Making Money

‘That could very well be the case,’ said Ponder gravely.

‘In which case, won’t that be a bit of a problem? I mean, can it be in the ground and in the Cabinet at the same time?’

‘That, Mr Lipwig, is—’

‘The wrong type of question?’

‘Yes. The box exists in ten or possibly eleven dimensions. Practically anything may be possible.’

‘Why only eleven dimensions?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Ponder. ‘It might be simply that more would be silly.’

‘Can you take the foot out, please?’ said Adora Belle, who was now brushing wisps of straw off a long package.

Ponder nodded, lifted out the relic with great care, and placed it gently on the bench behind them.

‘What would have happened if you had drop—’ Moist began.

‘Wrong type of question, Mr Lipwig!’

Adora Belle put the bundle down beside the foot and unwrapped it with care. It contained a part of a golem’s arm, two feet long.

‘I knew it! The markings are the same!’ she said. ‘And there’s a lot more on my piece. Can you translate it?’

‘Me? No,’ said Ponder. ‘The Arts are not my field,’ he added, in a way that suggested his was a pretty superior field with much better flowers in it. ‘You need Professor Flead.’

‘You mean the one who’s dead?’ said Moist.

‘He’s dead at the moment, but I’m sure that in the interests of discretion my colleague Dr Hicks can arrange for the professor to talk to you after lunch.’

‘When he’ll be less dead?’ said Moist.

‘When Dr Hicks has had lunch,’ said Ponder patiently. ‘The Professor will be pleased to receive visitors, er, especially Miss Dearheart. He is the world expert on Umnian. Every word has hundreds of meanings, I understand.’

‘Can I take the Foot?’ said Adora Belle.

‘No,’ said Ponder. ‘It’s ours.’

‘That was the wrong type of answer,’ said Adora Belle, picking up the Foot. ‘On behalf of the Golem Trust, I am acquiring this golem. If you can prove ownership, we will pay you a fair price for it.’

‘Would that it were that simple,’ said Ponder, politely taking it from her, ‘but, you see, if a Curiosity is taken away from the Cabinet Room for more than fourteen hours and fourteen seconds, the Cabinet stops working. Last time it took us three months to restart it. But you can drop in at any time to, er, check that we’re not mistreating it.’

Moist laid a hand on Adora Belle’s arm to forestall an Incident.

‘She’s very passionate about golems,’ he said. ‘The Trust digs them up all the time.’

‘That’s very commendable,’ said Ponder. ‘I’ll talk to Dr Hicks. He’s the head of the Department of Post-Mortem Communications.’

‘Post-Mortem Com—’ Moist began. ‘Isn’t that the same as necroman—’

‘I said the Department of Post-Mortem Communications,’ said Ponder very firmly. ‘I suggest you come back at three o’clock.’

‘Did anything about that conversation strike you as normal?’ said Moist, as they stepped out into the sunlight.

‘Actually, I thought it went very well,’ said Adora Belle.

‘This wasn’t how I imagined your homecoming,’ said Moist. ‘Why the rush? Is there some problem?’

‘Look, we found four golems at the dig,’ said Adora Belle.

‘That’s … good, yes?’ said Moist.

‘Yes! And you know how deep they were?’

‘I couldn’t guess.’

‘Guess!’

‘I don’t know!’ said Moist, bewildered at suddenly having to play ‘What’s My Depth?’. ‘Two hundred feet down? That’s more tha—’

‘Half a mile underground.’

‘Impossible! That’s deeper than coal!’

‘Keep it down, will you? Look, is there somewhere we can go and talk?’

‘How about — the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork? There’s a private dining room.’

‘And they’ll let us eat there, will they?’

‘Oh yes. The chairman is a great friend of mine,’ said Moist.

‘He is, is he?’

‘He certainly is,’ said Moist. ‘Why, only this morning he licked my face!’

Adora Belle stopped and turned to stare at him. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Then it’s just as well I got back when I did.’

Chapter 7

The Joy of Collops — Mr Bent goes out to lunch — The Dark Fine Arts — Amateur thespians, avoidance of embarrassment by — The Pen of Doom! — Professor Flead gets cosy — ‘Lust comes in many varieties’ — A Hero of Banking! — Cribbins’s cup runneth over

The sun shone through the window of the bank’s dining room on to a scene of perfect pleasure.

‘You should sell tickets,’ said Adora Belle dreamily, with her chin in her hands. ‘People who are depressed would come here and go away cured.’

‘It’s certainly hard to watch it happening and be sad,’ said Moist. ‘It’s the enthusiastic way he tries to turn his mouth inside out,’ said Adora Belle.

There was a gulp from Mr Fusspot as the last of the sticky toffee pudding went down. He then turned the bowl over hopefully, in case there was any more. There never had been, but Mr Fusspot was not a dog to bow down to the laws of causality.