‘Look, I don’t make the rules. You’ve got to press the button. It’s in the manual–‘
William carefully pushed the box to one side. There were several velvet bags in the dead man’s pocket. He put these on the desk, too.
Some of the dwarfs had gone a little way down the iron ladder into the cellar. Boddony climbed back out again, looking thoughtful.
There’s a man down there,’ he said. ‘Lying in . . . lead.’
‘Dead?’ said William, looking carefully at the bags.
‘I hope so. I really hope so. You could say he made a bit of an impression. He’s a bit on the . . . cooked side. And there’s an arrow through his head.’
‘William, you realize that you are robbing a corpse?’ said Sacharissa.
‘Good,’ said William distantly. ‘Best time.’ He upended a bag and jewels spilled across the charred wood.
There was a strangled noise from Goodmountain. Next to gold, jewels were a dwarf’s best friend.
William emptied the other bags.
‘How much do you think this lot is worth?’ he said, when the gems stopped rolling and twinkling.
Goodmountain had already whipped an eye glass from an inside pocket and was inspecting a few of the larger stones. ‘What? Hey? Oh, tens of thousands. Could be a hundred thousand. Could be a lot more. This one here is worth fifteen hundred, I reckon, and it’s not the best of ’em,’
‘He must’ve stolen them!’ said Sacharissa.
‘No,’ said William calmly. ‘We’d have heard about a theft this big. We hear about things. A young man would certainly have told you. Check to see if he has a wallet, will you?’
‘The very idea! And what–‘
‘Check for a damn wallet, will you?’ said William. ‘This is a story.
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I’m going to check his legs, and I’m not looking forward to that, either. But this is a story. We can have hysterics later. Do it. Please?’
There was a half-healed bite on the dead man’s leg. William rolled up his own trouser leg for comparison while Sacharissa, her eyes averted, pulled a brown leather wallet out of the jacket.
‘Any clue to who he is?’ said William, carefully measuring tooth-marks with his pencil. His mind felt strangely calm. He wondered if he was actually thinking at all. It all seemed like some dream, happening in another world.
‘Er . . . there’s something done on the leather in pokerwork,’ said Sacharissa.
‘What does it say?’
‘ “Not A Very Nice Person At All”,’ she read. ‘I wonder what kind of person would put that on a wallet?’
‘Someone who wasn’t a very nice person,’ said William. ‘Anything else in there?’
There’s a piece of paper with an address,’ said Sacharissa. ‘Er . . . I didn’t have time to tell you this, er, William. Um
‘What does it say?’
‘It’s 50 Nonesuch Street. Er. Which is where those men caught me. They had a key and everything. Er . . . that’s your family’s house, isn’t it?’
‘What do you want me to do with these jewels?’ said Goodmountain.
‘I mean, you gave me a key and everything,’ said Sacharissa nervously. ‘But there was this man in the cellar, highly inebriated, and he looked just like Lord Vetinari, and then these men turned up and knocked out Rocky and then–‘
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ said Goodmountain, ‘but if these aren’t stolen, then I know plenty of places that’d give us top dollar, even at this time of night–‘
‘–and of course they were most impolite but really there was nothing I could do–‘
‘–we could do with a bit of immediate cash, is the point I’m trying to make–‘
It dawned on the girl and the dwarf that William was no longer listening. He seemed locked, blank-faced, in a little bubble of silence.
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Slowly, he pulled the Dis-organizer towards him and pressed the button marked ‘Recall’. There was a muffled ‘Ouch’.
‘. . . nyip-nyap mapnyap nyee-wheedlewheedlewheee
‘What’s that noise?’ said Sacharissa.
‘It’s how an imp remembers,’ said William distantly. ‘It . . . sort of plays its life backwards. I used to have an early version of this,’ he added.
The noise stopped. The imp said, very apprehensively, ‘What happened to it?’
‘I took it back to the shop because it wasn’t working properly,’ said William.
‘That’s a relief,’ said the imp. ‘You’d be amazed at some of the terrible things people did to the Mk I. What went wrong with it?’
‘It got flung through a third-floor window,’ said William, ‘for being unhelpful.’
This imp was a little brighter than most of the species. It saluted smartly.
‘. . . wheeeewheedlewheedle nyap-nyark . . . Testing, testing . . . seems okay–‘
That’s Brother Pin!’ said Sacharissa.
