The Fifth Elephant

round iron helmet, of course. It was one thing to declare that you were female, but quite unthinkable to declare that you weren’t a dwarf.
    “Open and shut case, sir,” she said, when she saw Vimes come in. “They opened the window in the back room to get in, a very neat job, and didn’t shut the front door after they left. Smashed the Scone’s case; there’s the glass all round the stand. Didn’t take anything else that I can see. Left a lot of footprints in the dust. I took a few pictures, but they’re scuffed up and weren’t much good in the first place. That’s about it, really.”
    “No dropped cigarette butts, wallets or bits of paper with an address on them?” said Vimes.
    “No, sir. They were inconsiderate thieves.”
    “They certainly were,” said Carrot grimly.
    “A question that springs to mind,” said Vimes, “is: Why does it reek even worse of cat’s piss now?”
    “It is rather sharp, isn’t it,” said Cheery. “With a hint of sulfur, too. Constable Ping said it was like this when he arrived, but there’s no cat prints.”
    Vimes crouched down and looked at the broken glass.
    “How did we find out about this?” he said, prodding a few fragments.
    “Constable Ping heard the tinkle, sir. He went around the back and saw the window was opened. Then the crooks got out through the front door.”
    “Sorry about that, sir,” said Ping, stepping forward and saluting. He was a cautious-looking young man, who appeared permanently poised to answer a question.
    “We all make mistakes,” said Vimes. “You heard glass break?”
    “Yessir. And someone swore.”
    “Really? What did they say?”
    “Er…‘bugger,’ sir?”
    “And you went around the back and saw the broken window and you…?”
    “I called out ‘is there anyone there?,’ sir.”
    “Really? And what would you have done if a voice had said ‘no’? No, don’t answer that. What happened next?”
    “Er…I heard a lot more glass break and when I got around to the front the door was open and they were gone. So I legged it back to the Yard and told Captain Carrot, sir, knowing he sets a lot of store by this place…”
    “Thank you…Ping, is it?”
    “Yessir.” Entirely unasked, but obviously prepared to answer, Ping said, “It’s a dialect word meaning ‘water-meadow,’ sir.”
    “Off you go, then.”
    The lance-constable visibly sagged with relief, and left.
    Vimes let his mind unfocus a little. He enjoyed moments like these, the little bowl of time when the crime lay before him and he believed that the world was capable of being solved. This was the time you really looked to see what was there, and sometimes the things that weren’t there were the most interesting things of all.
    The Scone had been kept on a plinth about three feet high, inside a case made of five sheets of glass, forming a box that was screwed down on the plinth.
    “They smashed the glass by accident,” he said, eventually.
    “Really, sir?”
    “Look here, see?” Vimes pointed to three loose screws, neatly lined up. “They were trying to take the box apart carefully. It must have slipped.”
    “But what’s the point ?” said Carrot. “It’s just a replica, sir! Even if you could find a buyer, it’s not worth more than a few dollars.”
    “If it’s a good one, you could swap it with the real thing,” said Vimes.
    “Well, yes, I suppose you could try,” said Carrot. “There would be a bit of a problem, though.”
    “What is it?”
    “Dwarfs aren’t stupid, sir. The replica has got a big cross carved into the underside. And it’s only made of plaster in any case.”
    “Oh.”
    “But it was a good idea, sir,” Carrot said encouragingly. “You weren’t to know.”
    “I wonder if the thieves knew.”
    “Even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have a hope of getting away with it, sir.”
    “The real Scone is very well guarded,” said Cheery. “It’s very rare that most dwarfs get a chance to see it.”
    “And other people would notice if you had a great lump of rock up your sweater,” said Vimes, more or less to himself. “So…this was a stupid crime. But it doesn’t feel stupid. I mean, why go to all this trouble? The lock on that door is a joke, you could kick it right out of the woodwork. If I was going to pinch this thing, I could be in here and out again before the glass had stopped tinkling. What would be the point of being quiet at this time of night?”
    The dwarf had been rummaging under a