The Truth

magic.
    “Am I?” wheezed Nobbs, smoke curling out of his ears.
    “Yes, I’ve been talking to Commander Vimes, and now I would like to see the room where the crime was committed.” William had great hopes of that sentence. It seemed to contain the words “and he gave me permission to” without actually doing so.
    Corporal Nobbs looked uncertain, but then he noticed the notebook. And Otto. The cigarette appeared between his lips again.
    “’Ere, are you from that newspaper?”
    “That’s right,” said William. “I thought people would be interested in seeing how our brave Watch swings into action at a time like this.”
    Corporal Nobbs’s skinny chest visibly swelled.
    “Corporal Nobby Nobbs, sir, probably thirty-four, bin in uniform since prob’ly ten years old, man and boy.”
    William felt he ought to make a show of writing this down.
    “ Probably thirty-four?”
    “Our mam has never been one for numbers, sir. Always a bit vague on fine detail, our mam.”
    “And…” William took a closer look at the corporal. You had to assume he was a human being because he was broadly the right shape, could talk, and wasn’t covered in hair. “Man and boy and…?” he heard himself say.
    “Just man and boy, sir,” said Corporal Nobbs reproachfully. “Just man and boy.”
    “And were you first on the scene, corporal?”
    “Last on the scene, sir.”
    “And your important job is to…?”
    “Stop anyone going through this door, sir,” said Corporal Nobbs, trying to read William’s notes upside down. “That’s ‘Nobbs’ without a ‘K,’ sir. It’s amazing how people get that wrong. What’s he doing with that box?”
    “Got to take a picture of Ankh-Morpork’s finest,” said William, easing himself towards the door. Of course, that was a lie, but since it was such an obvious lie, he considered that it didn’t count. It was like saying the sky was green.
    By now Corporal Nobbs was almost leaving the floor under the lifting power of pride.
    “Could I have a copy for my mam?” he said.
    “Smile, please…”
    “I am smilin’.”
    “Stop smiling, please.”
    Click. WHOOMPH.
    “Aaarghaarghaargh…”
    A screaming vampire is always the center of attention. William slipped into the Oblong Office.
    Just inside the door was a chalk outline. In colored chalk. It must have been done by Corporal Nobbs, because he was the only person who would add a pipe and draw in some flowers and clouds.
    There was also a stink of peppermint.
    There was a chair, knocked over.
    There was a basket, kicked upside down in the corner of the room.
    There was a short, evil-looking metal arrow sticking into the floor at an angle; it had a City Watch label tied to it now.
    There was a dwarf. He—no, William corrected himself, on seeing the heavy leather skirt and the slight raised heels to the iron boots— she was lying down on her stomach, picking at something on the floor with a pair of tweezers. It looked like a smashed jar.
    She glanced up.
    “Are you new? Where’s your uniform?” she said.
    “Well, er, I, er…”
    She narrowed her eyes.
    “You’re not a watchman, are you? Does Mister Vimes know you’re here?”
    The way of the truthful-by-nature is as a bicycle race in a pair of sandpaper underpants, but William clung to an indisputable fact.
    “I spoke to him just now,” he said.
    But the dwarf wasn’t Sergeant Detritus, and certainly not Corporal Nobbs.
    “And he said you could come in here?” she demanded.
    “Not exactly said —”
    The dwarf walked across and swiftly opened the door.
    “Then get—”
    “Ah, a vonderful framing effect!” said Otto, who’d been on the other side of the door.
    Click!
    William shut his eyes.
    WHOOMPH.
    “Ohhbuggerrrrr…”
    This time William caught the little piece of paper before it hit the ground.
    The dwarf stood open-mouthed. Then she closed her mouth. Then she opened it again to say: “What the hell just happened?”
    “I suppose you could call it a sort of industrial injury,” said William. “Hang on, I think I’ve still got a piece of dog food somewhere…honestly, there’s got to be a better way than this…”
    He unwrapped it from a grubby piece of newspaper and gingerly dropped it onto the heap.
    The ash fountained and Otto arose, blinking.
    “How vas that? Vun more? This time wizt the obscurograph?” he said. He was already reaching for his bag.
    “Get out of here right now!” said the dwarf.
    “Oh, please”—William glanced at