Making Money (42 page)

She flounced out, leaving Cosmo alone except for Cranberry, who was reading in the corner.

It occurred to Cosmo that he really knew very little about the man. As Vetinari, of course, he would soon know everything about everybody.

“You were at the Assassins’ School, weren’t you, Cranberry?” he said.

Cranberry took the little silver bookmark from his top pocket, placed it carefully on the page, and closed the book.

“Yes, sir. Scholarship boy.”

“Oh, yes. I remember them, scuttling about all the time. They tended to get bullied.”

“Yes, sir. Some of us survived.”

“Never bullied you, did I?”

“No, sir. I would have remembered.”

“That’s good. That’s good. What is your first name, Cranberry?”

“Don’t know, sir. Foundling.”

“How sad. Your life must have been very hard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The world can be so very harsh at times.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you be so good as to kill Mr. Bent tonight?”

“I have made a mental note, sir. I will take an associate and undertake the task an hour before dawn. Most of Mrs. Cake’s lodgers will be out at that time and the fog will be thickest. Fortuitously, Mrs. Cake is staying with her old friend Mrs. Harms-Beetle in Welcome Soap tonight. I checked earlier, having anticipated this eventuality.”

“You are a craftsman, Cranberry. I salute you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Have you seen Heretofore anywhere?”

“No, sir.”

“I wonder where he’s got to? Now go off and have your supper, anyway. I will not be dining tonight.

“Tomorrow I will change,” he said aloud, when the door had shut behind Cranberry.

He reached down and drew the sword. It was a thing of beauty.

In the picture opposite, Lord Vetinari raised an eyebrow and said: “Tomorrow you will be a beautiful butterfly.”

Cosmo smiled. He was nearly there. Vetinari had gone completely mad.

M
R
. B
ENT OPENED
his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

After a few seconds, this uninspiring view was replaced by an enormous nose, with the rest of a worried face some distance beyond it.

“You’re awake!”

Mr. Bent blinked and refocused and looked up at Miss Drapes, a shadow against the lamplight.

“You had a bit of a funny turn, Mr. Bent,” she said in the slow, careful voice people use for talking to mental patients, the elderly, and the dangerously armed.

“A funny turn? I did something funny?” He raised his head from the pillow, and sniffed.

“You are wearing a necklace of garlic, Miss Drapes?” he said.

“It’s…a precaution,” said Miss Drapes, looking guilty, “against…colds…yes, colds. You can’t be too careful. How do you feel, in yourself?”

Mr. Bent hesitated. He wasn’t certain how he felt. He wasn’t certain who he was. There seemed to be a hole inside. There was no himself in himself.

“What has been happening, Miss Drapes?”

“Oh, you don’t want to worry about all that,” said Miss Drapes, with fragile cheerfulness.

“I believe I do, Miss Drapes.”

“The doctor said you weren’t to get excited, Mr. Bent.”

“I, to the best of my knowledge, have never been excited in my life, Miss Drapes.”

The woman nodded. Alas, the statement was so easy to believe.

“Well, you know Mr. Lipwig? They say he stole all the gold out of the vault! The—”

—story unfolded. It was, in many places, speculations, both new and secondhand, and because Miss Drapes was a regular reader of the Tanty Bugle, it was recounted in the style and language in which tales of ’orrible murder are discussed.

What shocked her was the way the man just lay there. Once or twice he asked her to go back over a detail, but his expression never changed. She tried to add excitement, she painted the walls with exclamation marks, and he did not budge.

“—and now he’s banging up in the Tanty,” Miss Drapes said. “They say he will be hangéd by the neck until dead. I think hangéd is worse than just being hanged.”

“But they cannot find the gold…” whispered Mavolio Bent, leaning back against the pillow.

“That’s right! Some say it has been spirited away by dire accomplices!” said Miss Drapes. “They say informations have been laid against him by Mr. Lavish.”

“I am a damned man, Miss Drapes, judged and damned,” said Mr. Bent, staring at the wall.

“You, Mr. Bent? That’s no way to talk! You, who’ve never made a mistake?”

“But I have sinned. Oh, indeed I have! I have worshiped false idols!”

“Well, sometimes you can’t get real ones,” said Miss Drapes, patting his hand and wondering if she should call someone. “Look, if you want absolution, I understand the Ionians are doing two sins for one this week—”

“It’s caught me,” he whispered. “Oh dear, Miss Drapes. There is something rising inside that wants to get out!”

“Don’t you worry, we’ve got a bucket,” said Miss Drapes.

“No! You should go, now! This will be horrible!”

“I’m not going anywhere, Mr. Bent,” said Miss Drapes, a study in determination. “You’re just having a funny turn, that’s all.”

“Ha,” said Mr. Bent. “Ha…ha…haha…” The laugh climbed up his throat like something from the crypt.

His skinny body went rigid and arced as if it was rising from the mattress. Miss Drapes flung herself across the bed, but she was too late. The man’s hand rose, trembling, and extended a finger toward the wardrobe.

“Here we are again!” Bent screamed.

The lock clicked. The doors swung open.

