Snuff

you’ve heard that it’s missing, Miss Beedle?”
    â€œWell, this is my first time down here since yesterday, and it’s a difficult time to talk to her family, as you may imagine…”
    â€œI see,” said Vimes, though he didn’t, not very much—although he could sense a tiny bead of light growing in the darkness of his mind. He glanced again at Young Sam, who was studying the potmaker with every sign of forensic interest. That’s my boy. He continued, “Did they look for the pot?”
    â€œLooked everywhere, commander, even outside. And it’ll be quite small. You see, every goblin makes a set of pots which are kept deep inside the cave. I don’t know where they are, though in most other things they trust me. This is because humans steal pots. For this reason, most goblins make other comparatively small pots for daily use and for when they leave the cave, and decant them into the larger pots later, in secret.” She tried to smile, and said, “I’m sure this seems quite outlandish to you, commander, but the making and maintaining of the pots is to them a religion in itself.”
    At this point Samuel Vimes was not keen to be heard giving his views about pots, so he contented himself with saying, “Is it possible that another goblin might have stolen the pot? Anyway, what size is ‘quite small’?”
    Miss Beedle gave him a surprised look. “If you trust me on anything, commander, trust me on this. No goblin would dream of stealing another goblin’s pot. The concept of doing so would be totally alien to them, I assure you. The size? Oh, usually similar to a lady’s compact or perhaps a snuffbox. They have a shine on them like opals.”
    â€œYes,” said Vimes, “I know,” and he thought bright colors in the dark . He said, “I don’t want to be difficult, but could I borrow another of the poor lady’s pots? I might need one to show people what it is I’m looking for.”
    Miss Beedle looked surprised again. “That would be impossible , but I think that if I talk to Tears of the Mushroom she might, just might, loan you one of hers, in which case I may say you will be a very special person, commander. A pot usually changes hands only because of distress, but Tears of the Mushroom spends a lot of time with me and has learned, shall I say, the uses of flexible thinking and, if I may say so, she has taken a little bit of a shine to you.”
    She walked away, leaving the startled Vimes and Young Sam to their own devices. Here and there, goblins were doing whatever they did, tending small fires, sleeping, or in many cases fussing with their pots. And a few just sat there staring blankly at nothing at all, like a policeman wondering how you spell phantasmagorical.
    And a new image dragged itself out of Vimes’s memory. It was of a lot of little blue men shouting, “Crivens!” Ah yes, the Nac Mac Feegle! They lived in holes in the ground as well. Admittedly, these were said to be rather more salubrious than this midden-ridden cave system, but however you looked at it, they were in the same situation as the goblins. They lived on the edge too, but they—they danced on the edge, they jumped up and down on it, made faces at it, thumbed their snotty noses at it, refused to see the peril of their situation and, in general, seemed to have a huge appetite for life, alcohol, adventure and alcohol. As a copper, he shouldn’t say it, because they could be a bloody nuisance, but there was something commendable about the cheerfully feisty way they faced, well, everything…
    Somebody tugged at his sleeve. He looked down into the face of Tears of the Mushroom, with Miss Beedle standing over her like a chaperone. The other goblin girls stood behind the pair of them like an Ephebian chorus.
    The solemn voice from the little face said, “Hearts must give, Mr. Po-leess-man.”
    With dreadfully bad timing, Miss Beedle broke in like an overactive schoolteacher, and Vimes was privately overjoyed to see a brief look of annoyance on Tears of the Mushroom’s face.
    â€œShe means that if she is to trust you with a pot, then you must trust her with something equally valuable. I suppose you would call it a hostage situation.”
    No, I wouldn’t, Vimes thought, looking into the dark eyes of the goblin girl. That was a strange thing: when he got past the features, which at best