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And once again Moist had to explain the facts of life, making it clear that refusing to serve goblins would very soon lead to her not feeding anyone else at all once Lord Vetinari had been informed. Fat Marie’s was on Ankh-Morpork land and Vetinari was strict.
‘After all,’ Moist said, ‘they’ll sit outside, they really don’t like rooms, and I’m paying, okay?’
Suitably chastened, Fat Marie shovelled out rather bad fish and chips and a fried slice to every goblin and was amazed at how fast they ate, especially the fried slice. That was one thing about the goblins, they weren’t fussy.
After their meal, Moist arranged for the goblins to travel on to Harry’s compound in the freight trucks of the utility engine that serviced the railhead, went to find the golem horse, still obediently rolling and galloping in the meadow, and headed back towards the city.
Harry King was close to incandescent at the best of times, but the state of mind he was in when he heard the news of the massacre could only be described as volcanic: one of those slumbering volcanoes that suddenly go off pop and the calm sea is instantly awash with dirty pumice and surprised people in togas. Moist tried to calm him down, but that was like trying to put a cap on a geyser, and you can’t do that, especially not to a geezer like Harry King. Then the explosion became tears, the bubbling and sticky tears of a hard man who would never want anybody to see him cry.
Learning that Moist himself had got rid of a few of the dwarfs responsible helped, but even so Harry continued to dribble snot on to a very expensive
tie while calling down the wrath of the gods on to the remains of the culprits, with a footnote that the gods had better get to them before Harry’s curses did.
Moist offered to tell the workers’ next of kin, but Harry declared that he would do the job himself. He set off on this doleful task immediately, leaving Moist with nothing to do but collect Of the Twilight the Darkness and the band of Quirmian goblins who had meanwhile arrived at the compound and were being entertained by Billy Slick and his grandmother.
When he arrived home in Scoone Avenue, Adora Belle opened the door herself. Moist, as ever, was impressed by her sang froid as she surveyed the motley group of Quirmian goblins he had in his wake. ‘So good to see you again, Spike,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought you some little presents. Say it with goblins, as you might say.’
‘How many are there, do you think?’ she enquired.
‘Two hundred or more,’ said Moist. ‘I haven’t really been counting.’
‘I suggest that Of the Twilight the Darkness takes them over to the Tump Tower where there’s enough room in the basement for them to sleep.’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Of course not. Quite a lot of my best goblins are taking holidays to the Shires and elsewhere. We’re very short. Well done, you!’
As soon as Moist had seen the goblins on their way, the Ankh-Morpork Watch metaphorically felt his collar. As collars go, Moist’s was expensive, but a little the worse for wear after the fight with the dwarfs.
In this case, the hand doing the feeling belonged to Captain Angua, who asked him to accompany her to the Yard in tones that did not allow for an argument.
Once ensconced in an interview room, she took down his statement about the massacre in a deliberately methodical way, asking pointed questions, which was to say pointed at Moist.
‘So you, Mister von Lipwig, took down a bunch of dwarf terrorists with the help of a number of goblins, yes? You must like goblins, then?’
‘Yes, and so does Commander Vimes, captain,’ Moist snapped. ‘Tell me, where is Chuckles today?’
It was worth it to see the captain grimace; if you looked carefully you could see the outline of the fangs. It was a risky move, but he had a reputation to live down and cheeking the Watch was a pastime he cherished and was very good at. They were altogether too stuffy and Captain Angua, try as she might, looked stunning in her uniform, especially when she was angry.
‘With the Patrician,’ she growled. ‘An attack on the railway is an attack on Ankh-Morpork. With delvers involved there is a possible connection with the attacks on the clacks. All of this needs to be investigated and it would have been helpful if one of the perpetrators had been left alive and available for interrogation.’
Moist almost choked, saying, ‘Captain, when a lot of unpleasant people are trying to kill you, it’s hard to remember that leaving one of them alive might be a spiffy idea. You have other things on your mind such as, maybe, not dying yourself. If it’s any help, I think you’ll find that the Marquis des Aix en Pains will by now have sent iconographs of the dwarfs who did this. The Marquis is a decent bloke and generally helpful and keen to have the railway, so I’m certain that you’ll get your evidence.’
And as he thought that, mischief rose in Moist’s mind and he said, ‘And I know that you yourself can travel very fast, captain. They might still be fresh if you hurry.’
This time it was not a black look that Moist got. It was a look that said patience was about to crack.
Fortunately, the door opened just at the right time and Commander Vimes entered, his expression grim.
‘Ah, Mister Lipwig, please follow me to my office, if you’d be so good. I always know when you’re in the building.’ He nodded at the simmering Angua and said, ‘I’ll deal with Mister von Lipwig, captain.’
Moist was unsure about how much Commander Vimes actually disliked him. After all, the man was so straight that you could use him as a pencil, whilst Moist, on the other hand, despite the success of the Post Office and the Royal Bank and even the wonderful new Mint, was still seen by Vimes and many others as bent as an old spoon and most certainly up to no good.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ Commander Vimes asked as they entered his office. ‘The pot downstairs is always on and it doesn’t always taste of mud.’ He opened the door again and shouted down, ‘Two coffees up here, please, Cheery, one black, and you can empty the sugar bowl into mine.’
Moist was somewhat disorientated, because Vimes was acting in a way that, if looked at forensically, might even have been somewhere within the circumference of friendly, rather like, he supposed, an alligator yawning. The commander was now back in his chair, and, yes, smiling.
The truth was that between Moist von Lipwig and Commander Vimes there was a certain … what they politely called a difference of opinion. Sam Vimes did not live in the same world as Moist von Lipwig. Did the man ever laugh, he wondered – the commander must have done something funny at some time. Probably he’d laughed at somebody falling over a cliff or suchlike.
