Thud

Coppers stayed alive by trickery. That's how it worked. You had your Watch Houses with the big blue lights outside, and you made certain there were always burly watchmen visible in the big public places, and you swanked around like you owned the place. But you didn't own it. It was all smoke and mirrors. You magicked a little policeman into everyone's head. You relied on people giving in, knowing the rules. But in truth a hundred well-armed people could wipe out the Watch, if they knew what they were doing. Once some madman finds out that a copper taken unawares dies just like anyone else, the spell is broken.

Hamcrusher's dwarfs don't believe in the City Watch? That could turn out to be a problem. Maybe bringing a troll along was provocative, but Detritus was a citizen, gods damn it, just like everyone else. If you-

'Duddle-dum-duddle-dum-duddle-dum!'

Ah, yes. No matter how bad things were, there was always room for them to get just that little bit worse ...

He pulled the smart brown box out of his pocket and flipped it open. The pointy-eared face of a small green imp stared up at him with that wistful, hopeless smile which, in its various incarnations, he'd come to know and dread.

`Good Morning, Insert Name Here! I am the Dis-Organizer Mark Five, "The Gooseberry"TM. How may I-' it began, speaking fast in order to get as much said as possible before the inevitable interruption.

`I swear I switched you off,' said Vimes.

`You threatened me with a hammer,' said the imp accusingly, and rattled the tiny bars. `He threatens state-of-the-Craft technomancy with a hammer, everybody!' it shouted. `He doesn't even fill in the registration card! That's why I have to call him Insert Nam-'

`I thought you'd got rid of that thing, sir,' said Angua as Vimes snapped the lid shut. `I thought it had had an ... accident.' 'Hah!' said a muffled voice from the box.

'Sybil always gets me a new one,' said Vimes, making a face. `A better one. But I know this one was turned off.'

The box's lid thrust upwards.

`I wake up for alarms!' the imp shrieked. `Ten colon Forty-Five Sit

for Damn Portrait!'

Vimes groaned. The portrait with Sir Joshua. He'd get into

trouble for this. He'd already missed two sittings. But this dwarf

thing was ... important.

`I won't be able to make it,' he mumbled.

`Then would you like to engage the handy-to-use Bluenose tm

Integrated Messenger Service?'

`What does that do?' said Vimes with deep suspicion. The

succession of Dis-Organizers he had owned had proved quite

successful at very nearly sorting out all the problems that stemmed

from owning them in the first place.

`Er, basically, it means me running with a message to the nearest

clacks tower really fast,' said the imp hopefully.

`And do you come back?' said Vimes, hope also rising.

`Absolutely!'

`Thank you, no,' said Vimes.

`How about a game of Splong!TM, specially devised for the Mark

Five?' pleaded the imp. `I have the bats right here. No? Perhaps you

would prefer the ever-popular Guess My Weight in Pigs? Or I could

whistle one of your favourite tunes? My iHUM tm function enables

me to remember up to one thousand five hundred of your

all-time-'

`You could try learning to use it, sir,' said Angua, as Vimes once

again shut the lid on the protesting voice.

`Did use one,' said Vimes.

'Yup. As a doorstop,' rumbled Detritus, behind him.

`I'm just not at home with technomancy, all right?' said Vimes.

`End of discussion. Haddock, nip along to Moon Pond Lane, will

you? Present my apologies to Lady Sybil, who will be at Sir Joshua's

studio there. Tell her I'm very sorry, but this has come up and it needs careful handling.'

Well, it does, he thought, as they headed onward. It probably needs more careful handling than I'm going to give it. Well, to hell with that. It comes to something if you have to tread carefully even to find out if there's been a murder.

Treacle Street was just the kind of area the dwarfs colonized - on the edge of the less pleasant parts of town, but not all the way there. You tended to notice the dwarf outposts: a patchwork of windows testified to a two-storey house having been turned into a threestorey house while remaining exactly the same height; an excess of small ponies pulling small carts; and, of course, all the really short people wearing beards and helmets was a definite clue.

Dwarfs dug down, too. It was a dwarf thing. Up here, far from the river, they could probably get to sub-basement level without being up to their necks in water.