Night Watch

yes, if you must,” said Tilden. “I don’t like the idea. It is really quite dishonorable, you know.”
    “Then I think, sir, to show that we’re doing this fairly,” said Knock, “us sergeants ought to be searched first. That way no one can say we don’t take it seriously.”
    “Come now, Sergeant,” said Tilden with a little smile. “I hardly think you are suspected.”
    “No, sir, fair’s fair,” said Knock. “We’ll set a good example, eh, Sergeant Keel?”
    Vimes shrugged. Knock grinned at him, pulled out a bundle of keys, and beckoned to Lance Corporal Coates.
    “You do the honors, Ned,” he said, beaming. “Me first, o’course.”
    The door was unlocked. The contents of Knock’s locker were the usual unsavory mess of lockers everywhere, but there certainly was no silver inkstand. If there was, it would have turned black after a single day.
    “Well done. Now Sergeant Keel’s, please, Ned.”
    Knock’s friendly beam fixed on Vimes, and the policeman fumbled with the lock. Vimes stared back, face blank as a slate, as the door creaked open.
    “Oh dear, what have we here?” said Knock without even bothering to look.
    “It’s a sack, Sarge,” said Coates. “Something heavy in it, too.”
    “Oh dear me,” said Knock, still staring at Vimes. “Open it up, lad. Gently. We don’t want anything to get damaged, eh?”
    There was a rustle of hessian, and then:
    “Er…it’s half a brick,” Ned reported.
    “What?”
    “A half brick, sir.”
    “I’m saving up for a house,” said Vimes. There were one or two sniggers from the assembled men, but some of the faster thinkers were suddenly looking worried.
    They know, thought Vimes. Well, lads, welcome to Vimes’s Roulette. You spun the wheel and now you’ve got to guess where the ball is going to go…
    “Are you sure? ” said Knock, turning to the open locker.
    “It’s just a sack, Sarge,” said Ned. “And half a brick.”
    “Is there a loose panel or something?” said Knock desperately.
    “What, in a sack, Sarge?”
    “Well, that seems to be our lockers,” said Vimes, rubbing his hands together. “Who’s next, Sergeant Knock?” Round and round the little ball goes, and where it stops, nobody knows…
    “Y’know, person’ly, I think the captain’s right, I don’t think any of the men would—” Knock began, and faltered. Vimes’s stare could have hammered rivets.
    “I believe, Sergeant, that since we have begun this, it should be concluded,” said Tilden. “That is only fair.”
    Vimes took a couple of steps toward Coates and held out his hand.
    “Keys,” he said.
    Coates glared at him.
    “The keys, Lance Corporal,” said Vimes.
    He snatched them from Coates’s hand and turned to the line of lockers.
    “Right,” he said. “Let’s start with the well-known archcriminal, Lance Constable Vimes…”
    Door after door was opened. The lockers, while possibly of interest to anyone studying the smells of unwashed clothing and the things that could grow on neglected socks, failed to produce a single silver inkstand.
    It did turn up The Amorous Adventurs of Molly Clapper in Corporal Colon’s locker, however. Vimes stared at the crude and grubby engravings like at a long-lost friend. He remembered that book; it had gone around the Watch House for years, and, as a young man, he had learned a lot from some of the illustrations, although a good deal of what he’d learned had turned out to be wrong.
    Fortunately, Captain Tilden’s view was blocked, and Vimes shoved the greasy book back on the shelf and said to the red-eared Colon: “Studying theory, eh, Fred? Good man. But practice makes perfect.”
    Then he turned, at last, to Coates’s locker. The man was watching him like a hawk.
    The scratched door creaked open. Every neck craned to see. There was a stack of old notebooks, some civilian clothing, and a small sack of what, when it was tipped out onto the floor, turned out to be laundry.
    “Surprised?” said the lance corporal.
    Not half as much as you, Vimes thought.
    He winked at Coates, and turned away.
    “Can I have a word with you in your office, Captain?” he said.
    “Yes, Sergeant, I suppose so,” said Tilden, looking around. “Oh, dear…”
    Vimes gave the man some time to climb the stairs, then followed him into his office and tactfully closed the door.
    “Well, Sergeant?” said Tilden, collapsing into his chair.
    “Have you looked everywhere , sir?” said Vimes.
    “Of course,