Jingo (Discworld 21)

'From the outside.' Damn. 'Yes, sir.'

'A Particularly resourceful lone bowman, then.' Vimes didn't bother to comment. Vetinari sat down at his desk, raised his steepled fingers to his lips and stared at Vimes over the top of them. 'Colon and Nobbs are investigating this? Really?'

'Yes, sir.'

'If I were to ask you why, you'd pretend not to understand?' Vimes let his forehead wrinkle in honest perplexity 'Sir?'

'If you say “Sir?” again in that stupid voice, Vimes, I swear there will be trouble.'

'They're good men, sir.'

'However, some people might consider them to be unimaginative, stolid and... how can I put this?... possessed of an inbuilt disposition to accept the first explanation that presents itself and then bunk off somewhere for a quiet smoke? A certain lack of imagination? An ability to get out of their depth on a wet pavement? A tendency to rush to judgement?'

'I hope you are not impugning my men, sir.'

'Vimes, Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs have never been pugn'd in their entire lives.' ‘Sir?’?'

'And yet... in fact, we do not need complications, Vimes. An ingenious lone madman... well, there are many madmen. A regrettable incident.'

'Yes, sir.' The man was looking harassed and Vimes felt there was room for a pinch of sympathy. 'Fred and Nobby don't like complications either, sir.'

'We need simple answers, Vimes.'

'Sir. Fred and Nobby are good at simple.' The Patrician turned away and looked out over the city. 'Ah,' he said, in a quieter voice. 'Simple men to see the simple truth.'

'This is a fact, sir.'

'You are learning fast, Vimes.'

'Couldn't say about that, sir.'

'And when they have found the simple truth, Vimes?'

'Can't argue with the truth, sir.'

'In my experience, Vimes, you can argue with anything.' When Vimes had gone Lord Vetinari sat at his desk for a while, staring at nothing. Then he took a key from a drawer and walked across to a wall, where he pressed a particular area. There was a rattle of a counterweight. The wall swung back. The Patrician walked softly through the narrow passageway beyond. Here and there it was illuminated by a very faint glow from around the edges of the little panels which, if gently slid back, would allow someone to look out through the eyesockets of a handy portrait. They were a relic of a previous ruler. Vetinari never bothered with them. Looking out of someone else's eyes wasn't the trick. There was a certain amount of travel up dark stairways and along musty corridors. Occasionally he'd make movements the meaning of which might not be readily apparent. He'd touch a wall here and here, apparently without thinking, as he passed. Along one stone–flagged passage, lit only by the grey fight from a window forgotten by everyone except the most optimistic flies, he appeared to play a game of hopscotch, robes flying around him and calves twinkling as he skipped from stone to stone. These various activities did not seem to cause anything to happen. Eventually he reached a door, which he unlocked. He did this with some caution. The air beyond was full of acrid smoke, and the steady pop–pop sound which he had begun to hear further back along the passage was now quite loud. It faltered for a moment, was followed by a much louder bang, and then a piece of hot metal whirled past the Patrician's car and buried itself in the wall. In the smoke a voice said, 'Oh dear.'

It didn't seem unhappy, but sounded rather like the voice one might use to a sweet and ingratiating little puppy which, despite one's best efforts, is sitting next to a spreading damp patch on the carpet. As the billows cleared the indistinct shape of the speaker turned to Vetinari with a wan little smile and said, 'Fully fifteen seconds this time, my lord! There is no doubt that the principle is sound.' That was one of Leonard of Quirm's traits: he picked up conversations out of the air, he assumed everyone was an interested friend, and he took it for granted that you were as intelligent as he was. Vetinari peered at a small heap of bent and twisted metal. 'What was it, Leonard?' he said. 'An experimental device for turning chemical energy into rotary motion,' said Leonard. 'The problem, you see, is getting the little pellets of black powder into the combustion chamber at exactly the right speed and one at a time. If two ignite together, well, what we have is the external combustion engine.'

. why do you want to keep it, sir?'

'Keep what?' said Vimes. 'The iconograph I borrowed from the tourist.'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Vimes. 'But you–'

'I can't see you going very far in the Watch, captain, if you go around seeing things that aren't there.'

'Oh.' The clock seemed to tick louder. 'You're thinking something, sir. Aren't you?'

'It is a use to which I occasionally put my brain, captain. Strange as it may seem.'

'What are you thinking, sir?'

'What they want me to think,' said Vimes. 'Who's they?'

'I don't know yet. One step at a time.' A bell tinkled. Vimes stood up. 'You know what I always say,' he said. Carrot removed his helmet and polished it with his sleeve. 'Yes, sir. “Everyone's guilty of something, especially the ones that aren't,” sir.'

'No, not that one...'