Snuff

carried? He pulled and pulled at the bundles, and one, almost at the bottom of the barrel, was noticeably heavier than the others. Trying to keep his expression unchanged, he handed the heavy bundle to Feeney and said, ‘I’d be grateful if you and Mister Dave would open this bundle and tell me what you see inside.’
    He sat down on the barrel and took a pinch of snuff while behind him he heard the rustling, and then Feeney said, ‘Well, commander, what this appears to be—’
    Vimes held up a hand. ‘Does it look like stone dust to you, Feeney?’
    ‘Yes, but—’
    Vimes held up his hand again. ‘Does it appear to have little red and blue flecks in it when you hold it to the light?’
    Sometimes the ancestral copper in Feeney picked up the vibration. ‘Yes, Commander Vimes!’
    ‘Then it’s a good job for you and your friend Dave’ – Vimes glanced at the said Dave for the second time and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt – ‘that the two of you are not trolls, because if you were you’d be stone dead, as it were, right now. The stuff you are holding is Crystal Slam , I’d bet my badge on it. Troll kids use it as a drug, do you know that? They take a hit as small as your little pinky and think they can walk through walls, which they invariably do, too, and when they’ve done it a few times more they drop down dead. It’s illegal everywhere in the world, and very difficult to make because the smell when they’re boiling it up is unmistakable; you get a lot of sparks too. Selling it is a hanging offence in Ankh-Morpork, Uberwald and every troll city. Diamond King of Trolls gives a very handsome bounty to anyone who presents him with evidence of manufacture.’
    Vimes looked hopefully at the aforesaid Dave, just in case the man would take the bait. No, he thought, they wouldn’t do it round here. All this tobacco must come from somewhere hot, and that means a long way away.
    Gingerly, they broke open other barrels and found plenty of tobacco and several packs of very high-class cigars, one or two of which Vimes put in his breast pocket for detailed forensic examination later, and, somewhere at the bottom of every barrel, there were neat packets of Crystal Slam, Slunkie, Slab, Slice and Slap, all of them very nasty – although Slap was generally considered to be a recreational drug, at least if your idea of recreation was waking up in the gutter not knowing whose head you had on.
    As many samples as possible were piled into the coach and Vimes only stopped when it started to creak. The other barrels were piled up and, at Vimes’s instigation, a very proud Chief Constable Upshot set fire to them. When the controlled drugs caught alight there was a brief display of pyrotechnics and Vimes thought to himself that this was only the start of the fireworks.
    As people came running out to see what was happening, Vimes reassured them of his bona fides and explained that Mister Flutter would be away for a while, and could somebody please look after the birds. The responses he got made it clear that the neighbourhood considered a world without Mister Flutter and his stinking turkeys would be a much better world, so the last thing that Vimes did was to open the sheds and let the wretched creatures take their chances.
    As a last little bright idea, Vimes beckoned to the nervous Dave and said, ‘Diamond King of Trolls will be very appreciative of this day’s work. Of course, as serving officers we wouldn’t be able to take any remuneration …’
    ‘We wouldn’t?’ said Feeney hopelessly.
    Vimes ignored this and continued, ‘I will, however, see to it that your help today is suitably rewarded.’ The publican’s face lit up. Something about the words diamond and rewarded in the same sentence does that to a face.
    They travelled with the creaking coach doors locked, but with a window slightly open because Mister Flutter was currently not somebody you would wish to be in any confined space with: he appeared to be sweating turkeys.
    King’s evidence! That was a result! Flutter hadn’t thought about arguing, and Vimes had seen his expression as the Summoning Dark’s statement was presented to him. Vimes had noticed every wince and shiver of recollection that, taken together, added up to rights well banged. King’s evidence! Any man would opt for that to save his skin, or maybe for a better class of cell. You took King’s evidence to save your miserable hide and it might indeed do so, but