'Sauce!'

'Ah, so you got no witnesses, you done it then, own up!'

'No!'

'Oh...'

'All right, all right. Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all for now,' said Vimes, patting him on the shoulder. 'Are all the staff here?'

He glared at the line-up: 'Well? Are you all here?'

There was a certain amount of reluctant shuffling among the ranks, and then someone cautiously put up a hand.

'Mildred Easy hasn't been seen since yesterday,' said its owner. 'She's the upstairs maid. A boy come with a message. She had to go off to see her family.'

Vimes felt the faintest of prickles on the back of his neck. 'Anyone know why?' he said.

'Dunno, sir. She left all her stuff.'

'All right. Sergeant, before you go off shift, get someone to find her. Then go and get some sleep.

The rest of you, go and get on with whatever it is you do. Ah ... Mr Drumknott?'

The Patrician's personal clerk, who'd been watching Detritus's technique with a horrified expression, looked up at him. 'Yes, Commander?'

'What's this book? Is it his lordship's diary?'

Drumknott took the book. 'It looks like it, certainly.'

'Have you been able to crack the code?'

'I didn't know it was in code, Commander.'

'What? You've never looked at it?'

'Why should I, sir? It's not mine.'

'You do know his last secretary tried to kill him?'

'Yes, sir. I ought to say, sir, that I have already been exhaustively interrogated by your men.' Drumknott opened the book and raised his eyebrows.

'What did they say?' said Vimes.

Drumknott looked up thoughtfully. 'Let me see, now... It was you wot done it, own up, everybody seen you, we got lots of people say you done it, you done it all right didn't you, own up. That was, I think, the general approach. And then, I said it wasn't me and that seemed to puzzle the officer concerned.'

Drumknott delicately licked his finger and turned a page.

Vimes stared at him.

The sound of saws was brisk on the morning air. Captain Carrot knocked against the timber-yard door, which was eventually opened.

'Good morning, sir!' he said. 'I understand you have a golem here?'

'Had,' said the timber merchant.

'Oh dear, another one,' said Angua.

That made four so far. The one in the foundry had knelt under a hammer, the one in the stonemason's yard was now ten clay toes sticking out from under a two-ton block of limestone, one working in the docks had last been seen in the river, striding towards the sea, and now this one...

Tags: Terry Pratchett Discworld Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net