“Squeak?” it said.
The Grim Squeaker nodded. SQUEAK.
A minute later Wee Mad Arthur emerged into the daylight, dragging the rat behind him. There were fifty-seven neatly lined up along the wall, but despite his name Wee Mad Arthur made a point of not killing the young and the pregnant females. It’s always a good idea to make sure you’ve got a job tomorrow.
His sign was still tacked up over the hole. Wee Mad Arthur, as the only insect and vermin exterminator able to meet the enemy on its own terms, found that it paid to advertise.
* * *
“WEE MAD” ARTHUR
FOR THOSE LITTLE THINGS THAT GET YOU DOWN
RATS *FREE*
MISE: 1¢ PER TEN TAILS
MOLES: ½ ¢ EACH
WARSPS: 50 ¢ PER NEST. HORNETS 20 ¢ EXTRA.
COCKROACHES AND SIMILAR BY ARANJEMENT.
SMALL FEES • BIG JOBS
* * *
Arthur took out the world’s smallest notebook and a piece of pencil lead. See here, now…fifty-eight skins at two a penny, City bounty for the tails at a penny per ten, and the carcasses to Gimlet at tuppence per three, the hard-driving dwarf bastard that he was…
There was a moment’s shadow, and then someone stamped on him.
“Right,” said the owner of the boot. “Still catching rats without a Guild card, are you? Easiest ten dollars we ever earned, Ron. Let’s go and—”
The man was lifted several inches off the ground, whirled around, and hurled against the wall. His companion stared as a streak of dust raced across his boot, but reacted too late.
“He’s gone up me trouser! He’s gone up me—arrgh!”
There was a crack.
“Me knee! Me knee! He’s broken me knee!”
The man who had been flung aside tried to get up, but something scurried across his chest and landed astride his nose.
“Hey, pal?” said Wee Mad Arthur. “Can yer mother sew, pal? Yeah? Then get her to stitch this one!”
He grabbed an eyelid in each hand and thrust his head forward with pin-point precision. There was another crack as the skulls met.
The man with the broken knee tried to drag himself away but Wee Mad Arthur leapt from his stunned comrade and proceed to kick him. The kicks of a man not much more than six inches high should not hurt, but Wee Mad Arthur seemed to have a lot more mass than his size would allow. Being nutted by Arthur was like being hit by a steel ball from a slingshot. A kick seemed to have all the power of one from a large man, but very painfully concentrated into a smaller area.
“Yez can tell them buggers at the Rat-Catchers’ Guild that I works for whoze I want and charges what I like,” he said, between kicks. “And them shites can stop tryin’ to persecute the small businessman…”
The other guild enforcer made it to the end of the alley. Arthur gave Ron a final kick and left him in the gutter.
Wee Mad Arthur walked back to his task, shaking his head. He worked for nothing and sold his rats for half the official rate, a heinous crime. Yet Wee Mad Arthur was growing rich because the guild hadn’t got its joint heads around the idea of fiscal relativity.
Arthur charged a lot more for his services. A lot more, that is, from the specialized and above all low point of view of Wee Mad Arthur. What Ankh-Morpork had yet to understand was that the smaller you are, the more your money is worth.
A dollar for a human bought a loaf of bread that was eaten in a few bites. The same dollar for Wee Mad Arthur bought the same-sized loaf, but it was food for a week and could then be further hollowed out and used as a bedroom.
The size-differential problem was also responsible for his frequent drunkenness. Few publicans were prepared to sell beer by the thimbleful or had gnome-sized mugs. Wee Mad Arthur had to go drinking in a swimming costume.
But he liked his work. No one could clear out rats like Wee Mad Arthur. Old and cunning rats that knew all about traps, deadfalls, and poison were helpless in the face of his attack, which was where, in fact, he often attacked. The last thing they felt was a hand gripping each of their ears, and the last thing they saw was his forehead, approaching at speed.
Muttering under his breath, Wee Mad Arthur got back to his calculations. But not for long.
He spun around, forehead cocked.
“It’s only us, Wee Mad Arthur,” said Sergeant Colon, stepping back hurriedly.
“That’s Mr. Wee Mad Arthur to youse, copper,” said Wee Mad Arthur, but he relaxed a little.
