Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett [78]
“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? Mildred 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.
“Anything else?” said Vimes.
“Piece of bread, sir. And we check the loaf.”
“Soup spoon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Put them on…”
Carrot detached one hand from the invisible tray to take an invisible piece of bread and an intangible spoon.
“Anything else?” said Vimes. “Salt and pepper?”
“I think I remember salt and pepper pots, sir.”
“On they go, then.”
Vimes stared hawk-like at the space between Carrots’s hands.
“No,” he said. “We wouldn’t have missed that, would we? I mean…we wouldn’t, would we?”
He reached out and picked up an invisible tube.
“Tell me we checked the salt,” he said.
“That’s the pepper, sir,” said Carrot helpfully.
“Salt! Mustard! Vinegar! Pepper!” said Vimes. “We didn’t check all the food and then let his lordship tip poison on to suit his taste, did we? Arsenic’s a metal. Can’t you get…metal salts? Tell me we asked ourselves that. We aren’t that stupid, are we?”
“I’ll check directly,” said Carrot. He looked around desperately. “I’ll just put the tray down—”
“Not yet,” said Vimes. “I’ve been here before. We don’t rush off shouting ‘Give me a towel!’ just because we’ve had one idea. Let’s keep looking, shall we? The spoon. What’s it made of?”
“Good point. I’ll check the cutlery, sir.”
“Now we’re cooking with charcoal! What’s he been drinking?”
“Boiled water, sir. We’ve tested the water. And I checked the glasses.”
“Good. So…we’ve got the tray and you put the tray in the dumbwaiter and then what?”
“The men in the kitchen haul on the ropes and it goes up to the sixth floor.”
“No stops?”
Carrot looked blank.
“It goes up six floors,” said Vimes. “It’s just a shaft with a big box in it that can be pulled up