Making Money - Terry Pratchett [65]
“He’s put in more detail than we did,” he said, as Moist focused. “It’s at the very limit of what metal and paper can be persuaded to do. It is, I declare, a work of genius. He would be your salvation.”
“Amazing,” said Moist. “Well, we’ve got to have him! Who does he work for now?”
“No one, Mr. Lipwig. He is in prison, awaiting the noose.”
“Owlswick Jenkins?”
“You testified against him, Mr. Lipwig,” said Spools mildly.
“Well…yes, but only to confirm that they were our stamps he was copying, and how much we might be losing! I didn’t expect he’d be hanged!”
“His lordship is always touchy when it’s a case of treason against the city, as he describes it. I think Jenkins was badly served by his lawyer. After all, his work made our stamps look like the real forgeries. You know, I got the impression the poor chap didn’t really realize what he was doing was wrong.”
Moist recalled the watery, frightened eyes and the expression of helpless puzzlement.
“Yes,” he said. “You may be right.”
“Could you perhaps use your influence with Vetinari to—”
“No. It wouldn’t work.”
“Ah? Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Moist flatly.
“Well, you see, there’s only so much we can do. We can even number the bills automatically now. But the artwork must be of the finest kind. Oh dear. I’m sorry. I wish I could help. We owe you a great debt, Mr. Lipwig. So much official work is coming in now that we’d need the space in the Mint. My word, we’re practically the government’s printer!”
“Really?” said Moist. “That’s very…interesting.”
IT RAINED UNGRACEFULLY. The gutters gargled and tried to spit. Occasionally the wind caught the cascading overflow from the rooftops and slapped a sheet of water across the face of anyone who looked up. But this was not a night to look up. This was a night to scurry, bent double, for home.
Raindrops hit the windows of Mrs. Cake’s boardinghouse, specifically the one in the rear room occupied by Mavolio Bent, at the rate of twenty-seven a second, plus or minus fifteen percent.
Mr. Bent liked counting. You could trust numbers, except perhaps for pi, but he was working on that in his spare time and it was bound to give in sooner or later.
He sat on his bed, watching the numbers dance in his head. They’d always danced for him, even in the bad times. And the bad times had been so very bad. Now, perhaps, there were more ahead.
Someone knocked at his door. He said, “Come in, Mrs. Cake.”
The landlady pushed open the door.
“You always know it’s me, don’t you, Mr. Bent,” said Mrs. Cake, who was more than a trifle nervous about her best lodger. He paid his rent on time—exactly on time—and he kept his room scrupulously clean and, of course, he was a professional gentleman. All right, he had a haunted look about him and there was that odd business with him carefully adjusting the clock before he went to work every day, but she was prepared to put up with that. There was no shortage of lodgers in this crowded city, but clean ones who paid regularly and never complained about the food were thin enough on the ground to be worth cherishing, and if they put a strange padlock on their wardrobe, well, least said soonest mended.
“Yes, Mrs. Cake,” said Bent. “I always know it’s you because there is a distinctive one-point-four seconds between the knocks.”
“Really? Fancy!” said Mrs. Cake, who rather liked the sound of distinctive. “I always say you’re the man for the adding up. Er…there is going to be three gentlemen downstairs asking after you…”
“When?”
“In about two minutes,” said Mrs. Cake.
Bent stood up in one unfolding moment, like a jack-in-the-box.
“Men? What will they be wearing?”
“Well, er, just, you know, clothes?” said Mrs. Cake uncertainly. “Black clothes. One of them will give me his card, but I won’t be able to read it because I’ll have my wrong spectacles on. Of course, I could go and put the right ones on, obviously, but I get such a headache if I don’t let a premonition go right. Er…and now you’re going to say, ‘Please let me know when they arrive, Mrs. Cake.’” She looked