But very  occasionally you found you'd got someone like Mister Teatime, to  whom  the money was merely  a  distraction. Mister Teatime  had  a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.

     Mister Teatime enjoyed himself too much. And other people, also.

     Downey  had  privately decided that some  time soon  Mister Teatime was going to meet with an accident. Like many people with no actual morals, Lord Downey did  have  standards,  and Teatime repelled him. Assassination was  a careful game, usually played against people who knew the rules themselves or at least could afford the services of  those who did. There was considerable satisfaction in a clean kill.  What there wasn't supposed to be was pleasure in a messy one. That sort of thing led to talk.

     On the other  hand, Teatime's corkscrew of  a mind was exactly the tool to deal with something like this. And if he didn't ... well, that was hardly Downey's fault, was it?

     He turned his  attention to  the paperwork  for a while. It was amazing how the stuff mounted up. But you had to deal with  it.  It wasn't as though they were murderers, after all...

     There was a knock at the door.  He pushed the  paperwork aside and  sat back.

     'Come in, Mister Teatime,'  he  said.  It  never  hurt to put the other fellow slightly in awe of you.

     In fact the door  was opened by one of the Guild's servants,  carefully balancing a tea tray.

     'Ah,  Carter,' said Lord Downey, recovering magnificently. 'Just put it on the table over there, will you?'

     'Yes, sir,' said Carter. He  turned and nodded. 'Sorry, sir,  I will go and fetch another cup directly, sir.'

     'What?'

     'For your visitor, sir.'

     'What visitor? Oh, when Mister Teati-'

     He stopped. He turned.

     There was a young man sitting on the hearthrug, playing with the dogs.

     'Mister Teatime!'

     'It's pronounced Teh-ah-tim-eh, sir,' said Teatime, with just a hint of reproach. 'Everyone gets it wrong, sir.'

     'How did you do that?'

     'Pretty well,  sir.  I got mildly scorched  on  the last  few  feet, of course.'

     There  were some lumps of soot on the  hearthrug. Downey  realized he'd heard them  fall, but  that hadn't  been particularly extraordinary. No  one could get down the chimney. There was a heavy grid firmly in place  near the top of the flue.

     'But there's  a  blocked-in  fireplace  behind the  old  library,' said Teatime,  apparently reading his thoughts. 'The  flues  connect,  under  the bars. It was really a stroll, sir.'

     'Really . . .'

     'Oh, yes, sir.'

     Downey nodded. The tendency of old buildings  to  be  honeycombed  with sealed chimney flues was a fact  you learned early in your career. And then, he told himself,  you forgot. It always paid to put the other  fellow in awe of you, too. He had forgotten they taught that, too.

     'The dogs seem to like you,' he said.

     'I get on well with animals, sir.'

     Teatime's face was young and open and friendly. Or, at least, it smiled all the time. But the effect was spoiled for most people by the fact that it had only one eye. Some unexplained accident had taken the other one, and the missing  orb  had  been  replaced  by  a  ball  of  glass.  The  result  was disconcerting. But  what bothered Lord Downey far more  was  the man's other eye, the one  that might  loosely  be called normal. He'd never seen such  a small and sharp pupil. Teatime looked at the world through a pinhole.

     He  found  he'd retreated behind his desk again.  There  was that about Teatime. You always felt

     happier if you had something between you and him.

     'You like animals,  do  you?' he said. 'I have a report  here that says you nailed Sir George's dog to the ceiling.'

     'Couldn't have it barking while I was working, sir.'

     'Some people would have drugged it.'

     'Oh.' Teatime looked despondent for a moment,  but then  he brightened. 'But  I definitely fulfilled the contract, sir. There can be no  doubt about that,  sir. I checked Sir  George's  breathing with a mirror  as instructed. It's in my report.'

     'Yes, indeed.' Apparently the man's head had been several feet from his body at that point. It was a terrible thought that Teatime might see nothing incongruous about this.

     'And ... the servants...?' he said.

     'Couldn't have them bursting in, sir.'

     Downey nodded, half hypnotized  by the glassy  stare  and  the  pinhole eyeball. No, you  couldn't have them bursting in. And an Assassin might well face serious professional opposition, possibly even by people trained by the same  teachers.  But an  old  man and  a  maidservant who'd merely  had  the misfortune to be in the house at the time...

     There  was no actual rule, Downey  had to admit. It was just that, over the years, the Guild had  developed a certain ethos and members tended to be very  neat  about their work, even shutting  doors behind them and generally tidying up as they went. Hurting the harmless was worse than a transgression against the moral fabric of society, it was a breach of good manners. It was worse even than that. It was bad taste. But there was no actual rule...

     'That  was  all  right, wasn't it, sir?'  said  Teatime, with  apparent anxiety.

     'It, uh ... lacked elegance,' said Downey.

     'Ah.  Thank  you,  sir.  I  am always happy to  be  corrected.  I shall remember that next time.'

     Downey took a deep breath.

     'It's about  that I wish to talk,'  he said. He  held up the picture of ... what had the thing called him? ... the Fat Man?

     'As a matter  of interest,' he  said, 'how would you go about  inhuming this ... gentleman?'

     Anyone  else, he  was  sure, would have  burst out laughing. They would have said things like 'Is this a joke, sir?' Teatime merely  leaned forward, with a curious intent expression.

     'Difficult, sir.'

     'Certainly,' Downey agreed.

     'I would need some time to prepare a plan, sir,' Teatime went on.

     'Of course, and-'

     There was a knock at the door and  Carter came in  with another cup and saucer. He nodded respectfully to Lord Downey and crept out again.

     'Right, sir,' said Teatime.

     'I'm sorry?' said Downey, momentarily distracted.

     'I have now thought of a plan, sir,' said Teatime, patiently.

     'You have?'

     'Yes, sir.'

     'As quickly as that?'

     'Yes, sir.'

     'Ye gods!'

     'Well,  sir,  you  know  we  are  encouraged to  consider  hypothetical problems.

     'Oh, yes. A very valuable exercise----' Downey stopped, and then looked shocked.

     'You mean you have actually  devoted  time to considering how to inhume the  Hogfather?' he said weakly. 'You've actually  sat  down and thought out how to do it? You've actually devoted your spare time to the problem?'

     'Oh, yes, sir. And the Soul Cake Duck. And the Sandman. And Death.'

     Downey blinked again. 'You've actually sat down and considered how to-'

     'Yes, sir. I've amassed quite an interesting  file. In  my own time, of course.'

     'I want to  be quite certain about this, Mister Teatime.  You  ... have ... applied ... yourself to a study of ways of killing Death?'

     'Only as a hobby, sir.'

     'Well, yes, hobbies,  yes,  I  mean,  I  used  to  collect  butterflies myself,' said Downey, recalling those first moments of awakening pleasure at the use of poison and the pin, 'but-' .

     'Actually, sir, the  basic methodology is exactly the same as  it would be for a human. Opportunity,  geography, technique . .  . You  just  have to work with the known facts about the individual concerned. Of course, with this one such a lot is known.'