“We’re Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs,” said Colon.
“Yeah, you remember us, don’t you?” said Nobby, in a wheedling voice. “We was the ones who helped you when you was fighting them three dwarfs last week.”
“Yez pulled me off ’f them, if that’s what you mean,” said Wee Mad Arthur. “Just when I’d got ’em all down.”
“We want to talk to you about some rats,” said Colon.
“Can’t take on any more customers,” said Wee Mad Arthur firmly.
“Some rats you sold to Gimlet’s Hole Food Delicatessen a few days ago.”
“What’s that to yez?”
“He reckons they was poisoned,” said Nobby, who had taken the precaution of moving behind Colon.
“I never uses poison!”
Colon realized he was backing away from a man six inches high. “Yeah, well…see…fing is…you being in fights and that…you don’t get on with dwarfs…some people might say…fing is…it could look like you might have a grudge.” He took another step back and almost tripped over Nobby.
“Grudge? Why should I have a grudge, pal? It ain’t me that gets the kicking!” said Wee Mad Arthur, advancing.
“Good point. Good point,” said Colon. “Only it’d help, right, if you could tell us…where you got those rats from…”
“Like the Patrician’s palace, maybe,” said Nobby.
“The palace? No one catches rats at the palace. That’s not allowed. No, I remember those rats. They wuz good fat ones, I wanted a penny each, but he held out for four for threepence, th’ ole skinflint that he is.”
“Where did you get them, then?”
Wee Mad Arthur shrugged. “Down the cattle market. I do the cattle market Tuesdays. Couldn’t tell yez where they came from. Them tunnels guz everywhere, see?”
“Could they’ve eaten poison before you caught them?” said Colon.
Wee Mad Arthur bristled. “No one puts down poison round there. I won’t have it, see? I got all the contracts along the Shambles, and I won’t deal with any gobshite who uses poison. I doesn’t charge for extermination, see? Guild hates that. But I chooses me customers.” Wee Mad Arthur grinned wickedly. “I only guz where’s there’s the finest eating for the rats and I clean up flogging ’em to the lawn ornaments. I find anyone using poison on my patch, they can pay guild rates for guild work, hah, and see how they like it.”
“I can see you’re going to be a big man in industrial catering,” said Colon.
Wee Mad Arthur put his head on one side. “D’youse know what happened to the last man that made a crack like that?” he said.
“Er…no…?” said Colon.
“Neither does anyone else,” said Wee Mad Arthur, “’cos he was never found. Have yez finished? Only I got a wasps’ nest to clean out before I go home.”
“So you were catching them under the Shambles?” Colon persisted.
“All the way along. ’S a good beat. There’s tanners, tallow men, butchers, sausage-makers…That’s good grazing, if you’re a rat.”
“Yeah, right,” said Colon. “Fair enough. Well, I reckon we’ve taken up enough of your time—”
“How d’you catch wasps?” said Nobby, intrigued. “Smoke ’em out?”
“’Tis unsporting not to hit them on the wing,” said Wee Mad Arthur. “But if it’s a busy day I make up squibs out of that No. 1 black powder the alchemists sell.” He indicated the laden bandoliers over his shoulders.
“You blow them up?” said Nobby. “That don’t so
und too sporting.”
“Yeah? Just ever tried settin’ and lightin’ half a dozen fuses and then fightin’ your way back out of the entrance before the first one goes off?”
“It’s a wild-goose chase, Sarge,” said Nobby, as they strolled away. “Some rats et some poison somewhere and he got them. What’re we supposed to do about it? Poisonin’ rats ain’t illegal.”
Colon scratched his chin. “I think we could be in a bit of trouble, Nobby,” he said. “I mean, everyone’s been bustling around detectoring and we’d could end up looking a right couple of noddies. I mean, do you want to go back to the Yard and say we talked to Wee Mad Arthur and he said it wasn’t him, end of story? We’re humans, right? Well, I am and I know you probably are—and we’re definitely bringing up the rear around here. I’m telling you, this ain’t my Watch any more, Nobby. Trolls, dwarfs, gargoyles…I’ve nothing against them, you know me, but I’m looking forward to my little farm with chickens round the door. And I wouldn’t mind goin’ out with something to be proud of.”
