‘We thought about seventy dollars,’ said the priest, looking hopeful. ‘It was in a lot of furniture that an old lady left to the church. Really, we kept it for sentimental value
‘Have you still got the box it came in?’ said Mr Tulip, turning the
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candlestick over and over in his hands. ‘He did wonderful –ing presentation boxes. Cherrywood.’
‘Er . . . no, I don’t think so . . .’
‘–ing shame.’
‘Er . . . is it still worth anything? I think we’ve got another one somewhere.’
To the right collector, maybe four thousand –ing dollars,’ said Mr Tulip. ‘But I reckon you could get twelve thousand if you’ve got a –ing pair. Futtock is very collectable at the moment.’
‘Twelve thousand!’ burbled the old man. His eyes gleamed with a deadly sin.
‘Could be more,’ Mr Tulip nodded. ‘It’s a –ing delightful piece. I feel quite privileged to have seen it.’ He looked sourly at Mr Pin. ‘And you were going to use it as a –ing blunt instrument.’
He put the candlestick reverentially on the vestry table and buffed it carefully with his sleeve. Then he spun round and brought his fist down hard on the head of the priest, who folded up with a sigh.
‘And they were just keepin’ it in a –ing cupboard,’ he said. ‘Honestly, I could –ing spiti’
‘You want to take it with us?’ said Mr Pin, stuffing clothes into a bag.
‘Nah, all the fences round here’d probably just melt it down for the silver,’ said Mr Tulip. ‘I couldn’t have something like that on my –ing conscience. Let’s find this –ing dog and get right out of this dump, shall we? It makes me so –ing despondent.’
William turned over, woke up and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.
Two minutes later Mrs Arcanum came downstairs and into the kitchen armed with a lamp, a poker and most importantly with her hair in curlers. The combination would be a winner against all but the most iron-stomached intruder.
‘Mr de Worde! What are you doing? It’s midnight!’
William glanced up and then went back to opening cupboards. ‘Sorry I knocked the saucepans over, Mrs Arcanum. I’ll pay for any damage. Now, where are the scales?’
‘Scales?’
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‘Scales! Kitchen scales! Where are they?’
‘Mr de Worde, I–‘
‘Where are the damn scales, Mrs Arcanum?’ said William desperately.
‘Mr de Worde! For shame!’
The future of the city hangs in the balance, Mrs Arcanum!’
Perplexity slowly took the place of stern affront. ‘What, in my scales?’
‘Yes! Yes! It could very well be!’
‘Well, er . . . they’re in the pantry by the flour bag. The whole city, you say?’
‘Quite possibly!’ William felt his jacket sag as he forced the big brass weights into his pocket.
‘Use the old potato sack, do,’ said Mrs Arcanum, now quite flustered by events.
William grabbed the sack, rammed everything in and ran for the door.
‘The University and the river and everything?’ said the landlady nervously.
‘Yes! Yes indeed!’
Mrs Arcanum set her jaw. ‘You will wash it out thoroughly afterwards, won’t you?’ she said to his retreating back.
William’s progress slowed towards the end of the road. Big iron kitchen scales and a full set of weights aren’t carried lightly.
But that was the point, wasn’t it? Weight! He ran and walked and dragged them through the freezing, foggy night until he reached Gleam Street.
The lights were still on in the Inquirer building. How late do you need to stay up when you can make up the news as you go along? thought William. But this is real. Heavy, even.
He hammered on the door of the Times shed until a dwarf opened up. The dwarf was amazed to see a frantic William de Worde rush past and drop the scales and weights on a desk.
‘Please get Mr Goodmountain up. We’ve got to get out another edition! And can I have ten dollars, please?’
It took Goodmountain to sort things out when, night-shirted but still firmly helmeted, he clambered out of the cellar.
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‘No, ten dollars,’ William was explaining to the bewildered dwarfs. ‘Ten dollar coins. Not ten dollars’ worth of money.’
‘Why?’
‘To see how much seventy thousand dollars weigh!’
‘We haven’t got seventy thousand dollars!’
