The Fifth Elephant

His choice would tell her everything, she was sure. Someone like Lord Rust or Lord Selachii... ? Well, she'd think a lot less of him. From all that she had heard, and Lady Margolotta heard a lot of things, the Ankh-Morpork diplomatic corps as a whole could not find its backside with a map. Of course, it was good business for a diplomat to appear stupid, right up to the moment where he'd stolen your socks, but Lady Margolotta had met some of Ankh-Morpork's finest and no one could act that well.

The growing howling outside began to get on her nerves. She rang for her butler.

'Yeth, mithtreth?' said Igor, materializing out of the shadows.

'Go and tell the children of the night to make vonderful music somevhere else, Vill you? I have a headache.'

'Indeed, mithtreth.'

Lady Margolotta yawned. It had been a long night. She'd think better after a good day's sleep.

As she went to blow out the candle she glanced again at the book. There was a marker in the Vs.

But... surely even the Patrician couldn't know that much...

She hesitated and then pulled the bellrope above the coffin. Igor reappeared, in the way of Igors.

'Those keen young men at the clacks tower Vill be avake, von't they?'

'Yeth, mithtreth.'

'Send a clacks to our agent asking for everything about Commander Vimes of the Vatch, vill you?'

'Ith he a diplomat, mithtreth?'

Lady Margolotta lay back. 'No, Igor. He's the reason for diplomats. Close the lid, vill you?'

Sam Vimes could parallel-process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases, such as 'and they can deliver it tomorrow' or 'so I've invited them for dinner' or 'they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply'.

Lady Sybil was aware of this. Sam could coherently carry an entire conversation while thinking about something completely different.

'I'll tell Willikins to pack winter clothes,' she said, watching him. 'It'll be pretty cold up there at this time of year.'

'Yes. That's a good idea.' Vimes continued to stare at a point just above the fireplace.

'We'll have to host a party ourselves, I expect, so we ought to take a cartload of typical Ankh-Morpork food. Show the flag, you know. Do you think I should take a cook along?'

'Yes, dear. That would be a good idea. No one outside the city knows how to make a knuckle sandwich properly.'

Sybil was impressed. Ears operating entirely on

automatic had nevertheless triggered the mouth into making a small but pertinent contribution.

She said, 'Do you think we ought to take the alligator with us?'

'Yes, that might be advisable.'

She watched his face. Small furrows formed on Vimes's brow as the ears nudged the brain. He blinked.

'What alligator?'

'You were miles away, Sam. In Uberwald, I expect.'

'Sorry.'

'Is there a problem?'

'Why's he sending me, Sybil?'

'I'm sure Havelock shares with me a conviction that you have hidden depths, Sam.'

Vimes sank gloomily into his armchair. It was, he felt, a persistent flaw in his wife's otherwise practical and sensible character that she believed, against all evidence, that he was a man of many talents. He knew he had hidden depths. There was nothing in them that he'd like to see float to the surface. They contained things that should be left to lie.

There was also a nagging worry that he couldn't quite pin down. Had he been able to, he might have expressed it like this: policemen didn't go on holiday. Where you got policemen, as Lord Vetinari was wont to remark, you got crime. So if he went to Bonk, however you pronounced the damn place, there would be a crime. It was something the world always laid on for policemen.

'It'll be nice to see Serafine again,' said Sybil.

'Yes, indeed,' said Vimes.

In Bonk he would not, officially, be a policeman. He did not like this at all. He liked this even less than all the other things.

On the few occasions he'd been outside Ankh-Morpork and its surrounding fiefdom he'd either been going to other local cities where the Ankh-Morpork badge carried some weight or he had been in hot pursuit, that most ancient and honourable of police procedures. From the way Carrot talked, in Bonk his badge would merely figure as extra roughage on someone's menu.

His brow wrinkled again. 'Serafine?'