Going Postal

gods, I’ve been done up good and brown! I’m dead, right? Just not lying down yet! Vetinari? There’s a man who knows how to save the price of a rope! I’m done for!”
    “You’ll feel better for a nice cup o’ bismuth-and-brimstone tea, sir,” Groat quavered. “I’ve got the kettle boiling—”
    “A cup of tea is not going to be sufficient!” Moist got a grip on himself, or at least began to act as if he had, and took a deep, theatrical breath. “Okay, okay, Mr. Pump, you can let go now.”
    The golem released his grip. Moist straightened up.
    “Well, Mr. Groat?” he said.
    “Looks like you’re genuine after all, then,” the old man said. “One of the dark clerks wouldn’t have gone bursar like that. We thought you was one of his lordship’s special gentlemen, see.” Groat fussed around the kettle. “No offense, but you’ve got a bit more color than the average pen-pusher.”
    “Dark clerks?” said Moist, and then recollection dawned. “Oh…do you mean those stocky little men in black suits and bowler hats?”
    “The very same. Scholarship boys at the Assassins’ Guild, some of ’em. I heard that they can do some nasty things when they’ve a mind.”
    “I thought you called them penpushers?”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t say where, heehee.” Groat caught Moist’s expression and coughed. “Sorry, didn’t mean it, just my little joke. We reckon the last new postmaster we had, Mr. Whobblebury, he was a dark clerk. Can’t hardly blame him, with a name like that. He was always snooping around.”
    “And why do you think that was?” said Moist.
    “Well, Mr. Mutable, he was the first, decent chap, he fell down into the big hall from the fifth floor, smack, sir, smack onto the marble. Head first. It was a bit…splashy, sir.”
    Moist glanced at Stanley, who was starting to tremble.
    “Then there was Mr. Sideburn. He fell down the back stairs and broke his neck, sir. Excuse me, sir, it’s 11:43.” Groat walked over to the door and opened it, Tiddles walked through, Groat shut the door again. “At three in the morning, it was. Right down five flights. Broke just about every bone you could break, sir.”
    “You mean he was wandering around without a light?”
    “Dunno, sir. But I know about the stairs. The stairs have lamps burning all night, sir. Stanley fills them every day, regular as Tiddles.”
    “Use those stairs a lot, then, do you?” said Moist.
    “Never, sir, except for the lamps. Nearly everywhere on that side is bunged up with mail. But it’s a Post Office Regulation, sir.”
    “And the next man?” said Moist, a little hoarsely. “Another accidental fall?”
    “Oh, no, sir. Mr. Ignavia, that was his name. They said it was his heart. He was just lyin’ dead on the fifth floor, dead as a doorknob, face all contorted like he’d seen a ghost. Natural causes, they said. Werrrl, the Watch was all over the place by then, you may depend on it. No one had been near him, they said, and there was not a mark on him. Surprised you didn’t know about all this, sir. It was in the paper.” Except you don’t get much chance to keep up with the news in a condemned cell , Moist thought.
    “Oh yes?” he said. “And how would they know no one had been near him?”
    Groat leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Everyone knows there’s a werewolf in the Watch, and one of them could bloody nearly smell what color clothes someone was wearing.”
    “A werewolf,” said Moist flatly.
    “Yes. Anyway, the one before him—”
    “A werewolf.”
    “That’s what I said, sir,” said Groat.
    “A damn werewolf .”
    “Takes all sorts to make a world, sir. Anyway—”
    “A werewolf.” Moist awoke from the horror. “And they don’t tell visitors?”
    “Now, how’d they do that, sir?” said Groat in a kindly voice. “Put it on a sign outside? ‘Welcome to Ankh-Morpork, We Have a Werewolf,’ sir? The Watch’s got loads of dwarfs and trolls and a golem—a free golem, savin’ your presence, Mr. Pump—and a couple of gnomes and a zombie…even a Nobbs.”
    “Nobbs? What’s a Nobbs?”
    “Corporal Nobby Nobbs, sir. Not met him yet? They say he’s got an official chitty saying he’s human, and who needs one of those, eh? Fortunately there’s only one of him, so he can’t breed. Anyway, we’ve got a bit of everything, sir. Very cosmopolitan. You don’t like werewolves?”
    They know who you are by your smell , thought Moist. They’re as bright as