Making Money (8 page)

“Well, it’s been nice meeting you, Mrs. Lavish,” he said, standing up. “I shall…think things over.”

“Has he been to see Hubert?” said Mrs. Lavish, apparently to the dog. “He must see Hubert before he goes. I think he is a little confused about finance. Take him to see Hubert, Mr. Bent. Hubert is so good at explaining.”

“As you wish, madam,” said Bent, glaring at Mr. Fusspot. “I’m certain that having heard Hubert explain the flow of money he will no longer be a little confused. Please follow me, Mr. Lipwig.”

Bent was silent as they walked downstairs. He lifted his oversized feet with care, like a man walking across a floor strewn with pins.

“Mrs. Lavish is a jolly old stick, isn’t she?” Moist ventured.

“I believe she is what is known as a ‘character,’ sir,” said Bent somberly.

“A bit tiresome at times?”

“I will not comment, sir. Mrs. Lavish owns fifty-one percent of the shares in my bank.”

His bank, Moist noted.

“That’s strange,” he said. “She just told me she owned only fifty percent.”

“And the dog,” said Bent. “The dog owns one share, a legacy from the late Sir Joshua, and Mrs. Lavish owns the dog. The late Sir Joshua had what I understand is called a puckish sense of humor, Mr. Lipwig.”

And the dog owns a piece of the bank, thought Moist. What a jolly people the Lavishes are, indeed. “I can see that you might not find it very funny, Mr. Bent,” he said.

“I am pleased to say I find nothing funny, sir,” Bent replied as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “I have no sense of humor whatsoever. None at all. It has been proven by phrenology. I have Nichtlachen-Keinwortz syndrome, which for some curious reason is considered a lamentable affliction. I, on the other hand, consider it a gift. I am happy to say that I regard the sight of a fat man slipping on a banana skin as nothing more than an unfortunate accident that highlights the need for care in the disposal of household waste.”

“Have you tried—” Moist began, but Bent held up a hand. “Please! I repeat, I do not regard it as a burden! And may I say it annoys me when people assume it is such! Do not feel impelled to try to make me laugh, sir! If I had no legs, would you try to make me run? I am quite happy, thank you!”

He paused by another pair of doors, calmed down a little, and gripped the handles.

“And now, perhaps, I should take this opportunity to show you where the…may I say serious work is done, Mr. Lipwig. This used to be called the counting house, but I prefer to think of it as—” he pulled at the doors, which swung open majestically “—my world.”

It was impressive. And the first impression it gave Moist was: this is Hell on the day they couldn’t find the matches.

He stared at the rows of bent backs, scribbling frantically. No one looked up.

“I will not have abacuses, Calculating Bones, or other inhuman devices under this roof, Mr. Lipwig,” said Bent, leading the way down the central aisle. “The human brain is capable of infallibility in the world of numbers. Since we invented them, how should it be otherwise? We are rigorous here, rigorous—” In one swift movement Bent pulled a sheet of paper from the out tray of the nearest desk, scanned it briefly, and dropped it back again with a little grunt that signified either his approval that the clerk had got things right or his own disappointment that he had not found anything wrong.

The sheet had been crammed with calculations, and surely no mortal could have followed them at a glance. But Moist would not have bet a penny that Bent hadn’t accounted for every line.

“Here in this room we are at the heart of the bank,” said the chief cashier proudly.

“The heart,” said Moist blankly.

“Here we calculate interest and charges and mortgages and costs and—everything, in fact. And we do not make mistakes.”

“What, never?”

“Well, hardly ever. Oh, some individuals occasionally make an error,” Bent conceded with distaste. “Fortunately, I check every calculation. No errors get past me, you may depend upon it. An error, sir, is worse than a sin, the reason being that a sin is often a matter of opinion or viewpoint or even of timing but an error is a fact and it cries out for correction. I see you are not sneering, Mr. Lipwig.”

“I’m not? I mean, no. I’m not!” said Moist. Damn. He’d forgotten the ancient wisdom: take care, when you are closely observing, that you are not closely observed.

“But you are appalled, nevertheless,” said Bent. “You use words, and I’m told you do it well, but words are soft and can be pummeled into different meanings by a skilled tongue. Numbers are hard. Oh, you can cheat with them but you cannot change their nature. Three is three. You cannot persuade it to be four, even if you give it a great big kiss.” There was a very faint snigger from somewhere in the hall, but Mr. Bent apparently did not notice. “And they are not very forgiving. We work very hard here, at things that must be done,” he said. “And this is where I sit, at the very center…”

They’d reached the big stepped dais in the center of the room. As they did so, a skinny woman in a white blouse and long black skirt edged respectfully past them and carefully placed a wad of paper in a tray that was already piled high. She glanced at Mr. Bent, who said, “Thank you, Miss Drapes.” He was too busy pointing out the marvels of the dais, on which a semicircular desk of complex design had been mounted, to notice the expression that passed across her pale little face. But Moist did, and read a thousand words, probably written in her diary and never ever shown to anyone.

“Do you see?” said the chief cashier impatiently.

“Hmm?” said Moist, watching the woman scurry away.

“See here, you see?” said Bent, sitting down and pointing with what almost seemed like enthusiasm. “By means of these treadles I can move my desk to face anywhere in the room! It is the panopticon of my little world. Nothing is beyond my eye!” He pedaled furiously and the whole dais began to rumble around on its turntable. “And it can turn at two speeds, too, as you can see, because of this ingenious—”

“I can see that almost nothing is beyond your eye,” said Moist, as Miss Drapes sat down. “But I’m sorry to interrupt your work.”

