The Fifth Elephant

stained desk and took out a packet of chocolate biscuits, some of which he arranged daintily on a plate.
    “Does me no good at all to see you acting like this,” Stronginthearm went on, winking at the other dwarfs. “You’ve got it in you to be a really bad copper, Nobby. Breaks my heart to see you throwin’ it all away to become a really bad waitress.”
    “Ha ha ha,” said Nobby. “Just you wait, that’s all I’m saying.” He raised his voice. “Coming right now, Captain!”
    There was a sharp smell of burned paper in the captain’s room when Nobby entered.
    “Nothing cheers up the day like a good fire, I always say,” he said, putting the tray on the desk.
    But Captain Colon wasn’t paying any attention. He’d removed the sugar bowl from the locked drawer of his desk and had laid the cubes out in rows.
    “Do you see anything wrong with these lumps, Corporal?” he said quietly.
    “Well, they’re a bit manky where you’ve been handling them every—”
    “There’s thirty-seven, Corporal.”
    “Sorry about that, Captain.”
    “Visit must’ve pinched them when he was in here. He must’ve used some fancy foreign trick. They can do that, you know. Climb ropes and disappear up the top of ’em, that sort of thing.”
    “Did he have a rope?” said Nobby.
    “Are you making fun of me, Corporal?”
    Nobby saluted. “Nossir! Maybe it was a invisible one, sir. After all, if they can disappear up a rope, they can make the rope disappear, too. Obviously.”
    “Good thinking, Corporal.”
    “On the subject of thinking, sir,” said Nobby, plunging in, “have you had time in your busy schedule to give some thought to the promotion of the new sergeant?”
    “I have, as a matter of fact, put that very thing in hand, Corporal.”
    “Good, sir.”
    “I’ve borne in mind everything you said, and the choice was starin’ me in the face.”
    “Yessir!” said Nobby, sticking out his chest and saluting.
    “I just hope it don’t cause loss of morals. It can do that, when people are promoted. So if there’s any trouble like that, I want the sugar-stealing person reported to me right away, understand?”
    “Yessir!” Nobby’s feet had almost left the ground.
    “And I shall rely on you, Corporal, to let me know if Sergeant Flint has any trouble.”
    “Sergeant Flint,” said Nobby, in a little voice.
    “I know he’s a troll, but I won’t have it said I’m an unfair man.”
    “Sergeant Flint. ”
    “I know I can rely on you, Corporal.”
    “ Sergeant Flint.”
    “That will be all. I’ve got to go and see His Lordship in an hour and I want some time to think for. That’s what my job is, thinking.”
    “Sergeant Flint.”
    “Yes. I should go and report to him if I was you.”

    White chicken feathers were scattered across the field. The farmer stood at the door of his henhouse, shaking his head. He glanced up as a horseman approached.
    “Good morrow, sir! Are you experiencing trouble?”
    The farmer opened his mouth for a witty or at least snappy response, but something stopped him. Perhaps it was the sword the horseman had slung across his back. Perhaps it was the man’s faint smile. The smile was somehow more frightening.
    “Er…somethin’s been at my fowls,” he ventured. “Fox, I reckon.”
    “Wolf, I suspect,” said the rider.
    The man opened his mouth to say “Don’t be daft, we don’t get wolves down here this time of the year,” but again the confident smile made him hesitate.
    “Got many hens, did they?”
    “Six,” said the farmer.
    “And they got in by…”
    “Well, that’s the strange th—Here, keep the dog away!”
    A small mongrel had leapt down from the saddle and was sniffing around the henhouses.
    “He won’t be any trouble,” said the rider.
    “I shouldn’t push your luck, mate. He’s in a funny mood,” said a voice behind the farmer. He turned around quickly.
    The dog looked up at him innocently. Everyone knew that dogs didn’t talk.
    “Woof? Bark? Whine?” it said.
    “He’s highly trained,” said the rider.
    “Yeah, right,” said the voice behind the farmer. He felt an overpowering desire to see the back of the horseman. The smile was getting on his nerves, and now he was hearing things.
    “I can’t see how they got in,” he said. “The door’s latched…”
    “And wolves don’t usually leave payment, right?” said the rider.
    “How the hell did you know that?”
    “Well…several reasons, sir, but I couldn’t help