The Fifth Elephant

months for a ship to round Cape Terror. How much, exactly, would a trader pay to know, within a day, when it had arrived? And how much the cargo was worth? Has it been sold? Is there credit to my name in Ankh-Morpork?
    Coining money? Oh yes!
    And it had caught on as fast as every other craze did in the big city. It seemed as though everybody who could put together a pole, a couple of gargoyles and some secondhand windmill machinery was in on the business. You couldn’t go out to dinner these days without seeing people nip out of the restaurant every five minutes to check that there weren’t any messages for them on the nearest pole. As for those who cut out the middleman and signaled directly to their friends across a crowded room, causing mild contusions to those nearby…
    Vimes shook his head. That was messages without meaning: telepathy without brains.
    But…it had been good, hadn’t it, last week? When Don’t Know Jack had pinched that silver in Sto Lat and then galloped at speed to the sanctuary of the Shades in Ankh-Morpork? And Sergeant Edge of the Sto Lat Watch, who’d trained under Vimes, had put a message on the clacks that arrived on Vimes’s desk more than an hour before Jack sauntered through the city gates and into the waiting embrace of Sergeant Detritus? Legally it had been a bit tricky, since the offense hadn’t been committed on Ankh-Morpork soil and a semaphore message did not, strictly speaking, come under the heading of ‘hot pursuit,’ but Jack had kindly solved that one by taking a wild swing at the troll, resulting in his arrest for Assault on a Watch Officer and treatment for a broken wrist…
    There was a gentle snore from Lady Sybil. A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
    Inigo Skimmer was hunched in a corner, reading a book. Vimes watched him for some time.
    “I’m just going up top for some air,” he said at last, opening the door. The clattering of the wheels filled the tiny, hot space, and dust blew in.
    “Your Grace—” Inigo began, standing up. Vimes, already clambering up the side of the coach, stuck his head back in.
    “You’re not making any friends with that attitude,” he said, and kicked the door shut with his foot.
    Cheery and Detritus had made themselves comfortable on the roof. It was a lot less stuffy and at least there was a view, if vegetables were your idea of a panorama.
    Vimes worked himself into a niche between two bundles and leaned toward Cheery.
    “You know about the clacks, right?” he said.
    “Well, sort of, sir…”
    “Good.” Vimes passed her a piece of paper. “There’s bound to be a tower near where we stop tonight. Cipher this and send it to the Watch, will you? They ought to be able to turn it around in an hour, if they ask the right people. Tell them to try Washable Topsy, she does the laundry there. Or Gilbert Gilbert, he always seems to know what’s going on.”
    Cheery read the message, and then stared at Vimes.
    “Are you sure , sir?” she said.
    “Maybe. Make sure you send the description. Names don’t mean much.”
    “May I ask what makes you think—”
    “His walk. And he didn’t catch an orange,” said Vimes. “Mhm. Mhm.”

    Constable Visit was cleaning out the old pigeon loft when the message arrived on the clacks.
    He had been spending more and more time with the pigeons these days. It wasn’t a popular job, so no one had tried to take it away from him, and at least up here the shouts and door-slammings were muffled.
    The perches gleamed.
    Constable Visit enjoyed his job. He didn’t have many friends in the city. Truth to tell, he didn’t have many friends in the Watch, either. But at least there were people to talk to, and he was making headway with the religious instruction of the pigeons.
    But now there was this…
    It was addressed to Captain Carrot. That meant it probably ought to be delivered to Captain Colon now, and personally , because Captain Colon thought that people were spying on his messages sent via the suction tube.
    Constable Visit had been fairly safe up until now. Omnians were good at not questioning orders, even ones that made no sense. Visit instinctively respected authority, no matter how crazy, because he’d been brought up properly. And he had plenty of time to keep his armor bright. Brightly polished armor had suddenly become very important in the Watch, for some reason.
    Even so, going into Colon’s office needed