In the cupboard was a pile of ledgers and something…shrouded. Mr. Bent opened his eyes and looked up into those of Miss Drapes.

“I brought it with me,” he said, as if talking to himself. “I hated it so much but I brought it with me. Why? Who runs the circus?”

Miss Drapes was silent. All she knew was that she was going to follow this to the end. After all, she’d spent the night in a man’s bedroom, and Lady Deirdre Waggon had a lot to say about that. She was technically a Ruined Woman, which seemed unfair given that, even more technically, she wasn’t.

She watched as Mr. Bent…changed. He had the decency to do so with his back turned, but she closed her eyes anyway. Then she remembered that she was Ruined, and so there wasn’t much point, was there?

She opened them again.

“Miss Drapes?” said Mr. Bent dreamily.

“Yes, Mr. Bent?” she said through chattering teeth.

“We need to find…a bakery.”

Cranberry and his associate stepped into the room, and stopped dead. This was not according to the plan.

“And possibly a ladder,” said Mr. Bent. He pulled a strip of pink rubber from his pocket, and bowed.

No help from on high
Drumknott reports
A possible jape
Mr. Fusspot takes the stage
Strange things in the air
The return of Mr. Bent
“Look out, he’s got a daisy!”
Pucci’s big moment
Cosmo needs a hand

T
HERE WAS CLEAN
straw in Moist’s cell and he was pretty certain no one had gobbed in the stirabout, which contained what, if you were forced to name it, you would have to concede was meat. News had somehow got around that Moist was the reason that Bellyster was no longer on the staff. Even his fellow screws had hated the bullying bastard, so Moist also got a second helping without asking, his shoes cleaned, and a complimentary copy of the Times in the morning.

The marching golems had forced the bank’s troubles onto page five. The golems were all over the front page, and a lot of the inner pages were full of Vox Pops, which meant people in the street who didn’t know anything told other people what they knew, and lengthy articles by people who also didn’t know anything but could say it very elegantly in 2,500 words.

He was just staring at the crossword puzzle
*
when someone knocked very politely on the cell door. It was the warden, who hoped Mr. Lipwig had enjoyed his brief stay with them, would like to show him to his carriage, and looked forward to the pleasure of his custom again should there be any further temporary doubts about his honesty. In the meantime, he would be grateful if Mr. Lipwig would be kind enough to wear these lightweight manacles, for the look of the thing, and when they were taken off him, as they surely would be when his character was proved to be spotless, would he please remind the officer in charge that they were prison property, thank you very much.

There was a crowd outside the prison, but they were standing back from the large golem which, down on one knee and with fist thrust into the air, was waiting outside the gate. It had turned up last night and if Mr. Lipwig could see his way clear to getting it to move, said the warden, everyone would be most appreciative.

Moist tried to look as though he’d expected it. He had told Black Mustache to await further orders. He hadn’t expected this.

In fact, it stomped after the coach all the way to the palace. There were a lot of watchmen lining the route and there seemed to be a black-clad figure on every rooftop. It looked as though Vetinari was not taking any chances on him escaping. There were more guards waiting in the back courtyard—more than was efficient, Moist could tell, since it can be easier for a swift-thinking man to get away from twenty men than from five. But somebody was Making A Statement. It didn’t matter what it was, so long as it looked impressive.

He was led by dark passages into the sudden light of the Great Hall, which was packed. There was a smattering of applause, one or two cheers, and a ringing series of “boo” s from Pucci, who was sitting next to her brother in the front row of the big block of seats. Moist was led to a small podium, which was going to serve as a dock, where he could look around at the guild leaders, senior wizards, important priests, and members of the Great and the Good, or at least the Big and the Noisy. There was Harry King, grinning at him, and the cloud of smoke that indicated the presence of Adora Belle, and—oh yes, the new high priestess of Anoia, her crown of bent spoons all shiny, her ceremonial ladle held stiffly, her face rigid with nerves and importance. You owe me, girl, Moist thought, ’cos a year ago you had to work in a bar in the evenings to make a living and Anoia was just one of half a dozen demigoddesses who shared an altar, which, let’s face it, was your kitchen table with a cloth on it. What’s one little miracle compared to that?

There was a whisking of cloth and suddenly Lord Vetinari was in his seat, with Drumknott by his side. The buzz of conversation ceased, as the Patrician looked around the hall.

“Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Let us get on, shall we? This is not a court of law, as such. It is a court of inquiry, which I have convened to look into the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of ten tons of gold bullion from the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork. The good name of the bank has been called into question, and so we will consider all matters apparently pertaining to it—”

“No matter where they lead?”

“Indeed, Mr. Cosmo Lavish, no matter where they lead.”

“We have your assurance on this?” Cosmo insisted.

“I believe I have already given it, Mr. Lavish. Can we proceed? I have appointed the Learned Mr. Slant, of Morecombe, Slant and Honeyplace, as counsel to the inquiry. He will examine and cross-examine as he sees fit. I think it is known to all that Mr. Slant commands the total respect of Ankh-Morpork’s legal profession.”

Mr. Slant bowed to Vetinari and let his steady gaze take in the rest of the room. It lingered a long time on the ranks of the Lavishes.