“Well, what do you want us to do? Knock on every door round the cattle market and ask ’em if they’ve got any arsenic in the place?”
“Yep,” said Colon. “Walk and talk. That’s what Vimes always says.”
“There’s hundreds of ’em! Anyway, they’d say no.”
“Right, but we got to arsk. ’T’aint like it used to be, Nobby. This is modern policing. Detectoring. These days, we got to get results. I mean, the Watch is getting bigger. I don’t mind ole Detritus bein’ a sergeant—he’s not bad when you get to know him—but one of these days it could be a dwarf giving out orders, Nobby. It’s all right for me ’cos I’ll be out on my farm—”
“Nailin’ chickens round the door,” said Nobby.
“But you’ve got your future to think about. An’, the way things are going, maybe the Watch’ll be looking for another captain. It’d be a right bugger if he turned out to have a name like Stronginthearm, eh, or Shale. So you’d better look smart.”
“You never wanted to be a captain, Fred?”
“Me? A hofficer? I have my pride, Nobby. I’ve nothing against hofficering for them as is called to it, but it’s not for the likes of me. My place is with the common man.”
“I wish mine was,” said Nobby gloomily. “Look what was in my pigeonhole this morning.”
He handed the sergeant a square of card, with gold edging. “‘Lady Selachii will be At Home this P.M. from five onwards, and requests the pleasure of the company of Lord de Nobbes,’” he read.
“Oh.”
“I’ve heard about these rich ole women,” said Nobby, dejectedly. “I reckon she wants me to be a giggle-low, is that right?”
“Nah, nah,” said the Sergeant, looking at passion’s most unlikely plaything. “I know this stuff from my uncle. ‘At Home’ is like a bit of a drinks do. It’s where all you nobs hob-nob, Nobby. You just drink and scoff and talk about literachoor and the arts.”
“I haven’t got any posh clothes,” said Nobby.
“Ah, that’s where you score, Nobby,” said Colon. “Uniforms is OK. Adds a bit of tone, in fact. Especially if you look dashing,” he said, ignoring the evidence that Nobby was, in fact, merely runny.
“Is that a fact?” said Nobby, brightening up a bit. “I’ve got a lot more of ’em invites, too,” he said. “Posh cards what look like they’ve been nibbled along the edges with gold teeth. Dinners, balls, all kinds of stuff.”
Colon looked down at his friend. A strange and yet persuasive thought crept into his mind. “We-ell,” he said, “it’s the end of the social Season, see? Time’s running out.”
“What for?”
“We-ell…could be all them posh women want to marry you off to their daughters who’re in Season…”
“What?”
“Nothing beats an earl except a duke, and we haven’t got one of them. And we ain’t got a king, neither. The Earl of Ankh would be what they calls a social catch.” Yes, it was easier if he said it to himself like that. If you substituted “Nobby Nobbs” for “Earl of Ankh” it didn’t work. But it did work when you just said “Earl of Ankh.” There’d be many women who’d be happy to be the mother-in-law of the Earl of Ankh even if it meant having Nobby Nobbs into the bargain.
Well, a few, anyway.
Nobby’s eyes gleamed. “Never thought of that,” he said. “And some of these girls have a bit of cash, too?”
“More’n you, Nobby.”
“And of course I owes it to my posterity to see that the line of Nobbses doesn’t die out,” Nobby added, thoughtfully.
Colon beamed at him with the rather worried expression of a mad doctor who has bolted on the head, applied the crackling lightning to the electrodes, and is now watching his creation lurch down to the village.
“Cor,” said Nobby, his eyes now unfocusing slightly.
“Right, but before that,” said Colon, “I’ll do all the places along the Shambles and you do Chittling Street and then we can push off back to the Yard, job done and dusted. OK?”
“Afternoon, Commander Vimes,” said Carrot, shutting the door behind him. “Captain Carrot reporting.”
Vimes was slumped in his chair, staring at the window. The fog was creeping up again. Already the Opera House opposite was a little hazy.
