Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett [30]
“Bing bong bingely beep.”
Vimes sighed and pulled out his organizer.
“Yes?”
“Memo: Appointment with bootmaker, 2 P.M.,” said the imp.
“It’s not two o’clock yet and that was Tuesday in any case,” said Vimes.
“So I’ll cross it off the list of Things To Do, then?”
Vimes put the disorganized organizer back in his pocket and went and looked out of the window again.
Who had a motive for poisoning Lord Vetinari?
No, that wasn’t the way to crack it. Probably, if you went to some outlying area of the city and confined your investigations to little old ladies who didn’t get out much, what with all the wallpaper over the door and everything, you might be able to find someone without a motive. But the man stayed alive by always arranging matters so that a future without him represented a riskier business than a future with him still upright.
The only people, therefore, who’d risk killing him were madmen—and the gods knew Ankh-Morpork had enough of them—or someone who was absolutely confident that if the city collapsed he’d be standing on top of the pile.
If Fred were right—and the sergeant was generally a good indicator of how the man in the street thought because he was the man in the street—then that person was Captain Carrot. But Carrot was one of the few people in the city who seemed to like Vetinari.
Of course, there was one other person who stood to gain.
Damn, thought Vimes. It’s me, isn’t it…?
There was another knock at the door. He didn’t recognize this one.
He opened the door cautiously.
“It’s me, sir. Littlebottom.”
“Come in, then.” It was nice to know there was at least one person in the world with more problems than him. “How is his lordship?”
“Stable,” said Littlebottom.
“Dead is stable,” said Vimes.
“I mean he’s alive, sir, and sitting up reading. Mr. Doughnut made up some sticky stuff that tasted of seaweed, sir, and I mixed up some Gloobool’s Salts. Sir, you know the old man in the house on the bridge?”
“What old…oh. Yes.” It seemed a long time ago. “What about him?”
“Well…you asked me to look around and…I took some pictures. This is one, sir.” He handed Vimes a rectangle that was nearly all black.
“Odd. Where’d you get it?”
“Er…have you ever heard the story about dead men’s eyes, sir?”
“Assume I haven’t had a literary education, Littlebottom.”
“Well…they say…”
“Who say?”
“They, sir. You know, they.”
“The same people who’re the ‘everyone’ in ‘everyone knows’? The people who live in ‘the community’?”
“Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.”
Vimes waved a hand. “Oh, them. Well, go on.”
“They say that the last thing a dying man sees stays imprinted in his eyes, sir.”
“Oh, that. That’s just an old story.”
“Yes. Amazing, really. I mean, if it weren’t true, you’d have thought it wouldn’t have survived, wouldn’t you? I thought I saw this little red spark, so I got the imp to paint a really big picture before it faded completely. And, right in the center…”
“Couldn’t the imp have made it up?” said Vimes, staring at the picture again.
“They haven’t got the imagination to lie, sir. What they see is what you get.”
“Glowing eyes.”
“Two red dots,” said Littlebottom, conscientiously, “which might indeed be a pair of glowing eyes, sir.”
“Good point, Littlebottom.” Vimes rubbed his chin. “Blast! I just hope it’s not a god of some sort. That’s all I need at a time like this. Can you make copies so I can send them to all the Watch Houses?”
“Yes, sir. The imp’s got a good memory.”
“Hop to it, then.”
But before Littlebottom could go the door opened again. Vimes looked up. Carrot and Angua were there.
“Carrot? I thought you were on your day off?”
“We found a murder, sir! At the Dwarf Bread Museum. But when we got back to the Watch House they told us Lord Vetinari’s dead!”
Did they? thought Vimes. That’s rumor for you. If we could modulate it with the truth, how useful it could