Snuff

normally placid standards. Vimes did what any prudent husband would do, which was dynamically nothing. Suddenly all downstairs was full of voices and the noise of carriages crunching over the gravel. Sybil trimmed her sails and headed down to be the gracious hostess.

Despite what his wife liked to imply, Vimes was rather good at dinners, having sat through innumerable civic affairs in Ankh-Morpork. The trick was to let the other diners do the talking while agreeing with them occasionally, giving himself time to think about other things.

Sybil had made certain that this evening’s dinner was a light occasion. The guests were mostly people of a certain class who lived in the country but were not, as it were, of it. Retired warriors, a priest of Om, Miss Pickings, a spinster, together with her companion, a strict-looking lady with short hair and a man’s shirt and pocket watch, and, yes, Miss Felicity Beedle. Vimes thought he had put his foot in it when he said, ‘Oh yes, the poo lady,’ but she burst out laughing and shook his hand, saying, ‘Don’t worry, your grace, I wash mine thoroughly after writing!’ And it was a big laugh. She was a small woman with the strange aspect that you see in some people that causes them to appear to be subtly vibrating even when standing perfectly still. You felt that if some interior restraint suddenly broke, the pent-up energy released would catapult her through the nearest window.

Miss Beedle prodded him in the stomach. ‘And you are the famous Commander Vimes. Come to arrest us all, have you?’ Of course, you got this all the time if you didn’t stop Sybil accepting the invitation to yet another posh society do. But while Miss Beedle laughed, silence fell on the other guests like a cast- iron safe. They were scowling at Miss Beedle, and Miss Beedle was staring intently at Vimes, and Vimes knew that expression. It was the expression of somebody with a story to tell. Certainly this was no time to broach the subject, and so Vimes filed it under ‘interesting’.

Whatever Vimes’s misgivings, Ramkin Hall did a damn good dinner and – and this was the important thing – the dictates of popular social intercourse decreed that Sybil had to allow a menu full of things that would not be permitted at home if Vimes had asked for them. It’s one thing to act as arbiter of your own husband’s tastes, but it is frowned on to do the same to your guests.

Across the table from him a retired military man was being assured by his wife that he did not, contrary to what he himself believed, like potted shrimps. In vain the man protested weakly that he thought he did like potted shrimps, to get the gentle response, ‘You may like potted shrimps, Charles, but they do not like you.’

Vimes felt for the man, who seemed puzzled at having developed enemies among the lower crustacea. ‘Well, er, does lobster like me, dear?’ he said, in a voice that did not express much hope.

‘No, dear, it does not get on with you at all. Remember what happened at the Parsleys’ whist evening.’

The man looked at the groaning sideboard and tried: ‘Do you think the scallops could get on with me for five minutes or so?’

‘Good heavens no, Charles.’

He cast a glance at the sideboard again. ‘I expect the green salad is my bosom friend, though, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely, dear!’

‘Yes, I thought so.’

The man looked across at Vimes and gave him a hopeless grin followed by, ‘I am given to believe that you are a policeman, your grace. That right?’

Vimes took proper stock of him for the first time: a whiskery old warrior, now out to grass – and that was probably all his wife was going to let him eat without an argument. He had burn scars on his face and hands and the accent of Pseudopolis. Easy. ‘You were with the Light Dragons, weren’t you, sir?’

The old man looked pleased. ‘Well done, that man! Not many people remember us. Alas, I’m the only one left. Colonel Charles Augustus Makepeace – strange name for a military man, or perhaps not, I don’t know.’ He sniffed. ‘We’re just a scorched page in the history of warfare. I dare say you haven’t read my memoirs, Twenty-four Years Without Eyebrows? No? Well, you are not alone in that, I have to say. Met your missus in those days. She told us it would be totally impossible to breed dragons stable enough for use in warfare. She was right, and no mistake. Of course, we went on trying, because that’s the military way!’

‘You mean, pile dreadful failure on top of failure?’ said Vimes.

The colonel laughed. ‘Well, it works sometimes! I still keep a few dragons, though. Wouldn’t be without ’em. A day without a singe is a day without sunshine. They’re a great saving in matches, and, of course, they keep undesirables away, too.’

Vimes reacted like an angler who, after some time dozing by the water’s edge, felt that the fish were rising.

‘Oh, you don’t get many of them around here, surely?’

‘You think so? You don’t know the half of it, young man. I can tell you a few stories—’

He stopped talking abruptly, and Vimes’s experience of husbandry told him that the man had just been kicked under the table by his wife, who did not look happy and, to judge by the lines on her face, probably never had. She leaned past her husband, who was now accepting another brandy from the waiter, and said, icily, ‘As a policeman, your grace, does your jurisdiction extend to the Shires?’

Another ring in the water, thought the angler inside Vimes’s head. He said, ‘No, madam, my beat is Ankh- Morpork and some of the surrounding area. Traditionally, however, the policeman drags his jurisdiction with him if he is in hot pursuit in connection with crime committed within his domain. But, of course, Ankh-Morpork is a long way from here, and I doubt if I’d be able to run that far.’ This got a laugh from the table in general and a thin-lipped smile from Mrs Colonel.

Play the fish, play the fish … ‘Nevertheless,’ Vimes continued, ‘if I was to witness an arrestable offence here and now, I’d have the authority to make an arrest. Like a citizen’s arrest, but somewhat more professional, and after that I’d be required to turn the suspect over to the local force or other suitable authority, as I deemed fit.’

The clergyman, whom Vimes had noticed out of the corner of his eye, was taking an interest in this conversation and leaned forward to say, ‘As you deem fit, your grace?’

‘My grace would not come into it, sir. As a sworn member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch it would be my bounden duty to ensure the safety of my suspect. Ideally I’d look for a lock-up. We don’t have them in the city any more, but I understand most rural areas still do, even if they only hold drunks and escaped pigs.’