“We, er, had a look at as many golems as we could, sir,” said Carrot, trying diplomatically to see if there was a bottle anywhere on the desk. “There’s hardly any, sir. We found eleven had smashed themselves up or sawn their heads off and by lunchtime people were smashing ’em or taking out their words themselves, sir. It’s not nice, sir. There’s bits of pottery all over the city. It’s as if people were…just waiting for the opportunity. It’s odd, sir. All they do is work and keep themselves to themselves and don’t offer any harm to anyone. And some of the ones that smashed themselves left…well, notes, sir. Sort of saying they were sorry and ashamed, sir. They kept on going on about their clay…”
Vimes did not respond.
Carrot leaned sideways and down, in case there was a bottle on the floor. “And Gimlet’s Hole Food Delicatessen has been selling poisoned rat. Arsenic, sir. I’ve asked Sergeant Colon and Nobby to follow that one. It might just be some kind of mix-up, but you never know.”
Vimes turned. Carrot could hear his breathing. Short, sharp bursts, like a man trying to keep himself under control. “What have we missed, Captain?” he said, in a faraway voice.
“Sir?”
“I’m in his lordship’s room. There’s the bed. The desk. Things on the desk. The table by the bed. The chair. The rug. Everything. We replaced everything. He eats food. We’ve checked the food, yes?”
“The whole larder, sir.”
“Is that a fact? We might be wrong there. I don’t understand how, but we might be wrong. There’s some evidence lying in the cemetery that suggests we are.” Vimes was nearly growling. “What else is there? Littlebottom says there’s no marks on him. What else is there? Let’s find out the how and with any luck that’ll give us the who.”
“He breathes the air more than anyone else, si—”
“But we moved him into another bedroom! Even if someone was, I don’t know, pumping poison in…they couldn’t change rooms with us all watching. It’s got to be the food!”
“I’ve watched them taste it, sir.”
“Then it’s something we’re not seeing, damn it! People are dead, Captain! Mrs. Easy’s dead!”
“Who, sir?”
“You’ve never heard of her?”
“Can’t say that I have, sir. What did she used to do?”
“Do? Nothing, I suppose. She just brought up nine kids in a couple of rooms you couldn’t stretch out in and she sewed shirts for tuppence an hour, every hour the bloody gods sent, and all she did was work and keep herself to herself and she is dead, Captain. And so’s her grandson. Aged fourteen months. Because her granddaughter took them some grub from the palace! A bit of a treat for them! And d’you know what? Mil
dred thought I was going to arrest her for theft! At the damn’ funeral, for gods’ sake!” Vimes’ fists opened and closed, his knuckles showing white. “It’s murder now. Not assassination, not politics, it’s murder. Because we’re not asking the right damn’ questions!”
The door opened.
“Oh, good afternoon, squire,” said Sergeant Colon brightly, touching his helmet. “Sorry to bother you. I expect it’s your busy time, but I’ve got to ask, just to eliminate you from our inquiries, so to speak. Do you use any arsenic around the place?”
“Er…don’t leave the officer standing there, Fanley,” said a nervous voice, and the workman stepped aside. “Good afternoon, officer. How may we help you?”
“Checking up on arsenic, sir. Seems some’s been getting where it shouldn’t.”
“Er…good heavens. Really. I’m sure we don’t use any, but do come inside while I check with the foremen. I’m certain there’s a pot of tea hot, too.”
Colon looked behind him. The mist was rising. The sky was going gray. “Wouldn’t say no, sir!” he said.
The door closed behind him.
A moment later, there was the faint scrape of the bolts.
“Right,” said Vimes. “Let’s start again.”
He picked up an imaginary ladle.
“I’m the cook. I’ve made this nourishing gruel that tastes like dog’s water. I’m filling up three bowls. Everyone’s watching me. All the bowls have been well washed, right? OK. The tasters take two, one to taste, and these days the other’s for Littlebottom to check, and then a servant—that’s you, Carrot—takes the third one and…”
“Put it in the dumbwaiter, sir. There’s one up to every room.”
“I thought they carried them up?”
“Six floors? It’d get stone-cold, sir.”
“All right…hold on. We’ve gone too far. You’ve got the bowl. D’you put it on a tray?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put it on a tray, then.”
Carrot obediently put the invisible bowl on an invisible tray.