Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(33)

Lord Eorle sat back. 'Well, I must say I'm impressed,' he said. 'I'd always thought you Watchmen were a pretty ineffective lot, but I see you're pursuing your duty at all times. Always on the alert for the criminal mind, eh?'

'Oh, yes,' said Vimes. 'The criminal mind. Yes.'

The cooler air of the ancestral hallway came as a blessing. He leaned against the wall and squinted at the card.

' “Gonne”?'

'You know you said you saw something in the courtyard—' Carrot began.

'What's a gonne?'

'Maybe something wasn't in the Assassins' museum, and they put this sign on it?' said Carrot. 'You know, like “Removed for Cleaning”? They do that in museums.'

'No, I shouldn't think th—What do you know about museums, anyway?'

'Oh, well, sir,' said Carrot. 'I sometimes visit them on my day off. The one in the University, of course, and Lord Vetinari lets me look around the old Palace one, and then there's the Guild ones, they generally let me in if I ask nicely, and there's the dwarf museum off Rime Street—'

'Is there?' said Vimes, interested despite himself. He'd walked along Rime Street a thousand times.

'Yes, sir, just up Whirligig Alley.'

'Fancy that. What's in it?'

'Many interesting examples of dwarf bread, sir.'

Vimes thought about this for a moment. 'That's not important right now,' he said. 'This isn't how you spell gone, anyway.'

'Yes it is, sir,' said Carrot.

'I meant, it's not how gone is normally spelled.'

He flicked the card back and forth in his fingers.

'A man'd have to be a fool to break into the Assassins' Guild,' he said.

'Yes, sir.'

The anger had burned away the fumes. Once again he felt . . . not, not the thrill, that wasn't the right word . . . the sense of something. He still wasn't sure what it was. But it was there, waiting for him—

'Samuel Vimes, what's going on?'

Lady Ramkin shut the dining-room door behind her.

'I was watching you,' she said. 'You were being very rude, Sam.'

'I was trying not to be.'

'Lord Eorle is a very old friend.'

'Is he?'

'Well, I've known him a long time. I can't stand the man, actually. But you were making him look foolish.'

'He was making himself look foolish. I was merely helping.'

'But I've often heard you being . . . rude about dwarfs and trolls.'

'That's different. I've got a right. That idiot wouldn't know a troll if it walked over him.'

'Oh, he would know if a troll walked over him,' said Carrot, helpfully. 'Some of them weigh as much as—'

'What's so important, anyway?' said Lady Ramkin.

'We're . . . looking for whoever killed Chubby,' said Vimes.

Lady Ramkin's expression changed instantly.

'That's different, of course,' she said. 'People like that should be publicly flogged.'

Why did I say that? thought Vimes. Maybe because it's true. The . . . gonne . . . goes missing, next minute there's a little dwarf artificer thrown in the river with a nasty draught where his chest should be. They're linked. Now all I have to do is find the links . . .

'Carrot, can you come back with me to Hammer-hock's?'

'Yes, captain. Why?'

'I want to see inside that workshop. And this time I've got a dwarf with me.'

More than that, he added, I've got Corporal Carrot. Everyone likes Corporal Carrot.

Vimes listened while the conversation droned on in dwarfish. Carrot seemed to be winning, but it was a near thing. The clan was giving in not because of reason, or in obedience to the law, but because . . . well . . . because it was Carrot who was asking.

Finally, the corporal looked up. He was sitting on a dwarf stool, so his knees practically framed his head.

'You have to understand, you see, that a dwarf's workshop is very important.'

'Right,' said Vimes. 'I understand.'

'And, er . . . you're a bigger.'

'Sorry?'

'A bigger. Bigger than a dwarf.'

'Ah.'

'Er. The inside of a dwarf's workshop is bike . . . well, it's like the inside of his clothes, if you know what I mean. They say you can look, if I'm with you. But you mustn't touch anything. Er. They're not very happy about this, captain.'

A dwarf who was possibly Mrs Hammerhock produced a bunch of keys.

'I've always got on well with dwarfs,' said Vimes.

'They're not happy, sir. Um. They don't think we'll do any good.'

'We'll do our best!'

'Um. I didn't translate that properly. Um. They don't think we're any good. They don't mean to be offensive, sir. They just don't think we'll be allowed to get anywhere, sir.'

'Ow!'

'Sorry about that, captain,' said Carrot, who was walking like an inverted L. 'After you. Mind your head on the—'

'Ow!'

'Perhaps it'd be best if you sat down and I'll look around.'