Making Money (Discworld 36)

'Nothing, sir,' said Stanley. There was a pause, and Moist adjusted his mind to the world as seen through the brain of Stanley Howler. Stanley was very... precise, and as patient as the grave.

'What is the reason for you, coming here, to see me, today, Stanley?' Moist tried, enunciating carefully in order to deliver the sentence in bite-sized chunks.

'There is a lawyer downstairs, sir,' Stanley announced.

'But I've only just read the threatening - ' Moist began, and then relaxed. 'A lawyer? Did he say why?' he said.

'A matter of great importance, he said. There's two watchmen with him, sir. And a dog.'

'Really?' said Moist calmly. 'Well, you'd better show them up, then.'

He glanced at his watch.

O-kay... Not good.

The Lancre Flyer would be leaving in forty-five seconds. He knew he could be down that damn drainpipe in eleven seconds. Stanley was on his way below to bring them up here, call that thirty seconds, maybe. Get them off the ground floor, that was the thing. Scramble on to the back of the coach, jump off when it slowed down for the Hubwards Gate, pick up the tin chest he'd got stashed in the beams of the old stable in Lobbin Clout, get changed and adjust his face, stroll across the city to have a coffee in that shop near the main Watch House, keep an eye on the clacks traffic for a while, stroll over to Hen and Chickens Court where he had another trunk stored with 'I don't know' Jack, get changed, leave with his little bag and his tweed cap (which he'd change for the old brown bowler in the bag in some alley, just in case Jack had a sudden attack of memory brought on by excessive money), and he'd mosey down to the slaughterhouse district and step into the persona of Jeff the drover and hang out in the huge fetid bar of the Butcher's Eagle, which was where the drovers traditionally damped down the road dust. There was a vampire in the Watch these days and they'd had a werewolf for years, too. Well, let those famously sharp noses snuff up the mixed cocktail stink of manure, fear, sweat, offal and urine and see how they liked it! And that was just in the bar  -  if anything, it was worse in the slaughterhouses.

Then maybe he'd wait until evening to hitch a lift on the steaming dung carts heading out of the city, along with the other drunk drovers. The gate guards never bothered to check them. On the other hand, if his sixth sense was still squawking, then he'd run the thimble game with some drunk until he'd got enough for a little bottle of perfume and a cheap but decent third-hand suit at some shonky shop and repair to Mrs Eucrasia Arcanum's Lodging House for Respectable Working Men, where with a tip of a hat and some wire-rimmed spectacles he'd be Mr Trespass Hatchcock, a wool salesman, who stayed there every time his business brought him to the city and who always brought her a little gift suitable for a widow of the age she'd like people to think she was. Yes, that'd be a better idea. At Mrs Arcanum's the food was solid and plentiful. The beds were good and you seldom had to share.

Then he could make real plans.

The itinerary of evasion wound across his inner eye at the speed of flight. The outer eye alighted on something less pleasing. There was a copper in the coach yard, chatting to a couple of the drivers. Moist recognized Sergeant Fred Colon, whose chief duty appeared to be ambling around the city chattering to elderly men of the same age and demeanour as himself.

The watchman spotted Moist at the window and gave him a little wave.

No, it was going to get complicated and messy if he ran. He'd have to bluff it out up here. It wasn't as though he'd done anything wrong, technically. The letter had thrown him, that's all it was.

Moist was sitting at his desk looking busy when Stanley came back, ushering in Mr Slant, the city's best-known and, at 351, probably also its oldest lawyer. He was accompanied by Sergeant Angua and Corporal Nobbs, widely rumoured to be the Watch's secret werewolf. Corporal Nobbs was accompanied by a large wicker hamper and Sergeant Angua was holding a squeaky rubber bone, which she occasionally, in an absent-minded way, squeaked. Things were looking up, but strange.

The exchanged pleasantries were not that pleasant, this close to Nobby Nobbs and the lawyer, who smelled of embalming fluid, but when they were over Mr Slant said: 'I believe you visited Mrs Topsy Lavish yesterday, Mr Lipwig.'

'Oh, yes. Er, when she was alive,' said Moist, and cursed himself and the unknown letter writer. He was losing it, he really was.

'This is not a murder investigation, sir,' said the sergeant calmly.

'Are you sure? In the circumstances - '

'We've made it our business to be sure, sir,' said the sergeant, 'in the circumstances!

'Don't think it was the family, then?'

'No, sir. Or you.'

'Me?' Moist was suitably open-mouthed at the suggestion.

'Mrs Lavish was known to be very ill,' said Mr Slant. 'And it seems that she took quite a shine to you, Mr Lipwig. She has left you her little dog, Mr Fusspot.'

'And also a bag of toys, rugs, tartan coats, little bootees, eight collars including one set with diamonds and, oh, a vast amount of other stuff,' said Sergeant Angua. She squeaked the rubber bone again.

Moist's mouth shut. 'The dog,' he said in a hollow voice. 'Just the dog? And the toys?'

'You were expecting something more?' said Angua.

'I wasn't expecting even that!' Moist looked at the hamper. It was suspiciously silent.

'I gave him one of his little blue pills,' said Nobby Nobbs helpfully. 'They knocks him out for a little while. Don't work on people, though. They tastes of aniseed.'

'All this is a bit... odd, isn't it?' said Moist. 'Why's the Watch here? The diamond collar? Anyway, I thought the will wasn't read until after the funeral...'