Making Money d-36

by Terry Pratchett

  The only sound in the vaults was the tap-tap-tapping of Adora Belle's foot. It was really annoying Moist as he paced up and down in front of the gold room, by the light of silver candlesticks that had been gracing the dining-room table.

  'I just hope Aimsbury is keeping the broth warm,' said Adora Belle. Tap-tap tap-tap.

  'Look,' said Moist. 'Firstly, to open a safe like this you need to have a name like Fingers McGee, and secondly these little lockpicks aren't up to the job.'

  'Well, let's go and find Mr McGee. He's probably got the right sort.' Tap-tap tap-tap.

  'That won't be any good because, thirdly, there's probably no such person and, fourthly, the vault is locked from the inside and I think he's left the key in the lock, which is why none of these work.' He waved the key ring. 'Fifthly, I'm trying to turn the key from this side with tweezers, an old trick which, it turns out, does not work!'

  'Good. So we can go back to the suite?' Tap-tap tap-tap.

  Moist peered again through the little spyhole in the door. A heavy plate had been slid across it on the inside, and he could just make out a glimmer of light around the edges. There was a lamp in there. What there was not, as far as he knew, was any kind of ventilation. It looked as though the vault had been built before the idea of breathing caught on. It was a man-made cave, built to contain something you never intended to take out. Gold didn't choke.

  'I don't think we have the option,' he said, 'because sixthly, he's running out of air. He may even be dead!'

  'If he's dead, can we leave him until tomorrow? It's freezing down here.' Tap-tap tap-tap.

  Moist looked up at the ceiling. It was made of ancient oak beams, strapped together with iron bands. He knew what old oak could be like. It could be like steel, only nastier. It blunted axes and bounced hammers back in their owners' faces.

  'Can't the guards help?' Adora Belle ventured.

  'I doubt it,' said Moist. 'Anyway, I don't particularly want to encourage the idea that they can spend the night breaking into the vault.'

  'But they're mostly City Watch, aren't they?'

  'So? When a man is legging it for the horizon with as much gold as he can carry he doesn't worry much about what his old job was. I'm a criminal. Trust me.'

  He walked towards the stairs, counting under his breath.

  'And now what are you doing?'

  'Working out which part of the bank is directly over the gold,' said Moist. 'But you know what? I think I already know. The gold room is right under his desk.'

  The lamp had burned low, and oily smoke swirled and settled on the sacks where Mr Bent lay curled up in a tight ball.

  There was sound above, and voices muffled by the ancient ceiling. One of them said: 'I can't budge it. All right, Gladys, over to you.'

  'Is This Ladylike Behaviour?' a second voice rumbled.

  'Oh yes, it counts as moving the furniture,' said a voice that was clearly female.

  'Very Well. I Shall Lift It Up And Dust Underneath It.'

  There was the thunder of wood being scraped on wood, and a little dust fell on to the piled bullion.

  'Very Dusty Indeed. I Shall Fetch A Broom.'

  'Actually, Gladys, I'd like you to lift up the floor now,' said the first voice.

  'There May Be Dust Underneath That Too?'

  'I'm certain of it.'

  'Very Well.'

  There were several thumps that made the beams creak, and then a rumble of: 'It Does Not Say Anything About Dusting Under The Floor In Lady Waggons Book Of Household Management!

  'Gladys, a man may be dying under there!'

  'I See. That Would Be Untidy.' The beams rattled under a blow. 'Lady Waggon Says That Any Bodies Found During A Week-End Party Should Be Disposed Of Discreetly, In Case Of Scandal.'

  Three more blows, and a beam shattered.

  'Lady Waggon Says Watchmen Are Disrespectful And Do Not Wipe Their Dirty Boots.'

  Another beam cracked. Light lanced down. A hand the size of a shovel appeared, grabbed one of the iron straps, and snapped it—

  Moist peered into the gloom, while smoke poured up past him.

  'He's down there! Ye gods, this reeks!'

  Adora Belle looked over his shoulder. 'Is he alive?'

  'I certainly hope so.' Moist eased himself between the beams and dropped on to the bullion boxes.

  After a moment he called up: 'There's a pulse. And there's a key in the lock, too. Can you come down the stairs and give me a hand?'

