‘Er… yes, sir.’
Vimes hesitated. Now he could put his finger on what had been bothering him for the last twenty seconds.
‘Littlebottom
‘Sir?’
‘You … er … you … on your ears?’
‘Earrings, sir,’ said Cheery nervously. ‘Constable Angua gave them to me.’
‘Really? Er … right … I didn’t think dwarfs wore jewellery, that’s all.’
‘We’re known for rings, sir.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Rings, yes. No one quite like a dwarf for forging a magical ring. But. . . magical earrings? Oh, well. There were some waters too deep to wade.
Sergeant Detritus’s approach to these matters was almost instinctively correct. He had the palace staff lined up in front of him and was shouting at them at the top of his voice.
Look at old Detritus, Vimes thought as he went down the stairs. Just your basic thick troll a few years ago, now a valuable member of the Watch provided you get him to repeat his orders back to you to make sure he understands you. His armour gleams even brighter than Carrot’s because he doesn’t get bored with polishing. And he’s mastered policing as it is practised by the majority of forces in the universe, which is, basically, screaming angrily at people until they give in. The only reason that he’s not a one-troll reign of terror is the ease with which his thought processes can be derailed by anyone who tries something fiendishly cunning, like an outright denial.
‘I know you all done it!’ he was shouting. ‘If the person wot done it does not own up der whole staff, an’ I means this, der whole staff will be locked up in der Tanty also we throws der key away!’ He pointed a finger at a stout scullerymaid. ‘It was you wot done it, own up!’
‘No.’
Detritus paused. Then: ‘Where was you last night? Own up!’
‘In bed, of course!’
‘Aha, dat a likely story, own up, dat where you always is at night?’
‘Of course.’
‘Aha, own up, you got witnesses?’
‘Sauce!’
‘Ah, so you got no witnesses, you done it then, own up!’
‘No!’
‘Oh . . .’
‘All right, all right. Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all for now,’ said Vimes, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Are all the staff here?’
He glared at the line-up: ‘Well? Are you all here?’
There was a certain amount of reluctant shuffling among the ranks, and then someone cautiously put up a hand.
‘Mildred Easy hasn’t been seen since yesterday,’ said its owner. ‘She’s the upstairs maid. A boy come with a message. She had to go off to see her family.’
Vimes felt the faintest of prickles on the back of his neck. ‘Anyone know why?’ he said.
‘Dunno, sir. She left all her stuff.’
‘All right. Sergeant, before you go off shift, get someone to find her. Then go and get some sleep.
The rest of you, go and get on with whatever it is you do. Ah … Mr Drumknott?’
The Patrician’s personal clerk, who’d been watching Detritus’s technique with a horrified expression, looked up at him. ‘Yes, Commander?’
‘What’s this book? Is it his lordship’s diary?’
Drumknott took the book. ‘It looks like it, certainly.’
‘Have you been able to crack the code?’
‘I didn’t know it was in code, Commander.’
‘What? You’ve never looked at it?’
‘Why should I, sir? It’s not mine.’
‘You do know his last secretary tried to kill him?’
‘Yes, sir. I ought to say, sir, that I have already been exhaustively interrogated by your men.’ Drumknott opened the book and raised his eyebrows.
‘What did they say?’ said Vimes.
Drumknott looked up thoughtfully. ‘Let me see, now . . . “It was you wot done it, own up, everybody seen you, we got lots of people say you done it, you done it all right didn’t you, own up.” That was, I think, the general approach. And then, I said it wasn’t me and that seemed to puzzle the officer concerned.’
Drumknott delicately licked his finger and turned a page.
Vimes stared at him.
The sound of saws was brisk on the morning air. Captain Carrot knocked against the timber-yard door, which was eventually opened.
‘Good morning, sir!’ he said. ‘I understand you have a golem here?’
‘Had,’ said the timber merchant.
‘Oh dear, another one,’ said Angua.
That made four so far. The one in the foundry had knelt under a hammer, the one in the stonemason’s yard was now ten clay toes sticking out from under a two-ton block of limestone, one working in the docks had last been seen in the river, striding towards the sea, and now this one . . .
