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“Aye, sir. And according to Captain Angua we have to find a goblin cave to break the fluence, ye ken? Sounds a wee bitty weird to me, but half the Watch is oot searching the
place for goblins and they cannae find even one o’ the poor wee beings, being as the wee beasties is hardly going tae advertise these days, if you are getting my meaning.” Once again Wee Mad Arthur looked at Vimes.
“Sergeant Colon!”
“That’s what I told you, sir.”
The blood came back to Vimes’s face as rational thought came back to his brain. “Can he travel?” Wee Mad Arthur shrugged. Ahead of them the Queen of Quirm seemed a little closer. “Then if you please, constable, can you go back to the clacks at the Quirm Watch House and tell them to put Fred on a coach to Ramkin Hall as soon as possible, okay?” Vimes added, “Best if Cheery comes with him, I should think.” And in his head he added, Fred Colon! He hates anything non-human, on the quiet. And for now he left it at that, given what lay ahead, but thought, Fred Colon! I wonder what kind of pots he would make.
Behind him, Wee Mad Arthur whistled a strange note and a seagull trailing the cutter in the vague hope of a free meal of fish entrails found a weight on its back and a voice in its ear saying, “Hello, beastie, my name is Wee Mad Arthur.”
Vimes liked to have his feet on something solid, such as his boots, and he liked his boots to do likewise. The sail of the Queen of Quirm now clearly visible, the cutter left the safety of the harbor and hit what is generally known as a moderate swell. And Commander Vimes, the Duke of Ankh-Morpork, Sir Samuel Vimes and, not least, Blackboard Monitor Vimes, was definitely going to eat his bacon sandwiches and not throw up in front of other watchmen.
And he didn’t, and didn’t know how, although he did at one point think he detected, high in the rigging, the shape of a small goblin grinning down at him. He put it down to the bacon sandwiches, which were valiantly trying to come back up, just as he valiantly kept them down.
Stratford would have got onto that damn hulk, he was sure of it. Damn sure of it. He would want paying, for one thing, and he wouldn’t want hanging. Vimes hesitated. How sure of it should Vimes be? How much was he prepared to gamble on a hunch? It was Stratford after all. He was smart and nasty, so you covered every angle, even though you knew that a smart man in a hurry could find a new angle for himself.
And so all the people who made up Sam Vimes walked backward and forward across the poop deck, or the scuppers or the starboard or whatever the damn slippery rocking wood he was standing on was called, veering between hope, nausea, despair, self-doubt, nausea and the thrill of the chase and nausea, while the cutter seemed to hit the hard bits of every wave as it plunged onward after the Queen of Quirm and justice.
The lieutenant came up to him and saluted, quite smartly, and said, “Commander, you have asked us to pursue the ship because it is carrying goblins, but I know of no law against taking goblins anywhere.”
“There ought to be a law, because there certainly is a crime, do you understand?” said Vimes. He patted the lieutenant on the shoulder and continued, “Congratulations! This cutter of yours is actually traveling faster than the law. Lieutenant, the law will catch up. Goblins can speak, they have a society and I’ve heard one of them play music that would make a bronze statue burst into tears. The process of modern policing is such that I’m certain that these have been taken from their home, and the ship that we’re following is taking them somewhere where they don’t want to go. Look, if you’re queasy about it, just help me get on that ship and I’ll sort things out by myself, okay? And, besides, I believe our murderer could be on the boat as well. But, it’s up to you, lieutenant.”
Vimes nodded toward the prow and added, “We’re so close I can see the faces of their crew. Maybe you should tell me your intentions, lieutenant?”
Vimes felt a little sorry for the lad, but not too much. He had taken the job, he had accepted the promotion and the money that went with it, hadn’t he? Any copper worth his truncheon would at least take a look at the Queen now they’d come this far, wouldn’t they?
“Very well, commander,” said the lieutenant. “I’m not sure of my bearings, but we will hail the Queen and ask permission to come aboard.”
“No! You don’t ask! You tell them to stand by to be inspected by the police! And if you’re not concerned about the goblins, then it is a fact that I am in pursuit of a murderer,” Vimes added. “The capital crime—one that we can’t ignore!”
In fact, he could see the Queen was already heaving two.* It was even hoisting a white flag, much to his surprise.
And her captain was waiting for them as the cutter drew alongside. He had a look of resignation on his face, and said, “We won’t make any trouble, officers. I know it was a bloody stupid thing to do. We’ve got the man you’re looking for, and we’re bringing him up now. It’s not like we’re pirates, after all. Good morning, Lieutenant Perdix, sorry to put you to any trouble.”
Vimes turned to the lieutenant. “You know the captain?”
“Oh yes, commander, Captain Murderer is well respected on this coast,” said the lieutenant as the cutter gently kissed the Queen. “Smuggles, of course, they all do it. It’s a sort of game.”
“But Captain…Murderer?” said Vimes.
The lieutenant scrambled on to the Queen’s deck with ease and gave Vimes a hand up, saying, “The Murderers are a highly respected family in these parts. To tell you the truth, commander, I think they rather like the name. They’d object more to Smuggler, I suspect.”
“We’re bringing the bloke up right now, lieutenant,” said the captain, “and he ain’t very happy.”
Vimes looked him up and down and said, “I’m Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch, currently investigating at least two murders.”
Captain Murderer’s eyes shut, and he put a hand over his mouth for a moment before saying, in a voice weeping with forlorn hope, “That wouldn’t be that Commander Vimes, would it?”
“Captain…Murderer…produce for me the man I’m after, then I’m sure you’ll find me on a friendly footing. Do you get my meaning?”
There was some shouting and thumping down below and several suggestions that somebody was getting kicked very hard. Eventually a man with a cloth tied round his face as a blindfold was half pushed and half dragged up onto the deck. “To tell you the truth, I’ll be glad to see the back of him,” said the captain, turning away.
Vimes made sure the man was held fast by the sailors, and pulled down the mask. He looked into bloodshot eyes for a moment and then, very calmly, said, “Lieutenant, will you please impound the Queen of Quirm and arrest the captain and first mate on a charge of kidnapping and possibly abduction of a number of persons, specifically Mr. Jethro Jefferson, also goblins to the number of fifty or more. There may be other charges.
“You can’t abduct goblins,” said Captain Murderer. “Goblins is cargo!”
Vimes let this one pass for the moment. Captain Murderer would be orientated to the world as seen by Commander Vimes at Commander Vimes’s leisure. For now he said to the lieutenant, “I also suggest that you lock up the captain and first mate in the brig, if that is what it’s called, because when Mr. Jefferson here has got his hands free I think he’s going to try to punch somebody’s lights out. I’m sure this can all be sorted out, but someone’s going to suffer for this and it’s just a matter of deciding who it’s going to be.”
