Feet of Clay

personality himself, realized that he was in the presence of a master. The late Mr. Hopkinson had a squeaky voice and wore his spectacles on a length of black tape—his ghost now wore their spiritual counterpart—and these were always the signs of a mind that polished the undersides of furniture and stored paperclips by size.
    “It really is too bad,” said Mr. Hopkinson. “And ungrateful, too, after the help I gave them with the oven. I really feel I shall have to complain.”
    M R . H OPKINSON, ARE YOU FULLY AWARE THAT YOU ARE DEAD ?
    “Dead?” trilled the curator. “Oh, no. I can’t possibly be dead. Not at the moment. It’s simply not convenient. I haven’t even catalogued the combat muffins.”
    N EVERTHELESS .
    “No, no. I’m sorry, but it just won’t do. You will have to wait. I really cannot be bothered with that sort of nonsense.”
    Death was nonplussed. Most people were, after the initial confusion, somewhat relieved when they died. A subconscious weight had been removed. The other cosmic shoe had dropped. The worst had happened and they could, metaphorically, get on with their lives. Few people treated it as a simple annoyance that might go away if you complained enough.
    Mr. Hopkinson’s hand went through a tabletop. “Oh.”
    Y OU SEE ?
    “This is most uncalled-for. Couldn’t you have arranged a less awkward time?”
    O NLY BY CONSULTATION WITH YOUR MURDERER .
    “It all seems very badly organized. I wish to make a complaint. I pay my taxes, after all.”
    I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES . I TURN UP ONLY ONCE .
    The shade of Mr. Hopkinson began to fade. “It’s simply that I’ve always tried to plan ahead in a sensible way…”
    I FIND THE BEST APPROACH IS TO TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES .
    “That seems very irresponsible…”
    I T’S ALWAYS WORKED FOR ME .

    The sedan chair came to a halt outside Pseudopolis Yard. Vimes left the runners to park it and strode in, putting his coat back on.
    There had been a time, and it seemed like only yesterday, when the Watch House had been almost empty. There’d be old Sergeant Colon dozing in his chair, and Corporal Nobbs’s washing drying in front of the stove. And then suddenly it had all changed…
    Sergeant Colon was waiting for him with a clipboard. “Got the reports from the other Watch Houses, sir,” he said, trotting along beside Vimes.
    “Anything special?”
    “Bin a bit of an odd murder, sir. Down in one of them old houses on Misbegot Bridge. Some old priest. Dunno much about it. The patrol just said it ought to be looked at.”
    “Who found him?”
    “Constable Visit, sir.”
    “Oh, gods.”
    “Yessir.”
    “I’ll try to get along there this morning. Anything else?”
    “Corporal Nobbs is sick, sir.”
    “Oh, I know that .”
    “I mean off sick, sir.”
    “Not his granny’s funeral this time?”
    “Nossir.”
    “How many’s he had this year, by the way?”
    “Seven, sir.”
    “Very odd family, the Nobbses.”
    “Yessir.”
    “Fred, you don’t have to keep calling me ‘sir’.”
    “Got comp’ny, sir,” said the sergeant, glancing meaningfully towards a bench in the main office. “Come for that alchemy job.”
    A dwarf smiled nervously at Vimes.
    “All right,” said Vimes. “I’ll see him in my office.” He reached into his coat and took out the assassin’s money pouch. “Put it in the Widows and Orphans Fund, will you, Fred?”
    “Right. Oh, well done, sir. Any more windfalls like this and we’ll soon be able to afford some more widows.”
    Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called Animal Husbandry . He’d been a bit worried about the title—you heard stories about strange folk in the country—but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.
    Upstairs, Vimes pushed open his office door carefully. The Assassins’ Guild played to rules. You could say that about the bastards. It was terribly bad form to kill a bystander. Apart from anything else, you wouldn’t get paid. So traps in his office were out of the question, because too many people were in and out of it every day. Even so, it paid to be careful. Vimes was good at making the kind of rich enemies who could afford to employ assassins. The assassins had to be lucky only once, but Vimes had to be lucky all the time.
    He slipped into the room and glanced out of the window. He liked to work with it open, even in cold