'Gibbering,' said the clerk who had spoken out of turn, giving the turn another twist, 'and you don't all have to look at me like that. You all heard him. And he looked as though he'd seen a ghost.'
Clerks were wandering back into the counting house in ones and twos. They'd searched everywhere, was the general agreement, and there was strong support for the theory that he'd gone out through the Mint, it being rather busy in there with all the work still going on. Moist doubted it. The bank was old, and old buildings have all sorts of crannies, and Mr Bent had been here for -
'How long has he been here?' he wondered aloud.
The general consensus was 'since the mind of man can remember' but Miss Drapes, who it seemed for some reason had made herself well informed on the subject of Mavolio Bent, volunteered that it was thirty-nine years and that he had got a job when he was thirteen by sitting on the steps all night until the chairman came to work and impressing him with his command of numbers. He went from messenger boy to chief cashier in twenty years.
'Speedy!' said Moist.
'Never had a day off for illness, either,' Miss Drapes concluded.
'Well. Perhaps he's entitled to some now,' said Moist. 'Do you know where he lives, Miss Drapes?'
'Mrs Cake's boarding house.'
'Really? That's a bit' - Moist stopped and chose from a number of options - 'low rent, isn't it?'
'He says that as a bachelor it meets his needs,' said Miss Drapes, and avoided Moist's gaze.
Moist could feel the day slipping away from him. But they were all staring at him. There was only one thing he could say if he was to maintain his image.
'Then I think I ought to see if he's gone there,' said Moist. Their faces broke into smiles of relief. He added: 'But I think that one of you should come with me. After all, you know him.' It looks as though I don't, he thought.
'I'll fetch my coat,' said Miss Drapes. The only reason that her words came out at the speed of sound was that she couldn't make them go any faster. As Below, so Above - No gain without pain - A mind for puzzles - Mr Bent's sad past - Something in the wardrobe - Wonderful money - Thoughts on madness, by Igor - A pot thickens
HUBERT TAPPED THOUGHTFULLY on one of the Glooper's tubes. 'Igor?' he said.
'Yeth, marthter?' said Igor, behind him.
Hubert jumped. 'I thought you were over by your lightning cells!' he managed.
'I wath, thur, but I am here now. What wath it you wanted?'
'You've wired up all the valves, Igor. I can't make any changes!'
'Yeth, thur,' said Igor calmly. 'There would be amathingly dire conthequentheth, thur.'
'But I want to change some parameters, Igor,' said Hubert, absent-mindedly taking a rain hat off the peg.
'I'm afraid there ith a problem, thur. You athked me to make the Glooper ath accurate ath poththible.'
'Well, of course. Accuracy is vital.'
'It ith... extremely accurate, thur,' said Igor, looking uncomfortable. 'Poththibly too accurate, thur.'
This 'poththibly' caused Hubert to grope for an umbrella. 'How can anything be too accurate?'
Igor looked round. Suddenly he was on edge. 'Would you mind if I wind down on the lisp a little?'
'Can you do that?'
'Oh yeth... or, indeed, yes, sir. But it's a clan thing, you see. It's expected, like the stitcheth. But I think you will find the explanation hard enough to understand as it is.'
'Well, er, thank you. Go ahead, please.'
It was quite a long explanation. Hubert listened with care, his mouth open. The term 'cargo cult' whirled past, and was followed by a short dissertation on the hypothesis that all water, everywhere, knows where all the other water is, some interesting facts about hyphenated silicon and what happens to it in the presence of cheese, the benefits and hazards of morphic resonation in areas of high background magic, the truth about identical twins and the fact that if the fundamental occult maxim 'As Above, so Below' was true, then so was 'As Below, so Above'...
The silence that followed was broken only by the tinkle of water in the Glooper, and the sound of the former Owlswick's pencil as he worked away with demon-haunted skill.