  'Er, we have visitors,' Adora Belle called down.

  A couple of helmeted heads were now outlined against the light. Damn it! Using off-duty watchmen was all very well, but they tended to take their badges everywhere with them, and were just the sort of people who'd jump to conclusions merely because they'd found a man standing in the wreckage of a bank vault after hours. The words 'Look, I can explain' presented themselves for utterance, but he strangled them just in time. It was his bank, after all.

  'Well, what do you want?' he demanded.

  This was sufficiently unexpected to throw the men, but one of them rallied. 'Is this your bank vault, sir?' he said.

  'I'm the deputy chairman, you idiot! And there's a sick man down here!'

  'Did he fall when you were breaking into the vault, sir?'

  Oh gods, you just couldn't budge a born copper. They just kept going, in that patient grinding tone. When you were a policeman, everything was a crime.

  'Officer— You are a copper, right?'

  'Constable Haddock, sir.'

  'Well, constable, can we get my colleague into the fresh air? He's wheezing. I'll unlock the door down here.'

  Haddock nodded to the other guard, who hurried away towards the stairs.

  'If you had a key, sir, why did you break in?'

  'To get him out, of course!'

  'So how—'

  'It's all perfectly sensible,' said Moist. 'Once I've got out of here we will all have a laugh.'

  'I shall look forward to that, sir,' said Haddock, 'because I like a laugh.'

  Talking to the Watch was like tap-dancing on a landslide. If you were nimble you could stay upright, but you couldn't steer and there were no brakes and you just knew that it was going to end in a certain amount of fuss.

  It wasn't Constable Haddock any more. It had stopped being Constable Haddock just as soon as Constable Haddock had found that the pockets of the Master of the Royal Mint contained a velvet roll of lockpicks and a blackjack, and it then became Sergeant Detritus.

  Lockpicks, as Moist knew, were technically not illegal. Owning them was fine. Owning them while standing in someone else's house was not fine. Owning them while being found in a stricken bank vault was so far from fine it could see the curvature of the universe.

  So far, to Sergeant Detritus, so good. However, the sergeant's grasp began to slip when confronted with the evidence that Moist quite legitimately had the keys for the vault he had broken into. This seemed to the troll to be a criminal act in itself, and he'd toyed for a while with the charge of 'Wasting Watch time by breaking in when you didn't have to'."[7] He didn't understand about the visceral need for the lockpicks; trolls didn't have a word for machismo in the same way that puddles don't have a word for water. He also had a problem with the mind-set and actions of the nearly late Mr Bent. Trolls don't go mad, they get mad. So he gave up, and it became Captain Carrot.

  Moist knew him of old. He was big and smelled of soap and his normal expression was one of blue-eyed innocence. Moist couldn't see behind that amiable face, just couldn't see a thing. He could read most people but the captain was a closed book in a locked bookcase. And the man was always courteous, in that really annoying way police have.

  He said 'Good evening', politely, as he sat down opposite Moist in the little office that had suddenly become an interview room. 'Can I start, sir, by asking you about the three men down in the cellar? And the big glass… thing?'

  'Mr Hubert Turvy and his assistants,' said Moist. 'They are studying the economic syst
em of the city. They're not involved in this. Come to think of it, I'm not involved in this either! There is, in fact, no this. I have explained all this to the sergeant.'

  'Sergeant Detritus thinks you are too smart, Mr Lipwig,' said Captain Carrot, opening his notebook.

  'Well, yes, I expect he thinks that about most people, doesn't he?'

  Carrot's expression changed not one iota. 'Can you tell me why there is a golem downstairs who is wearing a dress and keeps ordering my men to wipe their dirty boots?' he said.

  'Not without sounding mad, no. What has this got to do with anything?'

  'I don't know, sir. I hope to find out. Who is Lady Deirdre Waggon?'

  'She writes rather out-of-date books on etiquette and household management for young ladies who would like to be the type of women who have time to arrange flowers. Look, is this relevant?'

  'I don't know, sir. I am endeavouring to assess the situation. Can you tell me why a small dog is running around the building in possession of what I shall call a wind-up clockwork item of an intimate nature?'

