The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

The distressing scent of second-hand baked beans sloshed around him as he lay back. At the other end of the huge bath the lump of pumice stone that he"d been using to rasp the dead skin off his feet banged against the side. Vimes watched it, unseeing, while he filed the thoughts of the day.

Things were starting to smell, just like the bathwater. The Scone of Stone had been stolen, had it? Now there was a coincidence.

It had been a complete shot in the dark. But lately he was on the lucky side when it came to nocturnal targets. Someone had pinched the replica Scone, and now the real one had gone missing, and someone in Ankh-Morpork who was good at making rubber moulds had been found dead. You didn"t need the brains of Detritus in a snowdrift to suspect a connection.

A recollection nagged at him. Someone had said something and he"d thought it odd at the time but then something else had happened and it had gone out of his mind. Something about... a welcome to Bonk. Only...

Well, he was here. No doubt about that.

Absolute confirmation of the fact was brought forth half an hour later, at supper.

Vimes cut into a sausage and stared. "What is in these? All this... pink stuff?" he demanded.

"Er, that"s meat, your grace," said Inigo, on the other side of the table.

"Well, where"s the texture? Where"s the white bits and the yellow bits and those green bits you always hope are herbs?"

"To a connoisseur here, your grace, an Ankh-Morpork sausage would not be considered a sausage, mmph, mmhm."

"Oh, really? So what would he call it?"

"A loaf, your grace. Or possibly a log. Here, a butcher can be hanged if his sausages are not all meat, and at that it must be from a named domesticated animal, and I perhaps should add that by named I do not mean that it should have been called "Spot" or "Ginger", mmm mmhm. I"m sure that if your grace would prefer the more genuine Ankh-Morpork taste, Igor could make

up some side dishes of stale bread and sawdust."

"Thank you for that patriotic comment," said Vimes. "However, these are... Okay, I suppose. They just came as a bit of a shock, that"s all. No!"

He put his hand over his mug to prevent Igor from filling it with beer.

"Ith there thomething wrong, marthter?"

"Just water, please," said Vimes. "No beer."

"The marthter doth not drink... beer?"

"No. And perhaps in a mug without a face on it?" He took another look at the stein. "Why"s it got a lid, by the way? Are you afraid of the rain getting in?"

"I"ve never been quite certain of that one," said Inigo, as Igor shuffled off. "From observation, though, I believe the purpose of the stein is to stop the beer being spilled while using the mug to conduct the singing, mmm, mhm."

"Ah, the old quaffing problem," said Vimes. "What a clever idea."

Sybil patted him on the knee. "You"re not in Ankh-Morpork any more, dear," she said.

"Now we"re alone; Your Grace," said Inigo, leaning closer, "I"m very worried about Mister Sleeps. The acting consul, you remember? He seems to have vanished, mmm, mhm. Some of his personal items have gone, too."

"Holiday?"

"Not at a time like this, sir! And - "

There was a thud of wood against wood as Igor re-entered, pointedly carrying a stepladder. Inigo sat back.

Vimes found that he was yawning. "We"d better talk about that in the morning," he said, as the ladder was dragged towards the horrible hunting trophies. "It"s been a long day, what with one thing and another."

"Of course, your grace."

The bed"s mattress was so soft that Vimes sank into it nervously, afraid it might close over the top of his head. That was just as well, because the pillow was... well, everyone knew a pillow was a sack full of feathers, didn"t they? Not an apprentice eiderdown like this thing.

"Just fold it up, Sam," said Sybil, from the depths of the mattress. "G"night."