AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hardly anyone on the train had looked up as he subtly questioned the dwarf, as subtly as a sledgehammer; it had become an extraordinaryfn68 rule of railway etiquette that other passengers’ conduct and conversation remained their private business, however obtrusive it might be. The dwarf had visibly jumped in his seat when Moist first engaged him, but he was still grave-faced and, yes, still sweating, so Moist carried on like a friend who wants to borrow money.
‘As I said, I never forget an anorak. Taking the long haul to Zemphis, are we?’
The dwarf nodded and said simply, ‘Yes.’
‘Did you see which engine we’ve got?’ said Moist. ‘I tell you what … I’m hearing some trunnion rattle. Can you feel it? Maybe she’s a new one just out of the yard?’
‘Er … yes … I suppose so …’ spluttered the wretched dwarf.
As he considered his next move, Moist looked around. Ah, there was another dwarf, further away, surreptitiously watching him watch the ersatz train spotter. Thinking furiously, he turned his attention back to the sweating dwarf in front of him.
‘Hang on, I’ve seen you before, haven’t I, at the gates of the compound, with your little notebook? We all have our little notebooks, buddy, and mine’s in my luggage over there and yours is the cleanest anorak I’ve ever seen. Real train spotters get covered in muck and smuts … it’s their badge of honour to have a greasy anorak. But you, mister, know nothing about trains or train spotting, do you?’
As he said this, he saw the other dwarf leave his seat and start to walk nonchalantly to the next carriage.
‘You! Wait here!’ Moist barked at the dwarf in front of him as he ran after and jumped on the perambulating dwarf. There were screams of consternation from the other passengers, finally jolted from their careful lack of interest, as Moist rolled off, scrambled to his feet and kicked the dwarf heavily with his plate-layer’s boots, the ones with the metal toecaps; an invitation to lie on the ground in agony, even if you were wearing chainmail.
Moist reached up and pulled the communication cord,fn69 hardly visible overhead, and as the train slid to a screeching halt, he shouted to the passengers, ‘Nobody gets off this train unless they can fly. We’ll soon have company, ladies and gentlemen. This will be something to tell your grandchildren about.’
Reinforcements were already coming from both directions: dark clerks from one and City Watch from the other … this particular portion of the City Watch being Commander Vimes, who took one look and said to everyone present, ‘Nothing to worry about, ladies and gentlemen. This gentleman hadn’t bought a ticket for his journey, and that kind of behaviour makes our railway staff very upset …’
A little later, in the guard’s van, the nervous young dwarf and his saturnine minder were, amazingly, talking to old Stoneface, who was sitting at the guard’s desk and listening intently.
‘Now, gentlemen, something is going on here.’
He held up a large, four-sided knife. The weapon really meant business, not just business, but business with ignominy. The young dwarf was being held between two coppers as the commander spoke to him, smiling like a shark.
‘This, sir, is what assassins call a roundel, and I must tell you that even the professional killers don’t use them. I believe they think it’s cruel and has no finesse. Frankly, I think I’ll agree about that. And I’m wondering, sir, why you’re carrying it on this train?’
Vimes turned to the other dwarf, presently chained to Sergeant Detritus.
‘And you, sir. What was your part in all this? We’re on a moving vehicle, travelling through wilderness where anything could happen. And, you know, anything might happen very soon if I don’t get some answers.’
He turned to an officer and said, ‘Fred. You and Nobby shackle the young one and drag him somewhere where he can be alone with his thoughts and then I’ll continue my little chat with this old feller, who I suspect would very much like to talk to me in a clear, thoughtful, and expansive way, leaving nothing out. You, sir,’ and this was to Moist, ‘I suggest you go back to your seat. I’ll talk to you later.’
Dismissed, and with nothing better to do, Moist resumed his patrol of the carriages. There were long, long miles to Zemphis ahead of them and in some stretches the landscape was so monotonous that another term would have to be devised. To pass the time, he wandered along to the fabled First Class sleeping compartments. Effie had clearly had a hand in these. Whole families in Ankh-Morpork, including aunts and uncles, grannies and granddads and all the kids and possibly their donkey could have slept well in just one of the delightful part bedroom, part drawing rooms.
And when Moist came back to the guard’s van after pacing the corridors and gave the not very secret knock, he found the door opened by Nobby Nobbs, a watchman who though technically human (with a certificate to prove it) was so much like a goblin that he had acquired a goblin girlfriend. Adora Belle had met her many times and she had told Moist that Shine of the Rainbow was throwing herself away on Nobby.
‘Wotcher, Mister Lipwig. You should have been ’ere when Mister Vimes was interrogating that old suspect. He rolled up his sleev
e and the dwarf went mental, and I mean proper mental. He saw that mark, you know, the one on the commander’s wrist, and went, well, totally mental, promising absolutely everything. Never seen anyone so scared in all my life and Vimesy hadn’t even touched him. He broke, sir, that’s the only way I can put it. He broke. I mean, he’s had a go at me on occasions, you know, about such things as what I found on the street and was hurrying to give back to their owner and suchlike. Nothing important. But that dwarf … it was like he melted, sir. Melted! You wouldn’t know Done It Duncan, not being in the Watch, sir, well, the poor bugger owns up to anything just to get a drink and a place to sleep in the cells and maybe a chat and a ham sandwich. But this lawn ornament, he’s got it worse.’
Moist looked around. ‘Where are they now?’
‘In there. And Mister Vimes took the young ’un off somewhere else with Fred.’ Nobby pointed towards the far end of the guard’s van. ‘Mister Lipwig, you know that great idea you had?’
Moist hesitated. ‘Help me, Nobby, I have a lot of great ideas.’
‘Right, sir – the one about sorting the mail on the train, sir?’
And Moist thought, oh yes, and it would work. But Nobby carried on. ‘Well, there’s a special carriage on this train. It has shelves and pigeon holes and everything.’
Inside the mail carriage Moist saw the commander and his new little friend, with Fred Colon. Vimes was talking quite cheerfully to the young dwarf and when he saw Moist he gave a quick gesture indicating that he could listen but shouldn’t disturb the delicate process. There were no signs of fighting or nastiness of any kind and there were two cups of coffee nestling in the wire pigeon holes. The commander, as soothingly as a mother with a new baby, played a theme that put Moist von Lipwig, confidence trickster, liar, cheat, fraud, swindler and king of slyness, the sort that dripped like the venom of a striking cobra, to shame.
‘Oh dear, those grags. Tell me now, which one was it? Come on, help me now.’
‘I can’t remember.’
