Snuff

Cheery relented. A. E. Pessimal could probably find something to excite him somewhere in the Gumption ledgers. After all, business was business. But there was business and there was bad business. It didn’t do to get complicated. She stood up. ‘Thank you very much for your assistance, Mister Gumption. We’ll trouble you no further.’

Bewilderforce hesitated and said, ‘What’s up with Fred Colon? He’s a bit of a scrounger, I don’t mind saying, but I would hate anything to have happened to him. It wasn’t … poison or anything, was it?’

‘No, Mister Gumption. His cigar started singing to him.’

‘They don’t usually do that,’ said Bewilderforce nervously. ‘I’ll have to check my stock.’

‘Please do that, sir. And while you’re doing so perhaps you’ll look out this little list of snuff products?’

The tobacconist took it from her carefully. His lips moved and he said, ‘That’s quite a lot of snuff, you know.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Cheery. ‘I’m authorized to pay cash down.’

Bewilderforce looked extremely bewildered. ‘What? Policemen pay?’

Walking the streets in the company of Wee Mad Arthur presented a difficulty even for a dwarf like Cheery Littlebottom. He was around six inches high, so if you spoke to him while you walked you sounded like a madman. On the other hand, he heartily disliked being picked up. You just had to put up with it. Most people made a slight detour if they saw Wee Mad Arthur in any case.

They arrived back at the Watch House and reported to Carrot and the first thing he said to Cheery was, ‘Do you know where there are any goblin caves, Cheery?’

‘No, sir. Why do you ask?’

‘I’ll explain later,’ said Carrot. ‘It’s fairly unbelievable. Did you find out anything from old Gumption?’

Cheery nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Sergeant Colon’s haunted cigar came from Howondaland. no doubt about it.’

Carrot stared at her. ‘I didn’t think there were goblins in Howondaland. All Jolson’s family come from there.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Hang on one moment.’ He ran down the corridor to the canteen and came back followed by Constable Precious Jolson, a lady for whom the word large simply would not do. Everything about her was, as it were, family-sized, including her good nature. Everybody liked Precious. She seemed to be a fountainhead of jolliness with always a cheerful word for anybody, even when she was picking up a brace of drunks and throwing them into the hurry-up wagon.

After brief questioning Precious said, ‘Dad sent me over there last year, remember, wanted me to find my roots. Can’t say I took to it, really. Nice weather. Not much to do. Not very exciting really, unless you try to stroke one of the cats, they get kind of stroppy. Never heard of goblins there, not the sort of place for them, I suspect. Excuse me, captain, can I get back to my tea now?’

The silence that followed was broken by Carrot, who said, ‘Howondaland is months away by boat, and broomsticks don’t work very well over water, even if we could persuade the wizards to lend us one. Any ideas?’

‘Crivens!’ said Wee Mad Arthur. ‘No problemo! I reckon I could get there in less than a day, ye ken.’

They stared at him. Wee Mad Arthur was small enough to ride on the back of any bird larger than a medium-sized hawk – his aerial broadcasts from the sky concerning traffic hold-ups in the city²³

were a regular feature of Ankh-Morpork street life – but all the way to another continent?

He grinned. ‘As ye ken, I was away for a wee while lately, making the acquaintance o’ my brothers, the Nac mac Feegle. Weel, they fly the birds a lot, and there’s a thing they have called the craw step, ye ken? And I reckon I’m canny enough to use it, ye ken.’

‘That’s three kens in one speech, Wee Mad Arthur,’ said Angua, to laughter from the rest of the watchmen. ‘You really got into the Feegle thing, didn’t you!’

‘Oh, ye may scoff, but I’m the only one of ye scunners who knows why we get so many big birds flying over the city at this time o’ year. Ankh-Morpork is hot! See the big plume of smoke and fumes? That’s all heat. It lifts ye up, a free ride that puts the wind under your wings. Have ye heard of the surreptitious albatross? No, because only me and the Professor of Ornithology at the university know about it, and he only knows because I told the scunner. Outside the mating season it never touches ground. That’s not the only thing that’s odd. It’s an eagle masquerading as a type of albatross. Ye could call it a shark o’ the sky, and I reckon one of them will do me nicely. They like the city. They hover up where you’ll never see them unless you really know how to look. There’s always one about, and I could leave today. What you say?’

‘But, constable,’ said Carrot, ‘you’ll freeze that high up in the sky, won’t you?’

‘Oh aye, I ken my thermal drawers may not be sufficient, which is why the word “brandy” is about to enter this conversation. Trust me on this, captain. I reckon I can be back within twa days.’

‘How many is that?’ said Angua.