Bent glanced at the in tray and gave a little shrug.

“That pile? That will not take me long,” he said, setting the hand brake and standing up. “Besides, I think it important that you see what we are really about at this point, because I must now take you to meet Hubert.” He gave a little cough.

“Hubert is not what you’re about?” Moist suggested, and then headed back to the main hall.

“I’m sure he means well,” said Bent, leaving the words hanging in the air like a noose.

O
UT IN THE
hall a dignified hush prevailed. A few people were at the counters, an old lady watched her little dog drink from the brass bowl inside the door, and any words that were uttered were spoken in a suitably hushed voice. Moist was all for money, it was one of his favorite things, but it didn’t have to be something you mentioned very quietly in case it woke up. If money talked in here, it whispered.

The chief cashier opened a small and not very grand door behind the stairs and half hidden by some potted plants.

“Please be careful, the floor is always wet here,” he said, and led the way down some wide steps into the grandest cellar Moist had ever seen. Fine stone vaulting supported beautifully tiled ceilings, stretching away into the gloom. There were candles everywhere, and in the middle distance something was sparkling and filling the colonnaded space with a blue-white glow.

“This was the undercroft of the temple,” said Bent, leading the way.

“Are you telling me this place doesn’t just look like a temple?”

“It was built as a temple, yes, but never used as one.”

“Really?” said Moist. “Which god?”

“None, as it turned out. One of the kings of Ankh commanded it to be built about nine hundred years ago,” said Bent. “I suppose it was a case of speculative building. That is to say, he had no god in mind.”

“He hoped one would turn up?”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Like blue-tits?” said Moist, peering around. “This place was a kind of celestial bird box?”

Bent sighed. “You express yourself colorfully, Mr. Lipwig, but I suppose there is some truth there. It didn’t work, anyway. Then it got used as storage in case of siege, became an indoor market, and so on, and then Jocatello La Vice got the place when the city defaulted on a loan. It is all in the official history. Isn’t the fornication wonderful?”

After quite a lengthy pause, Moist ventured: “Is it?”

“Don’t you think so? There’s more here than anywhere else in the city, I’m told.”

“Really?” said Moist, looking around nervously. “Er…do you have to come down here at some special time?”

“Well, during banking hours usually, but we let groups in by appointment.”

“You know,” said Moist, “I think this conversation has somehow got away from me…”

Bent waved vaguely at the ceiling.

“I refer to the wonderful vaulting,” he said. “The word derives from fornix, meaning ‘arch.’”

“Ah! Yes? Right!” said Moist. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if not many people knew that.”

And then Moist saw the Glooper, glowing among the arches.

The Glooper
A proper Hubert
One very big mattress
Some observations on tourism
Gladys makes a sandwich
The Blind Letter Office
Mrs. Lavish’s posterity
An ominous note
Flight planning
An even more ominous note, and certainly more ominous than the first note
Mr. Lipwig boards the wrong coach

M
OIST HAD SEEN
glass being bent and blown, and marveled at the skill of the people who did it, marveled as only a man can marvel whose skill is only in bending words. Some of those geniuses had probably worked on this. But so had their counterparts from the hypothetical Other Side, glassblowers who had sold their souls to some molten god for the skill to blow glass into spirals and intersecting bottles and shapes that seemed to be quite close but some distance away at the same time. Water gurgled, sloshed, and, yes, glooped along glass tubing. There was a smell of salt.

Bent nudged Moist, pointed to an improbable wooden hat-stand, and wordlessly handed him a long yellow oilskin coat and a matching rain hat. He had already donned a similar outfit, and had magically procured an umbrella from somewhere.

“It’s the Balance of Payments,” he said, as Moist struggled into the coat. “He never gets it right.” There was a crash from somewhere, and water droplets rained down on them. “See?” Bent added.

“What’s it doing?” said Moist.

Bent rolled his eyes. “Hell knows, Heaven suspects,” he said. He raised his voice. “Hubert? We have a visitor!”

A distant splashing grew louder and a figure appeared around the edge of the glassware.

Rightly or wrongly, Hubert is one of those names you put a shape to. There may well be tall, slim Huberts, Moist would be the first to agree, but this Hubert was shaped like a proper Hubert, which is to say, stubby and plump. He had red hair—unusual, in Moist’s experience, in the standard-model Hubert. It grew thickly, straight up from his head, like the bristles of a brush; about five inches up, someone had apparently cut it short with the aid of shears and a spirit level. You could have stood a cup and saucer on it.

“A visitor?” said Hubert nervously. “Wonderful! We don’t get many down here!”

“Really?” said Moist. Hubert wore a long, white coat, with a breast pocket full of pencils.

“Hubert, this is Mr. Lipwig,” said Bent. “He is here to…learn about us.”

“I am Moist,” said Moist, stepping forward with his best smile and an extended hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry. We should have hung the raincoats nearer the door,” said Hubert. He looked at Moist’s hand as if it was some interesting device, and then shook it carefully.

“You’re not seeing us at our best, Mr. Lipwick,” he said.

“Really?” said Moist, still smiling. How does the hair stay up like that, he wondered. Does he use glue, or what?

“Mr. Lipwig is the postmaster general, Hubert,” said Bent.