Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

“Why do you say that?”

“We are considering a number of possibilities,” said Vimes woodenly.

“If it has no lair, where does it spend its days?” said the Patrician.

“Inquiries are being pursued,” said Vimes.

“Then pursue them with alacrity. And find the lair,” said the Patrician sourly.

“Yes, sir. Permission to leave, sir?”

“Very well. But I shall expect progress by tonight, do you understand?”

Now why did I wonder if it has a lair? Vimes thought, as he stepped out into the daylight and the crowded square. Because it didn't look real, that's why. If it isn't real, it doesn't need to do anything we expect. How can it walk out of an alley it didn't go into?

Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course. That was the trick, all right.

There was also the curious incident of the orangutan in the night-time . . .

...

By day the Library buzzed with activity. Vimes moved through it diffidently. Strictly speaking, he could go anywhere in the city, but the University had always held that it fell under thaumaturgical law and he felt it wouldn't be wise to make the kind of enemies where you were lucky to end up the same temperature, let alone the same shape.

He found the Librarian hunched over his desk. The ape gave him an expectant look.

“Haven't found it yet. Sorry,” said Vimes. “Enquiries are continuing. But there is a little help you can give me.”

“Oook?”

“Well, this is a magical library, right? I mean, these books are sort of intelligent, isn't that so? So I've been thinking: I bet if I got in here at night, they'd soon kick up a fuss. Because they don't know me. But if they did know me, they'd probably not mind. So whoever took the book would have to be a wizard, wouldn't they? Or someone who works for the University, at any rate.”

The Librarian glanced from side to side, then grasped Vimes's hand and led him into the seclusion of a couple of bookshelves. Only then did he nod his head.

“Someone they know?”

A shrug, and then another nod.

“That's why you told us, is it?”

“Oook.”

“And not the University Council?”

“Oook.”

“Any idea who it is?”

The Librarian shrugged, a decidedly expressive gesture for a body which was basically a sack between a pair of shoulderblades.

“Well, it's something. Let me know if any other strange things happen, won't you?” Vimes looked up at the banks of shelves. ' 'Stranger than usual, I mean.''

“Oook.”

“Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet a citizen who regards it as their duty to assist the Watch.”

The Librarian gave him a banana.

Vimes felt curiously elated as he stepped out into the city's throbbing streets again. He was definitely detecting things. They were little bits of things, like a jigsaw. No one of them made any real sense, but they all hinted at a bigger picture. All he needed to do was find a corner, or a bit of an edge . . .