Snuff

know something, I can see it in your eyes. If it turns out you knew something of importance about the blacksmith you’ll have invited yourself to be an accessory after the fact, with a free option, if I can get the bit between my teeth, of before the fact, which leaves you right in the middle, and that’s a fact.”
    Jiminy wriggled, but Vimes’s grip was steely. “Your badge doesn’t work here, Mr. Vimes, you know that!”
    Vimes heard the tiny whine of fear in the man’s voice, but old coppers were tough. If you weren’t tough, you never became an old copper. “I’m going to let go, sir ,” said Vimes, which is policeman’s code for “trembling arsehole.” “You think that legally around here I don’t have a leg to stand on. This may or may not be true, but my man here is not a policeman and is not accustomed to doing things nicely like we in the job do, and you might end up without a leg to stand on as well. I’m telling you this as a friend. We both know this game, eh? I expect you were working in the bar when the goblin was killed, yes?”
    â€œI didn’t know a bloody goblin was killed, did I? So how would I know when it may or may not have happened? My advice, sir ,” said Jiminy, with the same coded inflection that Vimes had used, “would be to report the matter to the authorities in the morning. That would be young Feeney, calls himself a copper. Look, I came here to retire, Vimes, and staying alive is part of that. I do not poke my nose into that which does not concern me. And I know there’s a lot of things that you could do and I know you ain’t going to do them, but just so’s you don’t go home empty-handed, Jethro lives where all blacksmiths live, right in the center of the village overlooking the green. He lives with his old mum, so I wouldn’t disturb her at this time of night. And now, gents, I’d better shut the pub. Don’t want to break the law.”
    The panel slid back, and there was the sound of a bolt slotting into place. A moment later, to the time-honored cry of “Ain’t you lot got no homes to go to?” they heard the front door open and the lane filled with men trying to get their brains to go in the direction of their feet, or vice versa.
    In the shadows of the pub’s back yard, which smelled of old barrels, Willikins said, “Would you like to take a bet on whether your blacksmith is tucked up in his bed tonight, sir?”
    â€œNo,” said Vimes, “but this stinks to me. I think I’ve got a murder, but I haven’t got a corpse, not all of it anyway,” he said, as Willikins opened his mouth. Vimes grunted. “For it to be definitely murder, Willikins, you need to be missing an important bit of you that you really need to stay alive, like your head. Okay, or like your blood, but it’s difficult to collect that in the dark, isn’t it?”
    They set off, and Vimes said, “The one thing you can say about the dead is that they stay dead, well, generally speaking, and so…it’s been a long day, and that’s a long walk and old age is creeping on, okay?”
    â€œNot very noticeably from the outside, commander,” said Willikins loyally.

T he door was opened to them by a yawning night footman and as soon as he had retired Willikins produced from the pocket of his coat the reeking and severed goblin claw and placed it on the hall table.
    â€œNot much to a goblin once you get past the head, or so they say. See, there’s the ring on the finger. Definitely looks like stone, pretty good workmanship for a goblin.”
    â€œAnimals don’t wear jewelry,” said Vimes. “You know, Willikins, I’ve said it before, you’d make a bloody good copper if it wasn’t for the fact that you’d make a bloody good assassin.”
    Willikins grinned. “I did think about the assassins when I was a lad, sir, but unfortunately I was not of the right social class and, besides, they have rules.” He helped Vimes out of his jacket and went on, “The street don’t have rules, commander, except one, which is ‘Survive’ and my dear old dad would probably turn in his grave if I even thought of being a copper.”
    â€œBut I thought you never knew who your father was?”
    â€œIndeed, sir, that is the case, but one must consider the fact of heredity.” Willikins produced