Hogfather

     'Excuse me, my lord, but I really  had to come up!' He flung some discs on the desk. 'Look at them!'

     Downey carefully  picked up  a  golden circle. It  looked like a  small coin, but -

     'No denomination!' said Winvoe. 'No  heads, no tails, no  milling! It's just a blank disc! They're all just blank discs!'

     Downey  opened his mouth to say,  'Valueless?' He realized that  he was half hoping that this was  the case. If they, whoever they were, had paid in worthless metal then there wasn't even  the glimmering of a contract. But he could see this wasn't the  case. Assassins learned  to recognize money early in their careers.

     'Blank discs,' he said, 'of pure gold.'

     Winvoe nodded mutely.

     'That,' said Downey, 'will do nicely.'

     'It must be magical!' said Winvoe. 'And we never accept magical money!'

     Downey  bounced  the coin on  the desk a  couple of times.  It  made  a satisfyingly  rich thunking noise.  It wasn't magical. Magical  money  would look real, because its whole purpose was to deceive. But this didn't need to ape something as human  and adulterated as  mere currency.  This is gold, it told his fingers. Take it or leave it.

     Downey sat and thought, while Winvoe stood and worried.

     'We'll take it,' he said.

     'But...'

     'Thank you,  Mr  Winvoe. That is  my decision,' said Downey.  He stared into  space for a while, and then smiled.  'Is  Mister Teatime still in  the building?'

     Winvoe  stood  back. 'I thought the council had agreed to dismiss him,' he said stiffly. 'After that business with...'

     'Mister Teatime does not  see the world in  quite the same way as other people,' said Downey, picking up the picture from his desk and looking at it thoughtfully.

     'Well, indeed, I think that is certainly true.'

     'Please send him up.'

     The  Guild attracted  all  sorts of people, Downey  reflected. He found himself wondering  how it had come to attract Winvoe, for one thing. It  was hard to imagine him stabbing anyone in the heart in case he got blood on the victim's wallet. Whereas Mister Teatime...

     The problem was that the Guild took young boys and gave them a splendid education  and   incidentally  taught   them  how  to   kill,  cleanly and dispassionately, for money  and for the good  of  society, or at  least that part of society that had money, and what other kind of society was there?

     But very  occasionally you found you'd got someone like Mister Teatime, to  whom  the money was merely  a  distraction. Mister Teatime  had  a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.

     Mister Teatime enjoyed himself too much. And other people, also.

     Downey  had  privately decided that some  time soon  Mister Teatime was going to meet with an accident. Like many people with no actual morals, Lord Downey did  have  standards,  and Teatime repelled him. Assassination was  a careful game, usually played against people who knew the rules themselves or at least could afford the services of  those who did. There was considerable satisfaction in a clean kill.  What there wasn't supposed to be was pleasure in a messy one. That sort of thing led to talk.

     On the other  hand, Teatime's corkscrew of  a mind was exactly the tool to deal with something like this. And if he didn't ... well, that was hardly Downey's fault, was it?

     He turned his  attention to  the paperwork  for a while. It was amazing how the stuff mounted up. But you had to deal with  it.  It wasn't as though they were murderers, after all...

     There was a knock at the door.  He pushed the  paperwork aside and  sat back.

     'Come in, Mister Teatime,'  he  said.  It  never  hurt to put the other fellow slightly in awe of you.

     In fact the door  was opened by one of the Guild's servants,  carefully balancing a tea tray.

     'Ah,  Carter,' said Lord Downey, recovering magnificently. 'Just put it on the table over there, will you?'

     'Yes, sir,' said Carter. He  turned and nodded. 'Sorry, sir,  I will go and fetch another cup directly, sir.'

     'What?'

     'For your visitor, sir.'

     'What visitor? Oh, when Mister Teati-'

     He stopped. He turned.

     There was a young man sitting on the hearthrug, playing with the dogs.

     'Mister Teatime!'

     'It's pronounced Teh-ah-tim-eh, sir,' said Teatime, with just a hint of reproach. 'Everyone gets it wrong, sir.'

     'How did you do that?'

     'Pretty well,  sir.  I got mildly scorched  on  the last  few  feet, of course.'

     There  were some lumps of soot on the  hearthrug. Downey  realized he'd heard them  fall, but  that hadn't  been particularly extraordinary. No  one could get down the chimney. There was a heavy grid firmly in place  near the top of the flue.

     'But there's  a  blocked-in  fireplace  behind the  old  library,' said Teatime,  apparently reading his thoughts. 'The  flues  connect,  under  the bars. It was really a stroll, sir.'

     'Really . . .'

     'Oh, yes, sir.'