‘There was a brief exchange in the ante-room, my lord,’ he said.

Vetinari didn’t turn round, but held up a hand. ‘Let me see… I imagine one of them started saying something like “Do you think he—” and Slant very quickly shushed him? Mr Horsefry, I suspect.’

Drumknott glanced at the paper in his hand. ‘Almost to the word, my lord.’

‘It takes no great leap of the imagination,’ sighed Lord Vetinari. ‘Dear Mr Slant. He’s so… dependable. Sometimes I really think that if he was not already a zombie it would be necessary to have him turned into one.’

‘Shall I order a Number One Investigation on Mr Gilt, my lord?’

‘Good heavens, no. He is far too clever. Order it on Mr Horsefry.’

‘Really, sir? But you did say yesterday that you believed him to be no more than a greedy fool.’

A nervous fool, which is useful. He’s a venal coward and a glutton. I’ve watched him sit down to a meal of pot au feu with white beans, and that was an impressive sight, Drumknott, which I will not easily forget. The sauce went everywhere . Those pink shirts he wears cost more than a hundred dollars, too. Oh, he acquires other people’s money, in a safe and secret and not very clever way. Send… yes, send clerk Brian.’

‘Brian, sir?’ said Drumknott. ‘Are you sure? He’s wonderful at devices, but quite inept on the street. He’ll be seen.’

‘Yes, Drumknott. I know. I would like Mr Horsefry to become a little… more nervous.’

‘Ah, I see, sir.’

Vetinari turned back to the window. ‘Tell me, Drumknott,’ he said, ‘would you say I’m a tyrant?’

‘Most certainly not, my lord,’ said Drumknott, tidying the desk.

‘But of course that’s the problem, is it not? Who will tell the tyrant he is a tyrant?’

‘That’s a tricky one, my lord, certainly,’ said Drumknott, squaring up the files.

‘In his Thoughts , which I have always considered fare badly in translation, Bouffant says that intervening in order to prevent a murder is to curtail the freedom of the murderer and yet that freedom, by definition, is natural and universal, without condition,’ said Vetinari. ‘You may recall his famous dictum: “If any man is not free, then I too am a small pie made of chicken”, which has led to a considerable amount of debate. Thus we might consider, for example, that taking a bottle from a man killing himself with drink is a charitable, nay, praiseworthy act, and yet freedom is curtailed once more. Mr Gilt has studied his Bouffant but, I fear, failed to understand him. Freedom may be mankind’s natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling. On the other hand, Freidegger, in Modal Contextities , claims that all freedom is limited, artificial and therefore illusory, a shared hallucination at best. No sane mortal is truly free, because true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes. It overwhelms the soul, very much like the state he elsewhere describes as Vonallesvolkommenunverstandlichdasdaskeit . What position would you take here, Drumknott?’

‘I’ve always thought, my lord, that what the world really needs are filing boxes which are not so flimsy,’ said Drumknott, after a moment’s pause.

‘Hmm,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘A point to think about, certainly.’

He stopped. On the carven decorations over the room’s fireplace a small cherub began to turn, with a faint squeaking noise. Vetinari raised an eyebrow at Drumknott.

‘I shall have a word with clerk Brian immediately, my lord,’ said the clerk.

‘Good. Tell him it’s time he got out into the fresh air more.’

‘Now Then, Mr Lipvig, What Good Will Violence Do?’ Mr Pump rumbled. He rocked on his huge feet as Moist struggled in his grip.

Groat and Stanley were huddled at the far end of the locker room.

One of Mr Groat’s natural remedies was bubbling over on to the floor, where the boards were staining purple.

‘They were all accidents, Mr Lipwig! All accidents!’ Groat babbled. ‘The Watch was all over the place by the fourth one! They were all accidents, they said!’

‘Oh, yes !’ screamed Moist. ‘Four in five weeks, eh? I bet that happens all the time around here! Ye gods, I’ve been done up good and brown! I’m dead, right? Just not lying down yet! Vetinari? There’s a man who knows how to save the price of a rope! I’m done for!’

‘You’ll feel better for a nice cup o’ bismuth and brimstone tea, sir,’ Groat quavered. ‘I’ve got the kettle boiling—’

‘A cup of tea is not going to be sufficient!’ Moist got a grip on himself, or at least began to act as if he had, and took a deep, theatrical breath. ‘Okay, okay, Mr Pump, you can let go now.’

The golem released his grip. Moist straightened up. ‘Well, Mr Groat?’ he said.

‘Looks like you’re genuine after all, then,’ the old man said. ‘One of the dark clerks wouldn’t have gone bursar like that. We thought you was one of his lordship’s special gentlemen, see.’ Groat fussed around the kettle. ‘No offence, but you’ve got a bit more colour than the average penpusher.’

‘Dark clerks?’ said Moist, and then recollection dawned. ‘Oh… do you mean those stocky little men in black suits and bowler hats?’

‘The very same. Scholarship boys at the Assassins’ Guild, some of ‘em. I heard that they can do some nasty things when they’ve a mind.’

‘I thought you called them penpushers?’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t say where, heehee.’ Groat caught Moist’s expression and coughed. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean it, just my little joke. We reckon the last new postmaster we had, Mr Whobblebury, he was a dark clerk. Can’t hardly blame him, with a name like that. He was always snooping around.’

‘And why do you think that was?’ said Moist.

‘Well, Mr Mutable, he was the first, decent chap, he fell down into the big hall from the fifth floor, smack, sir, smack on to the marble. Head first. It was a bit… splashy, sir.’

Moist glanced at Stanley, who was starting to tremble.

‘Then there was Mr Sideburn. He fell down the back stairs and broke his neck, sir. Excuse me, sir, it’s eleven forty-three.’ Groat walked over to the door and opened it, Tiddles walked through, Groat shut the door again. ‘At three in the morning, it was. Right down five flights. Broke just about every bone you could break, sir.’

‘You mean he was wandering around without a light?’

‘Dunno, sir. But I know about the stairs. The stairs have lamps burning all night, sir. Stanley fills them every day, regular as Tiddles.’

‘Use those stairs a lot, then, do you?’ said Moist.

‘Never, sir, except for the lamps. Nearly everywhere on that side is bunged up with mail. But it’s a Post Office Regulation, sir.’

‘And the next man?’ said Moist, a little hoarsely. ‘Another accidental fall?’

‘Oh, no, sir. Mr Ignavia, that was his name. They said it was his heart. He was just lyin’ dead on the fifth floor, dead as a doorknob, face all contorted like he’d seen a ghost. Natural causes, they said. Werrrl, the Watch was all over the place by then, you may depend on it. No one had been near him, they said, and there was not a mark on him. Surprised you didn’t know about all this, sir. It was in the paper.’

Except you don’t get much chance to keep up with the news in a condemned cell, Moist thought.

‘Oh yes?’ he said. ‘And how would they know no one had been near him?’

Groat leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘Everyone knows there’s a werewolf in the Watch and one of them could bloody nearly smell what colour clothes someone was wearing.’