Feet of Clay

'What for?'

'We-ell… could be all them posh women want to marry you off to their daughters who're in Season …'

'What?'

'Nothing beats an earl except a duke, and we haven't got one of them. And we ain't got a king, neither. The Earl of Ankh would be what they calls a social catch.' Yes, it was easier if he said it to himself like that. If you substituted 'Nobby Nobbs' for 'Earl of Ankh' it didn't work. But it did work when you just said 'Earl of Ankh'. There'd be many women who'd be happy to be the mother-in-law of the Earl of Ankh even if it meant having Nobby Nobbs into the bargain.

Well, a few, anyway.

Nobby's eyes gleamed. 'Never thought of that,' he said. 'And some of these girls have a bit of cash, too?'

'More'n you, Nobby.'

'And of course I owes it to my posterity to see that the line of Nobbses doesn't die out,' Nobby added, thoughtfully.

Colon beamed at him with the rather worried expression of a mad doctor who has bolted on the head, applied the crackling lightning to the electrodes, and is now watching his creation lurch down to the village.

'Cor,' said Nobby, his eyes now unfocusing slightly.

'Right, but before that,' said Colon, ‘I’ll do all the places along the Shambles and you do Chittling Street and then we can push off back to the Yard, job done and dusted. Okay?'

'Afternoon, Commander Vimes,' said Carrot, shutting the door behind him. 'Captain Carrot reporting.'

Vimes was slumped in his chair, staring at the window. The fog was creeping up again. Already the Opera House opposite was a little hazy.

'We, er, had a look at as many golems as we could, sir,' said Carrot, trying diplomatically to see if there was a bottle anywhere on the desk. There's hardly any, sir. We found eleven had smashed themselves up or sawn their heads off and by lunchtime people were smashing 'em or taking out their words themselves, sir. It's not nice, sir. There's bits of pottery all over the city. It's as if people were … just waiting for the opportunity. It's odd, sir. All they do is work and keep themselves to themselves and don't offer any harm to anyone. And some of the ones that smashed themselves left … well, notes, sir. Sort of saying they were sorry and ashamed, sir. They kept on going on about their clay …'

Vimes did not respond.

Carrot leaned sideways and down, in case there was a bottle on the floor. 'And Gimlet's Hole Food Delicatessen has been selling poisoned rat. Arsenic, sir. I've asked Sergeant Colon and Nobby to follow that one. It might just be some kind of mix-up, but you never know.'

Vimes turned. Carrot could hear his breathing. Short, sharp bursts, like a man trying to keep himself under control. 'What have we missed, Captain?' he said, in a faraway voice.

'Sir?'

'In his lordship's bedroom. There's the bed. The desk. Things on the desk. The table by the bed. The chair. The rug. Everything. We replaced everything. He eats food. We've checked the food, yes?'

'The whole larder, sir.'

'Is that a fact? We might be wrong there. I don't understand how, but we might be wrong. There's some evidence lying in the cemetery that suggests we are.' Vimes was nearly growling. 'What else is there? Littlebottom says there's no marks on him. What else is there? Let's find out the how and with any luck that'll give us the who.'

'He breathes the air more than anyone else, si—'

'But we moved him into another bedroom! Even if someone was, I don't know, pumping poison in … they couldn't change rooms with us all watching. It's got to be the food!'

'I've watched them taste it, sir.'

'Then it's something we're not seeing, damn it! People are dead, Captain! Mrs Easy's dead!'

'Who, sir?'

'You've never heard of her?'

'Can't say that I have, sir. What did she use to do?'

'Do? Nothing, I suppose. She just brought up nine kids in a couple of rooms you couldn't stretch out in and she sewed shirts for tuppence an hour, every hour the bloody gods sent, and all she did was work and keep herself to herself and she is dead, Captain. And so's her grandson. Aged fourteen months. Because her granddaughter took them some grub from the palace! A bit of a treat for them! And d'you know what? Mildred thought I was going to arrest her for theft! At the damn funeral, for gods' sake!' Vimes's fists opened and closed, his knuckles showing white. 'It's murder now. Not assassination, not politics, it's murder. Because we're not asking the right damn questions!'

The door opened.

'Oh, good afternoon, squire,' said Sergeant Colon brightly, touching his helmet. 'Sorry to bother you. I expect it's your busy time, but I've got to ask, just to eliminate you from our enquiries, so to speak. Do you use any arsenic around the place?'

'Er … don't leave the officer standing there, Fanley,' said a nervous voice, and the workman stepped aside. 'Good afternoon, officer. How may we help you?'

'Checking up on arsenic, sir. Seems some's been getting where it shouldn't.'

'Er … good heavens. Really. I'm sure we don't use any, but do come inside while I check with the foremen. I'm certain there's a pot of tea hot, too.'

Colon looked behind him. The mist was rising. The sky was going grey. 'Wouldn't say no, sir!' he said.

The door closed behind him.

A moment later, there was the faint scrape of the bolts.

'Right,' said Vimes. 'Let's start again.' He picked up an imaginary ladle.

'I'm the cook. I've made this nourishing gruel that tastes like dog's water. I'm filling up three bowls. Everyone's watching me. All the bowls have been well washed, right? Okay. The tasters take two, one to taste, and these days the other's for Littlebottom to check, and then a servant — that's you, Carrot — takes the third one and …'

'Puts it in the dumbwaiter, sir. There's one up to every room.'

'I thought they carried them up?'

'Six floors? It'd get stone-cold, sir.'

'All right … hold on. We've gone too far. You've got the bowl. D'you put it on a tray?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Put it on a tray, then.'

Carrot obediently put the invisible bowl on an invisible tray.

'Anything else?' said Vimes.

'Piece of bread, sir. And we check the loaf.'

'Soup spoon?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, don't just stand there. Put them on …'

Carrot detached one hand from the invisible tray to take an invisible piece of bread and an intangible spoon.

'Anything else?' said Vimes. 'Salt and pepper?'