Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(38)

'No, sir.'

' He painted a bit, and messed about with mechanisms. Any old thing.'

Or a hammer and chisel even, thought Detritus.

'This,' said Silverfish, 'is a formula for . . . oh, well, I might as well tell you, it's hardly a big secret . . . it's a formula for what we called No. 1 Powder. Sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal. You use it in fireworks. Any fool could make it up. But it looks odd because it's written back to front.'

'This sounds important,' hissed Cuddy to the troll.

'Oh, no. He always used to write back to front,' said Silverfish. 'He was odd like that. But very clever all the same. Haven't you seen his portrait of the Mona Ogg?'

'I don't think so.'

Silverfish handed the parchment to Detritus, who squinted at it as if he knew what it meant. Maybe he could write on this, he thought.

'The teeth followed you around the room. Amazing. In fact some people said they followed them out of the room and all the way down the street.'

'I think we should talk to Mr da Quirm,' said Cuddy.

'Oh, you could do that, you could do that, certainly,' said Silverfish. 'But he might not be in a position to listen. He disappeared a couple of years ago.'

. . . then when I find something to write with, thought Detritus, I have to find someone teach me how write . . .

'Disappeared? How?' said Cuddy.

'We think,' said Silverfish, leaning closer, 'that he found a way of making himself invisible.'

'Really?'

'Because,' said Silverfish, nodding conspiratorially, 'no-one's seen him.'

'Ah,' said Cuddy. 'Er. This is just off of the top of my head, you understand, but I suppose he couldn't . . . just have gone somewhere where you couldn't see him?'

'Nah, that wouldn't be like old Leonard. He wouldn't disappear. But he might vanish.'

'Oh.'

'He was a bit . . . unhinged, if you know what I mean. Head too full of brains. Ha, I remember he had this idea once of getting lightning out of lemons! Hey, Sendivoge, you remember Leonard and his lightning lemons?'

Sendivoge made little circular motions alongside his head with one finger. 'Oh, yes. “If you stick copper and zinc rods in the lemon, hey presto, you get tame lightning.” Man was an idiot!'

'Oh, not an idiot,' said Silverfish, picking up a billiard ball that had miraculously escaped the detonations. 'Just so sharp he kept cutting himself, as my granny used to say. Lightning lemons! Where's the sense in that? It was as bad as his “voices-in-the-sky” machine. I told him: Leonard, I said, what are wizards for, eh? There's perfectly normal magic available for that kind of thing. Lightning lemons? If 11 be men with wings next!

And you know what he said? You know what he said? He said: Funny you should say that . . . Poor old chap.'

Even Cuddy joined in the laughter.

'And did you try it?' he said, afterwards.

'Try what?' said Silverfish.

'Har. Har. Har,' said Detritus, toiling behind the others.

'Putting the metal rods in the lemons?'

'Don't be a damn: fool.'

'What dis letter mean?' said Detritus, pointing at the paper.

They looked.

'Oh, that's not a symbol,' said Silverfish. 'That's just old Leonard's way. He was always doodling in margins. Doodle, doodle, doodle. I told him: you should call yourself Mr Doodle.'

'I thought it was some alchemy thing,' said Cuddy. 'It looks a bit like a crossbow without the bow. And this word Ennogeht. What does that mean?'

'Search me. Sounds barbarian to me. Anyway . . . if that's all, officer . . . we've got some serious research to do,' said Silverfish, tossing the fake ivory ball up in the air and catching it again. 'We're not all daydreamers like poor old Leonard.'

'Ennogeht,' said Cuddy, turning the paper round and round. 'T-h-e-g-o-n-n-e—'

Silverfish missed the ball. Cuddy got behind Detritus just in time.

'I've done this before,' said Sergeant Colon, as he and Nobby approached the Fools' Guild. 'Keep up against the wall when I bangs the knocker, all right?'

It was shaped like a pair of artificial breasts, the sort that are highly amusing to rugby players and anyone whose sense of humour has been surgically removed. Colon gave it a quick rap and then flung himself to safety.

There was a whoop, a few honks on a horn, a little tune that someone somewhere must have thought was very jolly, a small hatch slid aside above the knocker and a custard pie emerged slowly, on the end of a wooden arm. Then the arm snapped and the pie collapsed in a little heap by Colon's foot.

'It's sad, isn't it?' said Nobby.

The door opened awkwardly, but only by a few inches, and a small clown stared up at him.

'I say, I say, I say,' it said, 'why did the fat man knock at the door?'

'I don't know,' said Colon automatically. 'Why did the fat man knock at the door?'

They stared at each other, tangled in the punchline.

'That's what I asked you,' said the clown reproachfully. He had a depressed, hopeless voice.

Sergeant Colon struck out towards sanity.

'Sergeant Colon, Night Watch,' he said, 'and this here is Corporal Nobbs. We've come to talk to someone about the man who . . . was found in the river, OK?'