The Fifth Elephant

his seat. He produced a curved metal horn and blew one note, which echoed up the rock walls.
    After a few seconds another note floated down from the top. There was a clanking, as of heavy, ancient chains.
    “This is quite a short lift compared to some up in the mountains,” said Dee, as an iron plate ground across the entrance, sealing it. “There’s one half a mile high that will take a string of barges…”
    Water boiled beside the boat. Vimes saw the walls begin to sink.
    “This is the only way to the Scone,” said Dee behind him.
    Now the boat was rocking in the bubbling water and the walls were blurred.
    “Water is diverted into reservoirs up near the peaks. Then it is simply a matter of opening and closing sluices, you see?”
    “Yes,” mumbled Vimes, experiencing vertigo and seasickness in one tight green package.
    The walls slowed. The boat stopped shaking. Smoothly, the water lifted them over the lip of the well and into a little channel, where there was a dock.
    “Any guards below?” Vimes managed, stepping out onto the blessedly solid stone.
    “There are usually four,” said Dee. “For tonight I…arranged matters. The guards understand. No one is proud of this. I must tell you, I disapprove most strongly of this enterprise.”
    Vimes looked around the new cave. A couple of dwarfs were standing on a lip of stone which overlooked what was now a placid pool. By the look of it, they were the ones who operated the machinery.
    “Shall we proceed?” said the dwarf.
    There was a passage leading off the cave, which rapidly narrowed. Vimes had to bend almost double along one length. At one point metal plates clanked under his feet, and he felt them shift slightly. Then he was standing almost upright again, passing under another arch, and there…
    Either the dwarfs had cut into a huge geode, or they had with great care lined this small cave with quartz crystals until every surface reflected the light of the two small candles that stood on pillars in the middle of the sandy floor. The effect dazzled even Vimes, after the darkness of the tunnels.
    “Behold,” said Dee gloomily, “where the Scone should be…”
    A round flat stone, midway between the candles and only a few inches high, clearly contained nothing.
    Behind it, water bubbled up in a natural basin and split into two streams that flowed around the stone and disappeared again into another stone funnel.
    “All right,” said Vimes. “Tell me everything.”
    “It was found missing three days ago,” said Dee. “Dozy Longfinger found it gone when he unlocked the door to replace the candles.”
    “And his job is…?”
    “Captain of the Candles.”
    “Ah.”
    “It’s a very responsible position.”
    “I’ve seen the chandeliers. And how often does he go in there?”
    “He went in there every day.”
    “Went?”
    “He no longer holds the position.”
    “Because he’s a prime suspect?” said Vimes.
    “Because he’s dead.”
    “And how did that happen?” said Vimes, slowly and deliberately.
    “He…took his own life. We are certain of this, because we had to break down the door of his cave. He’d had been Captain of the Candles for sixty years. I do not think he could bear the thought of suspicion falling on him.”
    “To me he does sound a likely suspect.”
    “He did not steal the Scone. We know that much.”
    “But the robes you people wear could hide practically anything. Was he searched?”
    “Certainly not! But…I shall demonstrate,” said Dee. He walked off along the narrow, metal-floored corridor.
    “Can you see me, Your Excellency?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    The floor rattled as Dee came back. “Now this time I will carry something…your helmet, if you please? Just for the demonstration…”
    Vimes handed it to him. The Ideas-taster walked back down the corridor. When he was halfway, a gong boomed and two metal grids dropped down out of the ceiling. A few seconds after that guards appeared at the far grille, peering in suspiciously.
    Dee said a few words to them. The faces vanished. After a while, the grilles rose slowly.
    “The mechanism is complex and quite old but we keep it in good working order,” he said, handing Vimes his helmet. “If you weigh more going out than going in, the guards will want to know why. It is unavoidable, it is still accurate to within a few ounces, and does not violate privacy. The only way to beat it would be to fly. Can thieves fly, Your Excellency?”
    “Depends on