Jingo

case has got politics written all over it. That’s why old Vimes put me on it, depend upon it. Politics. Young Carrot’s all very well, but you need an experienced man of the world in these delicate political situations.”
    “You’ve certainly got the nose-tapping just right,” said Nobby. “I generally miss.”
    But he felt troubled, if not in his nose then in whatever small organ propelled his blood around his body. This didn’t feel right. Nothing much in Nobby’s life had ever felt right, so he knew very well how the feeling felt.
    He looked up at the bare walls and down at the rough floorboards.
    “There’s a bit of sand on the floor,” he said.
    “Another clue, then,” said Colon happily. “A Klatchian has been here. Bugger all else but sand in Klatch. Still got some in his sandals.”
    Nobby opened the window. It gave on to a gently sloping roof. Someone could get through it easily and be away over the tiles and into the maze of chimneys.
    “He could’ve gone in and out this way, sarge,” he volunteered.
    “Good point, Nobby. Write that down. Evidence of conniving and sneaking around.”
    Nobby peered down. “Here, there’s glass outside, Fred…”
    Sergeant Colon joined him at the stricken window. One of the panes had been smashed. Outside, glass glittered on the tiles.
    “That could be a clue, eh?” said Nobby, hopefully.
    “It certainly is,” said Sergeant Colon. “See the glass fell outside the window? Everyone knows you look at which way the glass falls. I reckon he was just testing his bow and it went off while it was loaded.”
    “That’s clever, sarge,” said Nobby.
    “That’s detectoring ,” said Colon. “It’s no good just looking at things, Nobby. You got to think straight, too.”
    “ Cecil , sarge.”
    “That’s Frederick, Cecil. Come on, I think we’ve wrapped this up nicely. Old Vimes says he wants a report toot sweet.”
    Nobby looked out of the broken window. The roof abutted the end wall of a much larger warehouse. For a moment he found himself thinking bendy rather than straight, but he reasoned that his thinking was only a corporal’s thinking, and worth far less per thought than a sergeant’s thinking, so he kept his private thoughts to himself.
    As they went downstairs Mrs. Spent watched them suspiciously through a barely opened doorway at the far end of the hall, clearly ready to slam it shut at the first suggestion of any sexual magnetism.
    “It’s not as if I even know where to get a sexual magnet,” Nobby muttered. “And she didn’t even laugh.”

    … Also, we went to the bow shops in the Street of Cunning Artificers and showed the iconograph to the man in Burleigh and Stronginthearm, who vouchsafed, that is him, e.g., he was referring to the Diseased …
    “Oh, my…” Vimes’s lips moved slightly as his gaze went back up the page.
    … also in addition to the Klatchian money you could tell one of them had been there because of, e.g., the sand on the floor …
    “He’d still got sand in his sandals?” murmured Vimes. “Good grief.”
    “ Sam ?”
    Vimes looked up from his reading.
    “Your soup will be cold,” said Lady Sybil from the far end of the table. “You’ve been holding that spoonful in the air for the last five minutes by the clock.”
    “Sorry, dear.”
    “What are you reading?”
    “Oh, just a little masterpiece,” said Vimes, pushing Fred Colon’s report aside.
    “Interesting, is it?” said Lady Sybil a little sourly.
    “Practically unparalleled,” said Vimes. “The only things they haven’t found are the bunch of dates and the camel hidden under the pillow…”
    Belatedly, his nuptial radar detected a certain chilliness from the far side of the cruet.
    “Is, er, there something wrong, dear?” he said.
    “Can you remember when we last had dinner together, Sam?”
    “Tuesday, wasn’t it?”
    “That was the Guild of Merchants’ annual dinner, Sam.”
    Vimes’s brow wrinkled. “But you were there, too, weren’t you?”
    A further subtle change in the dragonhouse quotient told him that this was not a well chosen answer.
    “And then you rushed off afterward because of that business with the barber in Gleam Street.”
    “Sweeney Jones,” said Vimes. “Well, he was killing people, Sybil. The best you could say is that he didn’t mean to. He was just very bad at shaving—”
    “But you didn’t have to go, I’m sure.”
    “Policing’s a twenty-four-hour job, dear.”
    “Only for you! Your