Going Postal

a human and can track you better than any wolf. They can follow a trail that’s days old, even if you cover yourself with scent— especially if you cover yourself with scent. Oh, there’re ways around, if you know there is going to be a werewolf on your tail. No wonder they caught up with me. There should be a law!
    “Not a lot,” he said aloud, and glanced at Stanley again. It was useful to watch Stanley when Groat was talking. Now the boy had his eyes turned up so much that they were practically all whites.
    “And Mr. Whobblebury?” he said. “He was investigating for Vetinari, eh? What happened to him?”
    Stanley was shaking like a bush in a high wind.
    “Er, you did get given the big key-ring, sir?” Groat inquired, his voice trembling with innocence.
    “Yes, of course.”
    “I bet there is one key missing,” said Groat. “The Watch took it. It was the only one. Some doors ought to stay closed, sir. It’s all over and done with, sir. Mr. Whobblebury died of an industrial accident, they said. Nobody near him. You don’t want to go there, sir. Sometimes things get so broke it’s best to walk away, sir.”
    “I can’t,” said Moist. “I am the postmaster general. And this is my building, isn’t it? I’ll decide where I go, Junior Postman Groat.”
    Stanley shut his eyes.
    “Yes, sir,” said Groat, as if talking to a child. “But you don’t want to go there , sir.”
    “His head was all over the wall! ” Stanley quavered.
    “Oh dear, now you’ve set him off, sir,” said Groat, scuttling across to the boy. “It’s all right, lad, I’ll just get you your pills—”
    “What’s the most expensive pin ever made commercially, Stanley?” said Moist quickly.
    It was like pulling a lever. Stanley’s expression went from agonized grief to scholarly cogitation in an instant.
    “Commercially? Leaving aside those special pins made for exhibitions and trade shows, including the Great Pin of 1899, then probably it is the No. 3 Broad-headed ‘Chicken’ Extra Longs made for the lace-making market by the noted pinner Josiah Doldrum, I would say. They were hand-drawn and had his trademark silver head with a microscopic engraving of a cockerel. It’s believed that fewer than a hundred were made before his death, sir. According to Hubert Spider’s Pin Catalogue , examples can fetch between fifty and sixty-five dollars, depending on condition. A No. 3 Broad-headed Extra Long would grace any true pinhead’s collection.”
    “Only…I spotted this in the street,” said Moist, extracting one of that morning’s purchases from his lapel. “I was walking down Market Street and there it was, between two cobblestones. I thought it looked unusual. For a pin.”
    Stanley pushed away the fussing Groat and carefully took the pin from Moist’s fingers. A very large magnifying glass appeared as if by magic in his other hand.
    The room held its breath as the pin was subjected to serious scrutiny. Then Stanley looked up at Moist in amazement.
    “You knew ?” he said. “And you spotted this in the street ? I thought you didn’t know anything about pins!”
    “Oh, not really, but I dabbled a bit as a boy,” said Moist, waving a hand deprecatingly to suggest that he had been too foolish to turn a schoolboy hobby into a lifetime’s obsession. “You know…a few of the old brass Imperials, one or two oddities, like an unbroken pair or a double-header, the occasional cheap packet of mixed pins on approval—” Thank the gods , he thought, for the skill of speed-reading .
    “Oh, there’s never anything worthwhile in those,” said Stanley, and slid again into the voice of the academic: “While most ‘pinheads’ do indeed begin with a casually acquired flashy novelty pin, followed by the contents of their grandmothers’ pincushion, haha, the path to a truly worthwhile collection lies not in the simple disbursement of money in the nearest pin emporium, oh no. Any dilettante can become ‘kingpin’ with enough expenditure, but for the true ‘pinhead’ the real pleasure is in the joy of the chase, the pin fairs, the house clearances, and, who knows, a casual glint in the gutter that turns out to be a well-preserved Doublefast or an unbroken two-pointer. Well is it said: ‘See a pin and pick it up, and all day long you’ll have a pin.’”
    Moist nearly applauded. It was word for word what J. Lanugo Owlsbury had written in the introduction to his work. And, much more important, he now had an