The Fifth Elephant

'It's really only a consulate at the moment,' said Inigo, leafing through his papers. 'We should be met by... ah, yes, Wando Sleeps. Been here for several years, mhm.'

Behind the coaches a pair of gates swung shut.

There was the sound of heavy bolts shooting home. Vimes stared at the apparition that came limping back towards the coach door.

'He looks it,' he said.

'Oh, I don't think this is—'

'Good evening, marthterth, mithtreth...' said the figure. 'Welcome to Ankh-Morpork. I'm Igor.'

'Igor who?' said Inigo.

'Jutht Igor, thur. Alwayth... jutht Igor,' said Igor calmly, unfolding the step. 'I'm the odd-job man.'

'You don't say?' said Vimes, mesmerized.

'Have you had a terrible accident?' said Lady Sybil.

'I did thpill tea down my thirt thith morning,' said Igor. 'Kind of you to notith.'

'Where's Mister Sleeps?' said Inigo.

'I'm afraid Marthter Thleepth ith nowhere to be found. I wath rather hoping you would know what'd happened to him.'

'Us?' said Inigo. 'Mmhm, mmph! We assumed he was here!'

'He left rather urgently two weekth ago,' said Igor. 'He did not vouchthafe to me where he wath going. Do go inthide, and I will thee to the baggage.'

Vimes glanced up. A little bit of snow was falling now, but there was enough light to see that above them, across the whole courtyard, was an iron mesh. With the bolted doors and the walls of the building all around, they were in a cage.

'Jutht a little leftover from the old dayth,' said Igor cheerfully. 'Nothing to worry about, thur.'

'What a fine figure of a man,' said Sybil weakly, as they stepped inside.

'More than one man, by the look of him.'

'Sam!'

'Sorry. I'm sure his heart's in the right place.'

'Good.'

'Or someone's heart, anyway.'

'Sam, really!'

'All right, all right, but you must admit he does look a bit... odd.'

'None of us can help the way we're made, Sam.'

'He looks as if he tried— Good grief...'

'Oh, dear,' said Lady Sybil.

Vimes was not against hunting, if only because Ankh-Morpork seldom offered any better game than the large rats you got along the waterfront. But the sight of the walls of the new embassy might have been enough to make the keenest hunter take a step back and cry, 'Oh, I say, hold on...'

The previous occupant had been keen on hunting, shooting and fishing and, to have covered every single wall with the resultant trophies, he must have been doing all three at the same time.

Hundreds of glass eyes, obscenely alive in the light of the fire in the huge hearth, stared down at Vimes.

'It's just like my grandfather's study,' said Lady Sybil. 'There was a stag's head in there that used to frighten the life out of me.'

'There's just about everything here. Oh, no...'

'My gods,' whispered Lady Sybil.

Vimes looked around desperately. Detritus was just entering, carrying some of the trunks.

'Stand in front of it,' Vimes hissed.

'I'm not that tall, Sam! Or that wide!'

The troll looked up at them, then at the trophies, and then grinned. It's colder up here, Vimes thought. He's quicker on the uptake.^[15] Even Nobby won't play poker with him in the winter. Damn!

'Something wrong?' said Detritus.

Vimes sighed. What was the point? He'd spot it sooner or later.

'I'm sorry about this, Detritus,' he said, standing aside.

Detritus looked at the horrible trophy and nodded.

'Yeah, dere used to be a lot of dat sort of fing in der old days,' he said calmly, putting down the luggage. 'Dey wouldn't be de real diamond teef, o'course. Dey'd take dem out and put bigger glass ones in.'

'You don't mind?' said Lady Sybil. 'It's a troll's head! Someone actually mounted a troll's head and put it on the wall!'

'Ain't mine,' said Detritus.

'But it's so horrible!'

Detritus stood in thought for a moment and then opened the stained wooden box that contained all he had felt it necessary to bring.

'Dis is der old country, after all,' he said. 'So if it'd make you feel better...'

He pulled out a smaller box and rummaged among what appeared to be bits of rock and cloth until he found something yellowy-brown and round, like a shallow cup.

'Should've bunged it away,' he said, 'but it's all I got to remember my old granny by. She kept fings in it.'

'It's a bit of human skull, isn't it?' said Vimes at last.

'Yep.'

'Whose?'

'Anyone ask dat troll dere his name?' said Detritus, and the glint in his voice had a brittle edge to it for a moment. Then he carefully put the bowl away. 'T'ings were diff'rent in dem days. Now you don't chop our heads off an' we don't make drums outa your skin. Everyt'ing is hunky-dory. Dat's all we have to know.'

He picked up the boxes again and followed Lady Sybil towards the staircase. Vimes took another look at the trophy head. The teeth were longer, far longer than they'd be on a real troll. A hunter'd have to be very brave and very lucky to go up against a fighting troll and survive. It'd be so much easier to go after an old one and later replace the ground-down stumps with sparkly fangs.

My gods, the things we do...

'Igor?' he said, as the odd-job man lurched past under the weight of two more bags.

'Yeth, your exthellenthy?'

'I'm an excellency?' said Vimes to Inigo.

'Yes, Your Grace.'

'And still My Grace as well?'

'Yes, your grace. You are His Grace His Excellency the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Your Grace.'

'Hang on, hang on. His Grace cancels out the Sir, I know that. It's like having an ace in poker.'

'Strictly speaking this is true, your grace, but great store is set by titles here and it is best to play with a full deck, mmph.'

'I was once blackboard monitor at school,' said Vimes sharply. 'For a whole term. Would that help? Dame Venting said no one could clean a blackboard like me.'

'A useful fact, your grace, which may possibly be helpful in the event of a tie-break, mmph, mmhm,' said Inigo, his face carefully blank.

'We Igorth have alwayth preferred marthter,' said Igor. 'What wath it you were requiring?'

Vimes gestured towards the heads that covered every wall.

'I want them taken down as soon as possible. I can do this, can't I, Mister Skimmer?'

'You are the ambassador, sir. Mmph, mmhm.'

'Well, they're coming down. All of them.'

Igor gave the camphor-smelling multitude a worried look. 'Even the thordfith?'

'Even the swordfish,' said Vimes firmly.