Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(75)

'So when did that friend of his, you know, the Assassin . . . visit him?'

'Oh, you know about him, then,' said Boffo.

'Oh, yes,' said Carrot.

'About ten days ago,' said Boffo. 'It's through here, past the pie range.'

'He'd forgotten Beano's name, but he did know the room. He didn't know the number but he went straight to it,' Carrot went on.

'That's right. I expect Dr Whiteface told you,' said Boffo.

'I've spoken to Dr Whiteface,' said Carrot.

Angua felt she was beginning to understand the way Carrot asked questions. He asked them by not asking them. He simply told people what he thought or suspected, and they found themselves filling in the details in an attempt to keep up. And he never, actually, told lies.

Boffo pushed open a door and fussed around lighting a candle.

'Here we are then,' he said. 'I'm in charge of this, when I'm not on the bloody gate.'

'Ye gods,' said Angua, under her breath. 'It's horrible.'

'It's very interesting,' said Carrot.

'It's historical,' said Boffo the clown.

All those little heads . . .'

They stretched away in the candlelight, shelf on shelf of them, tiny little clown faces – as if a tribe of head-hunters had suddenly developed a sophisticated sense of humour and a desire to make the world a better place.

'Eggs,' said Carrot. 'Ordinary hens' eggs. What you do is, you get a hen's egg, and you make a hole in either end and you blow the egg stuff out, and then a clown paints his make-up on the egg and that's his official make-up and no other clown can use it. That's very important. Some faces have been in the same family for generations, you know. Very valuable thing, a clown's face. Isn't that so, Boffo?'

The clown was staring at him.

'How do you know all that?'

'I read it in a book.'

Angua picked up an ancient egg. There was a label attached to it, and on the label were a dozen names, all crossed out except the last one. The ink on the earlier ones had faded almost to nothing. She put it down and unconsciously wiped her hand on her tunic.

'What happens if a clown wants to use another clown's face?' she said.

'Oh, we compare all the new eggs with the ones on the shelves,' said Boffo. 'It's not allowed.'

They walked between aisles of faces. Angua fanded she could hear the squelch of a million custard-filled trousers and the echoes of a thousand honking noses and a million grins of faces that weren't smiling. About halfway along was a sort of alcove containing a desk and chair, a shelf piled with old ledgers, and a workbench covered with crusted pots of paint, scraps of coloured horsehair, sequins and other odds and ends of the egg-painter's spedalized art. Carrot picked up a wisp of coloured horsehair and twiddled it thoughtfully.

'But supposing,' he said, 'that a clown, I mean a clown with his own face . . . supposing he used another clown's face?'

'Pardon?' said Boffo.

'Supposing you used another clown's make-up?' said Angua.

'Oh, that happens all the time,' said Boffo. 'People're always borrowing slap off each other—'

'Slap?' said Angua.

'Make-up,' Carrot translated. 'No, I think what the lance-constable is asking, Boffo, is: could a clown make himself up to look like another clown?'

Boffo's brow wrinkled, like someone trying hard to understand an impossible question.

'Pardon?'

'Where's Beano's egg, Boffo?'

'That's here on the desk,' said Boffo. 'You can have a look if you like.'

An egg was handed up. It had a blobby red nose and a red wig. Angua saw Carrot hold it up to the light and produce a couple of red strands from his pocket.

'But,' she said, trying one more time to get Boffo to understand, 'couldn't you wake up one morning and put on make-up so that you looked like a different clown?'

He looked at her. It was hard to tell his expression under the permanently downcast mouth, but as far as she could tell she might as well have suggested that he performed a specific sex act with a small chicken.

'How could I do that?' he said. 'Then I wouldn't be me.'

'Someone else might do it, though?'

Boffo's buttonhole squirted.

'I don't have to listen to this sort of dirty talk, miss.'

'What you're saying, then,' said Carrot, 'is that no clown would ever make up his face in another clown's, um, design?'

'You're doing it again!'

'Yes, but perhaps sometimes by accident a young down might perhaps—'

'Look, we're decent people, all right?'

'Sorry,' said Carrot. 'I think I understand. Now . . . when we found poor Mr Beano, he didn't have his clown wig on, but something like that could easily have got knocked off in the river. But his nose, now . . . you told Sergeant Colon that someone had taken his nose. His real nose. Could you,' said Carrot, in the pleasant tones of someone talking to a simpleton, 'point to your real nose, Boffo?'

Boffo tapped the big red nose on his face.

'But that's—' Angua began.

'—your real nose,' said Carrot. 'Thank you.'