  'I think it is because my sanity is slipping away,' said Moist. 'Look, the only thing that is important here is that Mr Bent had… a nasty turn and locked himself in the gold vault. I had to get him out quickly.'

  'Ah, yes, the gold vault,' said the captain. 'Can we talk about the gold for a moment?'

  'What's wrong with the gold?'

  'I was hoping you could tell us, sir. I believe you wanted to sell it to the dwarfs?'

  'What? Well, yes, I said that, but it was only to make a point—'

  'A point,' said Captain Carrot solemnly, writing this down.

  'Look, I know how this sort of thing goes,' said Moist. 'You just keep me talking in the hope that I'll suddenly forget where I am and say something stupid and incriminating, right?'

  'Thank you for that, sir,' said Captain Carrot, turning over another page in his notebook.

  'Thank me for what?'

  'For telling me you know how this sort of thing goes, sir.'

  See? Moist told himself. This is what happens when you get too comfortable. You lose the edge. Even a copper can outsmart you.

  The captain looked up. 'I will tell you, Mr Lipwig, that some of what you say has been corroborated by an unbiased witness who could not possibly be an accomplice.'

  'You talked to Gladys?' said Moist.

  'Gladys being?'

  'She's the one going on about dirty boots.'

  'How can a golem be a "she", sir?'

  'Ah, I know this one. The correct answer is: how can a golem be a "he"?'

  'An interesting point, sir. That explains the dress, then. Out of interest, how much weight would you say a golem can carry?'

  'I don't know. A couple of tons, maybe. What are you getting at?'

  'I don't know, sir,' said Carrot cheerfully. 'Commander Vimes says, when life hands you a mess of spaghetti, just keep pulling until you find the meatball. In fact your version of events agrees, insofar as he understood things at the time, with that given to us by a Mr Fusspot.'

  'You talked to the dog?'

  'Well, he is the chairman of the bank, sir,' said the captain.

  'How did you understand what— Ah, you have a werewolf, right?' said Moist, grinning.

  'We don't confirm that, sir.'

  'Everyone knows it's Nobby Nobbs, you know.'

  'Do they, sir? Gosh. Anyway, your movements this evening are accounted for.'

  'Good. Thank you.' Moist started to rise.

  'However, your movements earlier this week, sir, are not.' Moist sat down again.

  'Well? I don't have to account for them, do I?'

  'It might help us, sir.'

  'How would it help you?'

  'It might help us understand why there is no gold in the vault, sir. It's a small detail in the great scheme of things, but it is something of a puzzler.'

  At which point, somewhere close at hand, Mr Fusspot began to bark…

  Cosmo Lavish sat at his desk with his fingers steepled in front of his mouth, watching Cribbins eat. Not many people in a state to make a choice had ever done this for more than thirty seconds.

  'The soup is good?' he said.

  Cribbins lowered the bowl after one lengthy final gurgle. 'Champion, your lordship.' He removed a grey rag from his pocket and—

  He's going to take his teeth out, right now, here at the table, thought Cosmo. Amazing. Ah, yes, and there's still bits of carrot in them…

  'Don't hesitate to repair your teeth,' he said, as Cribbins removed a bent fork from a pocket.

  'I'm a martyr to them, shir,' said Cribbins. 'I'll shwear they're out to get me.' Springs twanged as he fought them with the fork and then, apparently satisfied, he wrestled them back on to his grey gums and champed them into place.

  'That's better,' he announced.

  'Good,' said Cosmo. 'And now, in view of the nature of your allegations, which Drumknott here has carefully transcribed and you have signed, let me ask you: why have you not gone to Lord Vetinari?'

  'I've knowed men escape the nooshe, sir,' said Cribbins. 'It ain't too hard if you've got the readies. But I never heard of one get a big plum job the very next day. Gov'ment job, too. Then suddenly he's a banker, no lesh. Shomeone's watching over him, and I don't think it'sh a bleeding fairy. If I was to go to Vetinari, then, I'd be a bit shilly, right? But he's got your bank, and you ain't, which is a shame. Sho I'm your man, shir.'

  'At a price, I have no doubt.'

  'Well, yes, shomething in the way of expenses would help, yesh.'

