Feet of Clay

because he doesn’t get bored with polishing. And he’s mastered policing as it is practiced by the majority of forces in the universe, which is, basically , screaming angrily at people until they give in. The only reason that he’s not a one-troll reign of terror is the ease with which his thought processes can be derailed by anyone who tries something fiendishly cunning, like an outright denial .
    “I know you all done it!” he was shouting. “If the person wot done it does not own up der whole staff, an’ I means this, der whole staff will be locked up in der Tanty also we throws der key away!” He pointed a finger at a stout scullery maid. “It was you wot done it, own up!”
    “No.”
    Detritus paused. Then: “Where was you last night? Own up!”
    “In bed, of course!”
    “Aha, dat a likely story, own up, dat where you always is at night?”
    “Of course.”
    “Aha, own up, you got witnesses?”
    “Sauce!”
    “Ah, so you got no witnesses, you done it then, own up!”
    “No!”
    “Oh…”
    “All right, all right. Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all for now,” said Vimes, patting him on the shoulder. “Are all the staff here?”
    He glared at the line-up. “Well? Are you all here?”
    There was a certain amount of reluctant shuffling among the ranks, and then someone cautiously put up a hand. “Mildred Easy hasn’t been seen since yesterday,” said its owner. “She’s the upstairs maid. A boy came with a message. She had to go off to see her family.”
    Vimes felt the faintest of prickles on the back of his neck. “Anyone know why?” he said.
    “Dunno, sir. She left all her stuff.”
    “All right. Sergeant, before you go off-shift, get someone to find her. Then go and get some sleep. The rest of you, go and get on with whatever it is you do. Ah…Mr. Drumknott?”
    The Patrician’s personal clerk, who’d been watching Detritus’s technique with a horrified expression, looked up. “Yes, Commander?”
    “What’s this book? Is it his lordship’s diary?”
    Drumknott took the book. “It looks like it, certainly.”
    “Have you been able to crack the code?”
    “I didn’t know it was in code, Commander.”
    “What? You’ve never looked at it?”
    “Why should I, sir? It’s not mine.”
    “You do know his last secretary tried to kill him?”
    “Yes, sir, I ought to say, sir, that I have already been exhaustively interrogated by your men.” Drumknott opened the book and raised his eyebrows.
    “What did they say?” said Vimes.
    Drumknott looked up thoughtfully. “Let me see, now…‘It was you wot done it, own up, everybody seen you, we got lots of people say you done it, you done it all right didn’t you, own up.’ That was, I think, the general approach. And then, like the scullery maid just now, I said it wasn’t me and that seemed to puzzle the officer concerned.”
    Drumknott delicately licked his finger and turned a page.
    Vimes stared at him.

    The sound of saws was brisk on the morning air. Captain Carrot knocked against the timber-yard door, which was eventually opened.
    “Good morning, sir!” he said. “I understand you have a golem here?”
    “Had,” said the timber merchant.
    “Oh dear, another one,” said Angua.
    That made four so far. The one in the foundry had knelt under a hammer, the one in the stonemason’s yard was now ten clay toes sticking out from under a two-ton block of limestone, one working in the docks had last been seen in the river, striding towards the sea, and now this one…
    “It was weird,” said the merchant, thumping the golem’s chest. “Sidney said it went on sawing all the way up to the moment it sawed its head right off. I’ve got a load of ash planking got to go out this afternoon. Who’s going to saw it up, may I ask?”
    Angua picked up the golem’s head. Insofar as it had any expression at all, it was one of intense concentration.
    “’Ere,” said the merchant, “Alf told me he heard in the Drum last night that golems have been murderin’ people…”
    “Enquiries are continuing,” said Carrot. “Now then, Mr…. it’s Preble Skink, isn’t it? Your brother runs the lamp-oil shop in Cable Street? And your daughter is a maid at the university?”
    The man looked astonished. But Carrot knew everyone. “Yeah…”
    “Did your golem leave the yard yesterday evening?”
    “Well, yeah, early on…Something about a holy day.” He looked nervously from one to the other. “You got to let them go,