‘It was weird,’ said the merchant, thumping the golem’s chest. ‘Sidney said it went on sawing all the way up to the moment it sawed its head right off. I’ve got a load of ash planking got to go out this afternoon. Who’s going to saw it up, may I ask?’
Angua picked up the golem’s head. Insofar as it had any expression at all, it was one of intense concentration,
“ere,’ said the merchant, ‘Alf told me he heard in the Drum last night that golems have been murderin’ people . . .’
‘Enquiries are continuing,’ said Carrot. ‘Now then, Mr … it’s Preble Skink, isn’t it? Your brother runs the lamp-oil shop in Cable Street? And your daughter is a maid at the university?’
The man looked astonished. But Carrot knew everyone.
‘Yeah . . .’
‘Did your golem leave the yard yesterday evening?’
‘Well, yeah, early on … Something about a holy day.’ He looked nervously from one to the other. ‘You got to let them go, otherwise the words in their heads’
‘And then it came back and worked all night?’
‘Yeah. What else would it do? And then Alf came in on early turn and he said it came up outa the saw pit, stood there for a moment, and then . . .’
‘Was it sawing pine logs yesterday?’ said Angua.
That’s right. Where’m I going to get another golem at short notice, may I ask?’
‘What’s this?’ said Angua. She picked up a wood-framed square from a heap of sawdust. This was its slate, was it?’ She handed it to Carrot.
‘ “Thou Shall Not Kill,” ‘ Carrot read slowly. ‘ “Clay of My Clay. Ashamed.” Do you have any idea why it’d write that?’
‘Search me,’ said Skink. They’re always doing dumb things.’ He brightened up a bit. ‘Hey, perhaps it went potty? Get it? Clay … pot … potty?’
‘Extremely funny,’ said Carrot gravely. ‘I will take this as evidence. Good morning.
‘Why did you ask about pine logs?’ he said to Angua as they stepped outside.
‘I smelled the same pine resin in the cellar.’
‘Pine resin’s just pine resin, isn’t it?’
‘No. Not to me. That golem was in there.’
They all were,’ sighed Carrot. ‘And now they’re committing suicide.’
‘You can’t take life you haven’t got,’ said Angua.
‘What shall we call it, then? “Destruction of property”?’ said Carrot. ‘Anyway, we can’t ask them now . . .’He tapped the slate.
‘They’ve given us the answers,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we can find out what the questions should have been.’
‘What do you mean, “nothing”?’ said Vimes. ‘It’s got to be the book! He licks his fingers to turn a page, and every day he gets a little dose of arsenic! Fiendishly clever!’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Cheery, backing away. ‘I can’t find a trace. I’ve used all the tests I know.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I could send it up to the Unseen University. They’ve built a new morphic resonator in the High Energy Magic Building. Magic would easily’
‘Don’t do that,’ said Vimes. ‘We’ll keep the wizards out of this. Damn! For half an hour there I really thought I’d got it . .
He sat down at his desk. Something new was odd about the dwarf, but again he couldn’t quite work out what it was.
‘We’re missing something here, Littlebottom,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Let’s look at the facts. If you want to poison someone slowly you’ve either got to give them small doses all the time – or, at least, every day. We’ve covered everything the Patrician does. It can’t be the air in the room. You and I have been in there every day. It’s not the food, we’re pretty sure of that. Is something stinging him? Can you poison a wasp? What we need’
‘scuse me, sir.’
Vimes turned.
‘Detritus? I thought you were off-duty?’
‘I got dem to give me der address of dat maid called Easy like you said,’ said Detritus, stoically. ‘I went up dere and dere was people all lookin’ in.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Neighbours and dat. Cryin’ women all round der door. An’ I remember what you said about dat dipplo word’
‘Diplomacy,’ said Vimes.
‘Yeah. Not shoutin’ at people an’ dat. I fought, dis look a delicate situation. Also, dey was throwin’ stuff at me. So I came back here. I writ down der address. An’ now I’m goin’ home.’ He saluted, rocked slightly from the force of the blow to the side of his head, and departed.