Snuff

began to appear. Right about…now.

T here was a huge jamming of coaches around the Opera House as would-be patrons, high or low, forsook their carriages and took to their feet, fighting their way through the throng that was seeking admission. Of course, it helped if you had a squad of trolls or dwarfs with you.

A nkh-Morpork liked surprises, provided they didn’t involve the revenue. The curtain was not due to go up for another hour, but that didn’t matter, because the important thing was to be there and even more importantly to be seen to be there, especially by the people you wanted to see. Whatever it was going to be it was going to be an occasion, and you would have been there and people would have seen you there and it was important and, therefore, so were you .
    It would be a night to remember, even if the mysterious performance was an act to forget. The really rich often put on these things out of vanity, but this one looked particularly mysterious and possibly a jolly good laugh if it fell on its face.

D ay was turning into night. The pub was filling up, as were the drinkers, who had been told by Jiminy that they were drinking courtesy of Commander Vimes, again. And Jiminy watched him carefully from the doorway as the shadows lengthened and Vimes stood there, motionless, occasionally looking at his watch.
    At last the lad everybody knew as young Feeney turned up, with his arm still in its cast but, nevertheless, the old boys agreed amongst themselves, looking rather more grown-up than they’d ever seen him before. He was accompanied by Jefferson the blacksmith, whom they regarded as a ticking bomb at the best of times, and he had a badge, just like Feeney. People overflowed from the pub as the two of them went up to Vimes, and there was an unheard conversation. They’d wondered why the blacksmith was carrying a megaphone, but now they watched him hand it to Vimes, and Feeney and the blacksmith walked back toward the pub and people parted like a wave to let them through.
    Vimes looked at his watch again. More people were hurrying toward the green. People with an instinct for the dramatic had run home to say that something was up and you’d better come and look. And country people liked a spectacle, or even a serious death, just like city people. They too liked to say, “I was there,” even if it came out as “I was there, ooh-arr.”
    Vimes put his watch in his pocket for the last time, and raised the megaphone to his lips.
    â€œLADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” The blacksmith had hammered out a pretty good loud-hailer and the voice echoed across the green. “I have heard it said, ladies and gentlemen, that in the end all sins are forgiven.” Out of the corner of his mouth he said, so that only Feeney and the blacksmith could hear, “We shall see.” And then he continued. “Bad things have been done. Bad things have been ordered. Bad orders have been obeyed. But they never will be again…will they, ladies and gentlemen? Because there needs to be a law, but before there is a law, there has to be a crime!”
    There was absolute silence in the gloom as he walked over the green to the tower and broke the two bottles of brandy on its woodwork, stepped back a little way and threw the glowing end of his cigar after them.

I n the Opera House the gossip faded and died as Lady Sybil stepped through the curtains and onto the stage. She was a woman of, as they say, ample proportions, although she felt that some of them were more than ample. However, she could afford the very best dressmakers and did indeed have the manner and poise that were the symbol of her class, or at least the class she had been born into, and so she stepped out in front of the curtain and applause broke out and grew. When she judged that it had gone on long enough she made a little gesture which magically silenced the auditorium.
    Lady Sybil had exactly the right voice for these occasions. Somehow she could make everybody think she was talking just to them. She said, “My Lord Patrician, Lady Margolotta, your grace the viceroy, ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen, I am so touched you have all decided to come along to my little twilight soirée, especially since I have been rather naughty and have been very sparing of information.” Lady Sybil took a deep breath, which caused several elderly gentlemen near the front of the audience to very nearly burst into tears. *
    â€œI