Making Money

widow of the age she’d like people to think she was. Yes, that’d be a better idea. At Mrs. Arcanum’s the food was solid and plentiful. The beds were good and you seldom had to share.
    Then he could make real plans.
    The itinerary of evasion wound across his inner eye at the speed of flight. The outer eye alighted on something less pleasing. There was a copper in the coach yard, chatting to a couple of the drivers. Moist recognized Sergeant Fred Colon, whose chief duty appeared to be ambling around the city, chattering to elderly men of the same age and demeanor as himself.
    The watchman spotted Moist at the window and gave him a little wave.
    No, it was going to get complicated and messy if he ran. He’d have to bluff it out up here. It wasn’t as though he’d done anything wrong, technically. The letter had thrown him, that’s all it was.
    Moist was sitting at his desk looking busy when Stanley came back, ushering in Mr. Slant, the city’s best-known and, at three hundred and fifty-one, probably also its oldest lawyer. He was accompanied by Sergeant Angua and Corporal Nobbs, widely rumored to be the Watch’s secret werewolf. Corporal Nobbs was accompanied by a large wicker hamper and Sergeant Angua, carrying a large bag and a squeaky rubber bone, which she occasionally, in an absentminded way, squeaked. Things were looking up but strange.
    The exchanged pleasantries were not that pleasant, this close to Nobby Nobbs and the lawyer, who smelled of embalming fluid, but when they were over, Mr. Slant said: “I believe you visited Mrs. Topsy Lavish yesterday, Mr. Lipwig.”
    “Oh, yes. Er…when she was alive,” said Moist, and cursed himself and the unknown letter-writer. He was losing it, he really was.
    “This is not a murder investigation, sir,” said the sergeant calmly.
    “Are you sure? In the circumstances—”
    “We’ve made it our business to be sure, sir,” said the sergeant, “in the circumstances.”
    “Don’t think it was the family, then?”
    “No, sir. Or you.”
    “Me?” said Moist, suitably open-mouthed at the suggestion.
    “Mrs. Lavish was known to be very ill,” said Mr. Slant. “And it seems that she took quite a shine to you, Mr. Lipwig. She has left you her little dog, Mr. Fusspot.”
    “And also a bag of toys, rugs, tartan coats, little booties, eight collars including one set with diamonds and, oh, a vast amount of other stuff,” said Sergeant Angua. She squeaked the rubber bone again.
    Moist’s mouth shut.
    “The dog,” he said, in a hollow voice. “Just the dog? And the toys?”
    “You were expecting something more?” said Angua.
    “I wasn’t expecting even that!” Moist looked at the hamper. It was suspiciously silent.
    “I give him one of his little blue pills,” said Nobby Nobbs helpfully. “They knocks him out for a little while. Don’t work on people though. They tastes of aniseed.”
    “All this is a bit…odd, isn’t it?” said Moist. “Why’s the Watch here? The diamond collar? Anyway, I thought the will wasn’t read until after the funeral…”
    Mr. Slant coughed. A moth flew out of his mouth.
    “Yes indeed. But knowing the contents of her will, I thought it prudent to hasten to the Royal Bank and deal with the most…”
    There was a very long pause. For a zombie, the whole of life is a pause, but it seemed that he was looking for the right word.
    “…problematical bequests immediately,” he finished.
    “Yes, well, I suppose the little doggie needs feeding,” said Moist, “but I wouldn’t have thought that—”
    “The….…. problem, if such it be, is in fact his paperwork,” said Mr. Slant.
    “Wrong pedigree?” said Moist.
    “Not his pedigree,” said Mr. Slant, opening his briefcase. “You may be aware that the late Sir Joshua left one percent share in the bank to Mr. Fusspot?”
    A cold, black wind began to blow through Moist’s mind.
    “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
    “The late Mrs. Lavish has left him another fifty percent. That, by the customs of the bank, means that he is the new chairman, Mr. Lipwig. And you own him.”
    “Hold on, an animal can’t own—”
    “Oh, but it can, Mr. Lipwig, it can!” said Slant, with lawyerly glee. “There is a huge body of case law. There was even, once, a donkey who was ordained and a tortoise who was appointed a judge. Obviously the more difficult trades are less well represented. No horse has yet held down a job as a carpenter, for example. But dog as chairman is