‘Look, even one dollar coin would do,’ said William patiently. Ten dollars would just be more accurate, that’s all. I can work it out from there.’
Ten assorted coins were eventually procured from the dwarfs’ cash box and were duly weighed. Then William turned to a fresh page in his notebook and bent his head in ferocious calculation. The dwarfs watched him solemnly, as if he was conducting an alchemical experiment. Finally he looked up from his figures, the light of revelation in his eyes.
That’s almost a third of a ton,’ he said. That’s how much seventy thousand dollar coins weigh. I suppose a really good horse could carry that and a rider, but . . . Vetinari walks with a stick, you saw him. It’d take him for ever to load the horse up, and even if he got away he could hardly travel fast. Vimes must have worked it out. He said the facts were stupid facts!’
Goodmountain had stationed himself before the rows of cases. ‘Ready when you are, chief,’ he said.
‘All right. . .’ William hesitated. He knew the facts, but what did the facts suggest?
‘Er . . . make the heading: “Who framed Lord Vetinari?” and then the story starts . . . er . . .’ William watched the hand pounce and grab among the little boxes of type, ‘A . . . er . . . “Ankh-Morpork City Watch now believe that at least one other person was involved in the . . . the . . .”‘
‘Fracas?’ suggested Goodmountain.
‘No.’
‘Rumpus?’
‘”. . . in the attack at the palace on Tuesday morning.”‘ William waited until the dwarf had caught up. It was getting easier and easier to read the words forming in Goodmountain’s hands as the fingers jumped from box to box: m-i-g-h-t . . .
‘You got an m for an n there,’ he said.
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‘Oh, yes. Sorry. Carry on.’
‘Er . . . “Evidence suggests that far from attacking his clerk as believed, Lord Vetinari may have discovered a crime in progress.”‘
The hand flew across the type . . . c-r-i-m-e-space-i-n . . .
It stopped.
‘Are you sure about this?’ said Goodmountain.
‘No, but it’s as good a theory as any other,’ said William. ‘That horse hadn’t been loaded to escape, it had been loaded to be discovered. Someone had some plan and it went wrong. I’m sure of that at least. Right . . . new paragraph. “A horse in the stables had been loaded with a third of a ton of coins, but in his current state of health the Patrician–“‘
One of the dwarfs had lit the stove. Another was stripping out the formes that contained the last edition. The room was coming alive again.
‘That’s about eight inches plus the heading,’ said Goodmountain, when William had finished. That should rattle people. You want to add any more stuff? Miss Sacharissa did something about Lady Selachii’s ball, and there’s a few small things.’
William yawned. He didn’t seem to be getting enough sleep these days.
Tut them in,’ he said.
‘And there’s this clacks from Lancre that came in when you’d gone home,’ said the dwarf. ‘That’ll cost us another 5Op for the messenger. You remember you sent a clacks this afternoon? About snakes?’ he added, in the face of William’s blank expression.
William read the flimsy sheet of paper. The message had been carefully transcribed in the neat handwriting of the semaphore operator. It was probably the strangest message yet sent on the new technology.
King Verence of Lancre had also mastered the idea that the clacks charged by the word.
WOMEN OF LANCRE NOT RPT NOT IN HABIT BEARING SNAKES STOP CHILDREN BORN THIS MONTH WILLIAM WEAVER CONSTANCE THATCHER CATASTROPHE CARTER ALL PLUS ARMS LEGS MINUS SCALES FANGS
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‘Hah! We have them!’ said William. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll put together a story on this. We shall soon see if the sword of truth can’t beat the dragon of lies.’
Boddony gave him a kind look. ‘Didn’t you say a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on?’ he said.
‘But this is the truth.’
‘So? Where’s its boots?’
Goodmountain nodded to the other dwarfs, who were yawning. ‘You get back to bed, lads. I’ll pull it all together.’
He watched them disappear down the ladder to the cellar. Then he sat down, took out a small silver box and opened it.
‘Snuff?’ he said, offering the box to William. ‘Best thing you humans ever invented. Watson’s Red Roasted. Clears the mind a treat. No?’
William shook his head.