Making Money

corridors in a leisurely way, whistling under their breath, safe in the knowledge the very best locks kept miscreants out and all the ground floor was paved with marble which, in the long, silent watches of the night, rang like a bell at every step. Some dozed, standing upright with their eyes half-open.
    But someone ignored the locks of iron, passed through the bars of brass, trod soundlessly on the ringing tiles, moved under the very noses of the slumbering men. Nevertheless, when the figure walked through the big doors to the chairman’s office, two crossbow bolts passed through it and splintered the fine woodwork.
    “Well, you can’t blame a body for trying,” said Mrs. Lavish.
    I AM NOT CONCERNED WITH YOUR BODY, MRS. TOPSY LAVISH, said Death.
    “It’s been quite a while since anyone was,” sighed Topsy.
    THIS IS THE RECKONING, MRS. LAVISH. THE FINAL ACCOUNTING.
    “Do you always use banking allusions at a time like this?” said Topsy, standing up. Something remained slumped in the chair, but it wasn’t Mrs. Lavish anymore.
    I TRY TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE AMBIENCE, MRS. LAVISH.
    “The ‘Closing of the Ledger’ would have the right ring, too.”
    THANK YOU. I SHALL MAKE A NOTE. AND NOW, YOU MUST COME WITH ME. “I made my will just in time, it seems,” said Topsy, letting her white hair down.
    ONE SHOULD ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF ONE’S POSTERITY, MRS. LAVISH. “My posterity? The Lavishes can kiss my bum, sir! I’ve fixed ’em for good. Oh yes! Now what, Mr. Death?”
    NOW? said Death. NOW, YOU COULD SAY, COMES… THE AUDIT.
    “Oh. There is one, is there? Well, I’m not ashamed.”
    THAT COUNTS.
    “Good. It should,” said Topsy.
    She took Death’s arm and walked with him through the doors and onto the black desert under the endless night.
    After a while Mr. Fusspot sat up and started to whine.

    THERE WAS A small article about the banking business in the Times next morning. It used the word crisis quite a lot.
    Ah, here we are, thought Moist, when he got to paragraph four. Or, rather, here I am.

Lord Vetinari told the Times , “It is true that, with the permission of the bank’s chairman, I discussed with the Postmaster General the possibility of him offering his services to the Royal Bank in these difficult times. He has declined, and the matter ends there. It is not the business of the government to run banks. The future of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork is in the hands of its directors and shareholders.”

    And gods help it, thought Moist.
    He tackled the in tray with vigor. He threw himself at the paperwork, checking figures, correcting spelling, and humming to himself to drown out the inner voice of temptation.
    Lunchtime arrived, and with it a plate of one-foot-wide cheese sandwiches delivered by Gladys, along with the midday copy of the Times—
    Mrs. Lavish had died in the night. Moist stared at the news. It said she had passed away quietly in her sleep, after a long illness.
    He dropped the paper and stared at the wall. She’d seemed like someone hanging together by sheer grit and gin. Even so, that vitality, that spark…well, she couldn’t hold on forever. So what would happen now? Ye gods, he was well out of it!
    And it was probably not a good day to be Mr. Fusspot. He’d looked a waddly sort of dog, so he’d better learn to run really quickly.
    The latest post that Gladys had brought up contained a long and thoroughly secondhand envelope addressed to him “personly” in thick black letters. He slit it open with the letter opener and shook it out into the waste bin, just in case.
    There was a folded newspaper inside. It was, it turned out, the Times from yesterday, and there was Moist von Lipwig on the front page. Circled.
    Moist turned it over. On the other side, in tiny, neat handwriting, were the words:

Dear Sir, I have took the small precawtion of loging certain affe-davids with trusted associates. You will here from me again

A friend
    Take it slowly, take it slowly…It can’t be from a friend. Everyone I think of as a friend can spell. This must be some kind of con, yes? But there were no skeletons in his closet…
    Oh, all right, if you were going for the fine detail, there were, in fact, enough skeletons in his closet to fill a big crypt, with enough left over to equip a fun-fair house of horrors and maybe also make a macabre but mildly amusing ashtray. But they’d never been associated with the name Lipwig. He’d been careful about that. His crimes had died with Albert