"Is this wise, Sam?" said Sybil.
Vimes stood back to take aim, and the floorboard moved under his heel. A panel in the wall swung gently.
"You scared der hell out of it, sir," said Detritus loyally.
Vimes carefully handed the crossbow back and tried to look as though he"d meant things to happen this way.
He"d expected a secret passage. But this was a tiny workroom. There were jars on shelves labelled "New Suet Strata, Area 21", "Grade A Fat, the Big Hole". There were lumps of crumbling rock, with neat cardboard tags attached to them saying things like "Level #3, Shaft 9, Double-Pick Mine".
There was a set of drawers. One of them was full of make-up, including a selection of moustaches.
Wordlessly, Vimes opened one of a stack of notebooks. The first pages had a pencil-drawn streetmap of Bonk, with red lines threading through it.
"Good grief, look at this," he breathed, flicking onwards. "Maps. Drawings. There"s pages of stuff about the assaying of fat deposits. Huh, says here "The new suets, while initially promising, are now suspected of having high levels of BCBs and are likely to be soon exhausted." And here it says "A werewolf putsch is clearly planned in the chaos following the loss of the Scone... K. reports that many of the younger werewolves now follow W., who has changed the nature of the game..." This stuff... this stuff is spying. I wondered how Vetinari always seems to know so much!"
"Did you think it came to him in dreams, dear?"
"But there"s loads of details here... notes about people, lots of figures about dwarf mining production, political rumours... I didn"t know we did this sort of thing!"
"You use spies all the time, dear," said Sybil.
"I do not!"
"Well, what about people like Foul Ole Ron and No Way Jose and Cumbling Michael?"
"That is not spying, that is not spying! That"s just "information received". We couldn"t do the job if we didn"t know what"s happening on the street!"
"Well, perhaps Havelock just thinks in terms of... a bigger street, dear."
"There"s loads more of this muck. Look. Sketches, more bits of ore... What the hell"s this?"
It was oblong, and about the size of a cigarette packet. There was a round glass disc on one face, and a couple of levers on one side.
Vimes pushed one of them. A tiny hatch opened and the smallest head that he"d ever seen that could speak said, "s?"
"I know dat!" said Detritus. "Days a nano-imp! Dey cost over a hundred dollars! Dey"re really small!"
"No one"s bloody fed me for a fortnight!" the imp squeaked.
"It"s an iconograph small enough to fit in a pocket," said Vimes. "Something for a spy... It"s as bad as Inigo"s damn one-shot crossbow. And look..."
Steps led downwards. He took them carefully and swung open the little door at the end.
Wet heat slapped into him.
"Pass me down a candle, will you, dear?" he said. And by its light he looked out into a long dank tunnel. Crusted pipes, leaking steam at every joint, lined the far wall.
"A way in and out where no one will see him, too," he said. "What a dirty world we live in..."
The clouds had covered the sky and the wind was whipping thick snowflakes around the tower when Inigo finished setting up the red mortar on the platform below the big square shutters.
He lit a couple of matches but the wind streamed them out before he could even cup his hands around them.
"Damn. Mhm, mmm."
He slid down the ladder and into the warmth of the tower. It"d be better to spend the night here, he thought, as he rummaged in drawers. The night didn"t hold many terrors for him, but this storm had the feel of another big snow and the mountain roads would soon be treacherous.
Finally an idea struck him, and he opened the door of the stove and pulled out a smouldering log with the tongs.