Making Money

‘Actually, Gladys, I’d like you to lift up the floor now,’ said the first voice.

‘There May Be Dust Underneath That Too?’

‘I’m certain of it.’

‘Very Well.’

There were several thumps that made the beams creak, and then a rumble of: ‘It Does Not Say Anything About Dusting Under The Floor In Lady Waggon’s Book Of Household Management.’

‘Gladys, a man may be dying under there!’

‘I See. That Would Be Untidy.’ The beams rattled under a blow. ‘Lady Waggon Says That Any Bodies Found During A Week-End Party Should Be Disposed Of Discreetly, In Case Of Scandal.’

Three more blows, and a beam shattered.

‘Lady Waggon Says Watchmen Are Disrespectful And Do Not Wipe Their Dirty Boots.’

Another beam cracked. Light lanced down. A hand the size of a shovel appeared, grabbed one of the iron straps, and snapped it—

Moist peered into the gloom, while smoke poured up past him.

‘He’s down there! Ye gods, this reeks!’

Adora Belle looked over his shoulder. ‘Is he alive?’

‘I certainly hope so.’ Moist eased himself between the beams and dropped on to the bullion boxes.

After a moment he called up: ‘There’s a pulse. And there’s a key in the lock, too. Can you come down the stairs and give me a hand?’

‘Er, we have visitors,’ Adora Belle called down.

A couple of helmeted heads were now outlined against the light. Damn it! Using off-duty watchmen was all very well, but they tended to take their badges everywhere with them, and were just the sort of people who’d jump to conclusions merely because they’d found a man standing in the wreckage of a bank vault after hours. The words ‘Look, I can explain’ presented themselves for utterance, but he strangled them just in time. It was his bank, after all.

‘Well, what do you want?’ he demanded.

This was sufficiently unexpected to throw the men, but one of them rallied. ‘Is this your bank vault, sir?’ he said.

‘I’m the deputy chairman, you idiot! And there’s a sick man down here!’

‘Did he fall when you were breaking into the vault, sir?’

Oh gods, you just couldn’t budge a born copper. They just kept going, in that patient grinding tone. When you were a policeman, everything was a crime.

‘Officer— You are a copper, right?’

‘Constable Haddock, sir.’

‘Well, constable, can we get my colleague into the fresh air? He’s wheezing. I’ll unlock the door down here.’

Haddock nodded to the other guard, who hurried away towards the stairs.

‘If you had a key, sir, why did you break in?’

‘To get him out, of course!’

‘So how—’

‘It’s all perfectly sensible,’ said Moist. ‘Once I’ve got out of here we will all have a laugh.’

‘I shall look forward to that, sir,’ said Haddock, ‘because I like a laugh.’

Talking to the Watch was like tap-dancing on a landslide. If you were nimble you could stay upright, but you couldn’t steer and there were no brakes and you just knew that it was going to end in a certain amount of fuss.

It wasn’t Constable Haddock any more. It had stopped being Constable Haddock just as soon as Constable Haddock had found that the pockets of the Master of the Royal Mint contained a velvet roll of lockpicks and a blackjack, and it then became Sergeant Detritus.

Lockpicks, as Moist knew, were technically not illegal. Owning them was fine. Owning them while standing in someone else’s house was not fine. Owning them while being found in a stricken bank vault was so far from fine it could see the curvature of the universe.

So far, to Sergeant Detritus, so good. However, the sergeant’s grasp began to slip when confronted with the evidence that Moist quite legitimately had the keys for the vault he had broken into. This seemed to the troll to be a criminal act in itself, and he’d toyed for a while with the charge of ‘Wasting Watch time by breaking in when you didn’t have to’.[10] He didn’t understand about the visceral need for the lockpicks; trolls didn’t have a word for machismo in the same way that puddles don’t have a word for water. He also had a problem with the mind-set and actions of the nearly late Mr Bent. Trolls don’t go mad, they get mad. So he gave up, and it became Captain Carrot.

Moist knew him of old. He was big and smelled of soap and his normal expression was one of blue-eyed innocence. Moist couldn’t see behind that amiable face, just couldn’t see a thing. He could read most people but the captain was a closed book in a locked bookcase. And the man was always courteous, in that really annoying way police have.

He said ‘Good evening’, politely, as he sat down opposite Moist in the little office that had suddenly become an interview room. ‘Can I start, sir, by asking you about the three men down in the cellar? And the big glass … thing?’

‘Mr Hubert Turvy and his assistants,’ said Moist. ‘They are studying the economic system of the city. They’re not involved in this. Come to think of it, I’m not involved in this either! There is, in fact, no this. I have explained all this to the sergeant.’