’s just a replica, sir! Even if you could find a buyer, it’s not worth more than a few dollars.’
‘If it’s a good one you could swap it with the real thing,’ said Vimes.
‘Well, yes, I suppose you could try,’ said Carrot. ‘There would be a bit of a problem, though.’
‘What is it?’
‘Dwarfs aren’t stupid, sir. The replica has got a big cross carved into the underside. And it’s only made of plaster in any case.’
‘Oh.’
‘But it was a good idea, sir,’ Carrot said encouragingly. ‘You weren’t to know.’
‘I wonder if the thieves knew.’
‘Even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have a hope of getting away with it, sir.’
‘The real Scone is very well guarded,’ said Cheery. ‘It’s very rare that most dwarfs get a chance to see it.’