"On that, er, subject," said Sybil, a little more hesitantly, "you remember I told you I was going to see old Mrs Content?"
"Oh, yes, how is she?" Vimes was staring at the fireplace again. It wasn"t just old schoolfriends. Sometimes it seemed Sybil kept in touch with anyone she"d ever met. Her Hogswatch card list ran to a second volume.
"Quite well, I believe. Anyway, she agrees that - "
There was a knocking at the door.
She sighed. "It"s Willikins" evening off," she said. "You"d better answer it, Sam. I know you want to."
"I"ve told them not to disturb me unless it"s serious," said Vimes, getting up.
"Yes, but you think all crime is serious, Sam."
Carrot was on the doorstep. "It"s a bit... political, sir," he said.
"What"s so political at a quarter to ten at night, captain?"
"The Dwarf Bread Museum"s been broken into, sir," said Carrot.
Vimes looked into Carrot"s honest blue eyes.
"A thought occurs to me, captain," he said slowly. "And the thought is: a certain item has gone missing."
"That"s right, sir."
"And it"s the replica Scone."
"Yes, sir. Either they broke in just after we left, or," Carrot licked his lips nervously, "they were hiding while we were there."
"Not rats, then."
"No, sir. Sorry, sir."
Vimes fastened his cloak and took his helmet off its peg.
"So someone has stolen a replica of the Scone of Stone a few weeks before the real one is due to be used in a very important ceremony," he said. "I find this intriguing." "That"s what I thought too, sir."
Vimes sighed. "I hate the political ones."
When they"d gone, Lady Sybil sat for a while staring at her hands. Then she took a lamp into the library and pulled down a slim volume bound in white leather on which had been embossed in gold the words "OUR WEDDING".
It had been a strange event. Ankh-Morpork"s high society - so high that it"s stinking, Sam always said - had turned up, mostly out of curiosity. She was Ankh-Morpork"s most eligible spinster, who"d never thought she"d be married, and he was a mere captain of the guard who tended to annoy a lot of people.
And here were the iconographs of the event. There she was, looking rather more expansive than radiant, and there Sam was, scowling at the viewer with his hair hastily smoothed down. There was Sergeant Colon with his chest inflated so much his feet had almost left the ground, and Nobby grinning widely or perhaps just making a face; it was so hard to tell with Nobby.
Sybil turned over the pages with care. She had put a sheet of tissue between each one to protect them.
In many ways, she told herself, she was very lucky. She was proud of Sam. He worked hard for a lot of people. He cared about people who weren"t important. He always had far more to cope with than was good for him. He was the most civilized man she"d ever met. Not a gentleman, thank goodness, but a gentle man.
She never really knew what it was he did. Oh, she knew what the job was, but by all accounts he didn"t spend much time behind his desk. When he eventually came to bed, he tended to drop his clothes straight into the laundry basket, so she"d only hear later from the laundry girl about the bloodstains and the mud. There were rumours of chases over rooftops, hand-to-hand and knee-to-groin fights with men who had names like Harry "The Boltcutter" Weems...
There was a Sam Vimes she knew, who went out and came home again, and out there was another Sam Vimes who hardly belonged to her and lived in the same world as all those men with the dreadful names.
Sybil Ramkin had been brought up to be thrifty, thoughtful, genteel in an outdoor sort of way, and to think kindly of people.
She looked at the pictures again, in the silence of the house. Then she blew her nose loudly and went off to do the packing and other sensible things.
Corporal Cheery Littlebottom pronounced her name "Cheri". She was a she, and therefore a rare bloom in Ankh-Morpork.