  'And you are sure that Lipwig and Spangler are one and the same?'

  'It's the smile, sir. You never forget it. And he has this gift of chatting to people, he makes people want to do things his way. It's like magic, the little ingrate.'

  Cosmo stared at him and then said, 'Give the reverend fifty dollars, Drum— Heretofore, and direct him to a good hotel. One where they might have a hot tub available.'

  'Fifty dollarsh? growled Cribbins.

  'And then please go ahead with that little acquisition, will you?'

  'Yes, sir. Of course.'

  Cosmo pulled a piece of paper towards him, dipped a pen in the inkwell, and began to write furiously.

  'Fifty dollarsh?' said Cribbins again, appalled at the minimum wage of sin.

  Cosmo looked up and stared at the man as if seeing him for the first time and not enjoying the novelty.

  'Hah, yes. Fifty dollars indeed for now, reverend,' said Cosmo soothingly. 'And in the morning, if your memory is still as good, we will all look forward to a richer and righteous future. Do not let me detain you.'

  He returned to his paperwork.

  Heretofore grabbed Cribbins's arm and towed him forcibly out of the room. He'd seen what Cosmo was writing.

  VetinariVetinariVetinari VetinariVetinariVetinari

  VetinariVetinariVetinari VetinariVetinariVetinari

  VetinariVetinariVetinari VetinariVetinariVetinari

  VetinariVetinariVetinari VetinariVetinariVetinari…

  It was time for the swordstick, he thought. Get it, hand it over, take the money and run.

  Things were quiet in the Department of Post-Mortem Communications. They were never very loud at the best of times, although you always got, when the sounds of the university slid into silence, the reedy little gnat-sized voices leaking through from the Other Side.

  The trouble was, thought Hicks, that too many of his predecessors had never had any kind of a life outside the department, where social skills were not a priority, and even when dead had still completely failed to get a life. So they hung around the department, reluctant to leave the place. Sometimes, when they were feeling strong and the Dolly Sisters Players were doing a new production, he let them out to paint the scenery.

  Hicks sighed. That was the trouble with working in the DPMC, you could never exactly be the boss. In an ordinary job people retired, wandered back to the ol' workplace a few times while there was anyone who remembered
them, and then faded into the ever-swelling past. But the former staff here never seemed to go…

  There was a saying: 'Old necromancers never die'. When he told them this, people would say:'… and?' and Hicks would have to reply: 'That's all of it, I'm afraid. Just "Old necromancers never die".'

  He was just tidying up for the night when, from his shadowy corner, Charlie said, 'Somebody coming through. Well, I say some body…'

  Hicks spun round. The magic circle was glowing and a pearly pointy hat was already rising through the solid floor.

  'Professor Head?' he said.

  'Yes, and we must hurry, young man,' said the shade of Flead, still rising.

  'But I banished you! I used the Ninefold Erasure! It banishes everything.'

  'I wrote it,' said Flead, looking smug. 'Oh, don't worry, I'm the only one it doesn't work on. Ha, I'd be a damn fool to design a spell to work on myself, eh?'

  Hicks pointed a shaking finger. 'You put in a hidden portal, didn't you?'

  'Of course. A bloody good one. Don't worry, I'm the only one who knows where it is, too.' The whole of Flead was floating above the circle now. And don't try to look for it; a man of your limited talent will never find the hidden runes.'

  Flead looked around the room. 'Isn't that wonderful young lady here?' he said hopefully. 'Well, never mind. You must get me out of this place, Hicks. I want to see the fun!'

  'Fun? What fun?' said Hicks, a man planning to look through the Ninefold Erasure spell very, very carefully.

  'I know what kind of golems are coming!'

  When he was a child Moist had prayed every night before going to bed. His family were very active in the Plain Potato Church, which shunned the excesses of the Ancient and Orthodox Potato Church. Its followers were retiring, industrious and inventive, and their strict adherence to oil lamps and home-made furniture made them stand out in the region, where most people used candles and sat on sheep.

  He'd hated praying. It felt as though he was opening a big black hole into space, and at any moment something might reach through and grab him. This may have been because the standard bedtime prayer included the line 'If I die before I wake', which on bad nights caused him to try to sit up until morning.