‘–say something, Mr Tulip,’ and the voice became the damp growl of Sister Jennifer, ‘What’III say? It’s not natural, talkin’ to a –ing box. This box, Mr Tulip, may be a passport to better times. I thought we were getting the –ing money. Yes, and this ‘II help us keep it . . . nyip-nyip . . .’
‘Go forward a bit,’ William commanded.
‘–whee . . . nyip dog has got personality. Personality counts for a lot. And the legal precedents–‘
That’s Slant!’ said Boddony. That lawyer!’
‘What shall I do with the jewels!’ said Goodmountain.
‘. . . nyipnyip . . . 7 can add another five thousand dollars in jewels to your fee . . . nyip . . . I want to know who’s giving me these orders . . . nyip . . . not be stupid, either. My . . . clients have long memories and deep pockets . . .’In its terror the imp was skipping.
William pressed the Pause button.
‘Slant gave him the money,’ he said. ‘Slant was paying him. Did you hear him mention clients? You understand? This is one of the
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men who attacked Vetinari! And they had a key to our house?’
‘But we can’t just keep the money!’ said Sacharissa.
William pressed the button again.
‘. . . nyip . . . they say a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on . . .’
‘Obviously, we–‘ Sacharissa began.
He pressed the button.
‘Wheeewheedlewheedle lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’
He pressed the button again.
‘Wheeewheedlewheedle can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’
‘Wheeewheedlewheedle round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’
‘Wheeewheedle the truth has got its boots on.’
‘Are you all right, William?’ said Sacharissa, as he stood motionless.
‘Delayed shock,’ Goodmountain whispered. ‘It can take people that way.’
‘Mr Goodmountain,’ said William sharply, still with his back to them. ‘Did you say you could get me another press?’
‘I said they cost a–‘
‘–handful of rubies, perhaps?’
Goodmountain opened his hand. ‘Are these ours, then?’
‘Yes!’
‘Well . . . in the morning I could buy a dozen presses, but it’s not like buying sweets–‘
‘I want to go to press in half an hour,’ said William. ‘Otto, I want pictures of Brother Pin’s leg. I want quotes from everyone, even Foul Ole Ron. And a picture of Wuffles, Otto. And I want a printing press!’
‘I told you, where could we get a printing press at this time of ni–‘
The floor shook. The heaps of rubble shifted.
All eyes turned to the high lighted windows of the Inquirer.
Sacharissa, who had been watching William wide-eyed, breathed so heavily that Otto groaned and averted his face and started to hum frantically.
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There’s your press!’ she shouted. ‘All you have to do is get it!’ ‘Yeah, but just stealing a–‘ the dwarf began. ‘Borrowing,’ said William. ‘And half the jewels are yours.’ Goodmountain’s nostrils flared. ‘Let’s just–‘ he began to yell, and then said, ‘You did say half, did you?’ ‘Yes!’ ‘Let’s just do it, lads!’
One of the Inquirer’s overseers knocked politely on Mr Carney’s door.
‘Yes, Causley? Has Dibbler turned up yet?’ said the Inquirer’s proprietor.
‘No, sir, but there’s a young lady to see you. It’s that Miss Cripslock,’ said the overseer, wiping his hands on a rag.
Carney brightened up. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, sir. She’s in a bit of a state. And that de Worde fellow is with her.’
Carney’s smile faded a little. He’d watched the fire from his window with great glee, but he had been bright enough not to step out into the street. Those dwarfs were pretty vicious, from what he’d heard, and would be bound to blame him. In fact, he hadn’t the faintest idea why the place had caught fire, but it was hardly unexpected, was it?
‘So . . . it’s time for the humble pie, is it?’ he said, half to himself.
‘Is it, sir?’
‘Send them up, will you?’
He sat back and looked at the paper spread out on his desk. Damn that Dibbler! The odd thing was, though, that those things he wrote were like the wretched sausages he sold – you knew them for what they were, but nevertheless you kept on going to the end, and coming back for more. Making them up wasn’t as easy as it looked, either. Dibbler had the knack. He’d make up some story about some huge monster being seen in the lake in Hide Park and five readers would turn up swearing that they’d seen it, too. Ordinary, everyday people, such as you might buy a loaf off. How did he do it? Carney’s desk was covered with his own failed attempts.-You needed a special kind of imagi–