Night Watch

standing in it, that’s why. So we’re going to walk a little further and then we’ll just turn around and go back round the corner. We’re heading back to the station like good boys because our cocoa’s getting cold, see?”
    “Right, Sarge.”
    They ambled back around the corner, and Vimes let them walk sufficiently far up the street that the footsteps died away naturally.
    “Okay, this is far enough,” he said.
    Give Sam his due, Vimes thought, he knew how to stand still. He’d have to teach him, too, how to unfocus himself, so that he could very nearly fade out of sight on a cloudy day. Had Keel taught him that? After a certain age, memory was indeed an untrustworthy thing…
    The city’s clocks chimed the three-quarter hour.
    “What time’s curfew?” Vimes whispered.
    “Nine o’clock, Sarge.”
    “Must be nearly that now,” said Vimes.
    “No, it’s only just gone a quarter to nine, Sarge.”
    “Well, it’s going to take me a few minutes to get back. I want you to sneak back after me and wait at the corner. When it starts, you come running and banging that bell of yours.”
    “When what starts, Sarge? Sarge?”
    But Vimes was walking noiselessly down the road. He made a mental note to tip Snouty a dollar. These boots were like foot gloves.
    Torches spluttered on the junction, destroying the night vision of anyone who looked in that direction. Vimes padded around its dark penumbra and sidled along the buildings on the far wall until he was level with the door. Then he swung around the frame and shouted.
    “You’re nicked , chum!”
    “———!” said the shadow.
    “And that’s offensive language, sir, such as I would not wish my young lance constable to hear!”
    Behind him he heard Lance Constable Vimes advancing at a run, ringing his bell madly, and shouting, “Nine o’clock and all’s not well at all!” And there were other sounds, too, the ones Vimes had been half-listening for, of doors slamming and distant footsteps hurrying away.
    “You bloody fool!” said the struggling figure in black. “What the hell are you playing at!” He pushed at Vimes, who nevertheless tightened his grip.
    “That, sir, is Assault Upon A Watch Officer,” said Vimes.
    “ I’m a Watch officer, too, you damn flatfoot! From Cable Street!”
    “Where’s your uniform?”
    “We don’t wear uniforms!”
    “Where’s your badge?”
    “And we don’t carry badges!”
    “Hard to see why I shouldn’t think you is a common thief then, sir. You was casing that joint over there,” said Vimes, happy in the role of big, thick, but horribly unshakeable copper. “We seen you.”
    “There was going to be a meeting of dangerous anarchists!”
    “What kind of a religion is that, sir?” Vimes patted the man’s belt. “Oh dear, what have we here? A very nasty dagger. See this, Lance Constable Vimes? A weapon, no doubt about it! That’s against the law. Carried after dark, which is even more against the law! And it’s a concealed weapon!”
    “What do you mean, concealed?” screamed the twisting prisoner. “It was in a bloody sheath!”
    “Bloody, eh? Used it already, have you, sir?” said Vimes. He thrust a hand into a pocket of the man’s black coat. “And…what’s this? A little black velvet roll with, I do believe, a complete set of lockpicks? That’s Going Equipped for Burglary, that is.”
    “They’re not mine and you know it!” the man snarled.
    “Are you sure, sir?” said Vimes.
    “Yes! Because I keep mine in my inside pocket, you bastard.”
    “That’s Using Language Liable To Cause A Breach Of The Peace,” said Vimes.
    “Huh? You idiots have scared everyone away! Who’s going to be offended?”
    “Well, I might be. I’m sure you don’t want that, sir.”
    “You’re that stupid sergeant we’ve been told about, aren’t you,” growled the man. “Too thick to see what’s going on, right? Well, this is where you find out, mister…”
    He twisted out of Vimes’s grip, and there were a couple of sliding, metallic noises in the gloom. Wrist knives, thought Vimes. Even Assassins think they’re an idiot’s weapon.
    He took a couple of steps back as the man danced toward him, both knives waving.
    “Can’t think of a dumb answer to this one, eh, brownjob?”
    To his horror Vimes saw, behind the man, the shape of Sam raising his bell very slowly.
    “Don’t hit him!” he shouted, and then lashed out with his boot as the man’s head turned.
    “If you’re going