Making Money (Discworld #36) - Page 6

Jailbreak  –  The prospect of the kidney sandwich  –  The barber-surgeon's knock  –  Suicide by paint, inadvisability of  –  Angels at one remove  –  Igor goes shopping  –  The use of understudies at a hanging, reflections on  –  Places suitable for putting a head  –  Moist awaits the sunshine  –  Tricks with your brain  –  'We're going to need some bigger notes'  –  Fun with root vegetables  –  The lure of clipboards  –  The impossible cabinet

ON THE ROOF OF the Tanty, the city's oldest jail, Moist was more than moist. He'd reached the point where he was so wet that he should be approaching dryness from the other end.

With care, he lifted the last of the oil lamps from the little semaphore tower on the flat roof, and tossed its contents into the howling night. They had been only half full in any case. It was amazing that anyone had even bothered to light them on a night like this.

He felt his way back to the edge of the roof and located his grapnel, moving it gently around the stern crenellation and then letting out more rope to lower it down to the invisible ground. Now he had the rope around the big stone bulk he slid down holding on to both lengths and pulled the rope down after him. He stashed both grapnel and rope among the debris in an alley; they would be stolen within an hour or so.

Right, then. Now for it…

The Watch armour he'd lifted from the bank's locker room fitted like a glove. He'd have preferred it to fit like a helmet and breastplate. But in truth it probably didn't look any better on its owner, currently swanking along the corridors in the bank's own shiny but impractical armour. It was common knowledge that the Watch's approach to uniforms was one-size-doesn't-exactly-fit-anybody, and that Commander Vimes disapproved of armour that didn't have that kicked-by-trolls look. He liked armour to state clearly that it had been doing its job.

Moist took some time to get his breath back, and then walked round to the big black door and rang the bell. The mechanism rattled and clanked. They wouldn't rush, not on a night like this.

He was as naked and exposed as a baby lobster. He hoped he'd covered all the angles, but angles were  –  what did they call it, he'd gone to a lecture at the university… ah, yes. Angles were fractal. Each one was full of smaller angles. You couldn't cover them all. The watchman at the bank might be called back to work and find his locker empty, someone might have seen Moist take it, Jenkins might have been moved… The hell with it. When time was pressing you just had to spin the wheel and be ready to run.

Or, in this case, lift the huge door knocker in both hands and bring it down sharply, twice, on the nail. He waited until, with difficulty, a small hatch in the door was pulled aside.

'What?' said a petulant voice in a shadowy face.

'Prisoner pick-up. Name of Jenkins.'

— Advertisement —

'What? It's the middle of the bleedin' night!'

'Got a signed Form 37,' said Moist stolidly.

The little hatch slammed shut. He waited in the rain again. This time it was three minutes before it opened.

'What?' said a new voice, marinated in suspicion.

Ah, good. It was Bellyster. Moist was glad of that. What he was going to do tonight was going to make one of the warders a very uncomfortable screw, and some of them were decent enough, especially on Death Row. But Bellyster was a real old-school screw, a craftsman of small evils, the kind of bully who would take every opportunity to make a prisoner's life a misery. It wasn't just that he'd gob in your bowl of greasy skilly; but he wouldn't even have the common decency to do it where you couldn't see him. He picked on the weak and frightened, too. And there was another good thing. Bellyster hated the Watch, and the feeling was mutual. A man could use that.

'Come for a pris'ner,' Moist complained. An' I been standing in the rain for five minutes!'

'And you shall continue to do so, my son, oh, yes indeed, until I'm ready. Show me the docket!'

'Says here Jenkins, Owlswick,' said Moist.

'Let me see it, then!'

'They said I has to hand it over when you give me the pris'ner,' said Moist, a model of stolid insistence.

'Oh, we have a lawyer here, do we? All right, Abe, let my learned friend in.'

The hatch slid back and, after some more clanking, a wicket door opened. Moist stepped through. It was raining just as hard inside the compound.

'Have I seen you before?' said Bellyster, his head on one side.

'Only started last week,' said Moist. Behind him, the door was locked again. The slamming of the bolts echoed in his head.

'Why's there only one of you?' Bellyster demanded.

'Don't know, sir. You'd have to ask my mum and dad.'

'Don't you be funny with me! There should be two on escort duty!'

Moist gave a wet and weary shrug of pure uninterest. 'Should there? Don't ask me. They just told me he's a little piece of piss who'll be no trouble. You can check if you like. I heard the palace wants to see him right away.'

The palace. That changed the gleam in the warder's nasty little eyes. A sensible man didn't get in the way of the palace. And sending out some dim newbie to do a thankless task on a wild night like this made sense; it was exactly what Bellyster would have done.

He held out his hand and demanded: 'Docket!'

Moist handed over the flimsy paper. The man read it, lips perceptibly moving, clearly willing it to be wrong in some way. There'd be no problem there, however much the man glared; Moist had pocketed a handful of the forms while Mr Spools had been making him a cup of coffee.

'He's goin' to hang in the morning,' Bellyster said, holding the sheet up to the lantern. 'What d'they want him for now?'

'Dunno,' said Moist. 'Get a move on, will you? I'm on my break in ten minutes.'

The warder leaned forward. 'Just for that, friend, I will go and check. Just one escort? Can't be too careful, can I?'

O-kay, thought Moist. All going to plan. He'll be ten minutes having a nice cup of tea, just to teach me a lesson, five minutes to find out the clacks isn't working, about one second to decide that he'll be blowed if he's going to sort out the fault on a night like this, another second to think: the paperwork was okay, he'd checked for the watermark, and that was the main thing… call it twenty minutes, give or take.

Of course, he could be wrong. Anything could happen. Bellyster could be rounding up a couple of his mates right now, or maybe he'd get someone to run out the back way and find a real copper. The future was uncertain. Exposure could be a few seconds away.

It didn't get any better than this.

Bellyster left it for twenty-two minutes. Footsteps approached, slowly, and Jenkins appeared, tottering under the weight of the irons, with Bellyster prodding him occasionally with his stick. There was no way the little man could have gone any faster, but he was going to get prodded anyway.

'I don't think I'm going to need the shackles,' said Moist quickly.

'You ain't getting 'em,' said the warder. 'The reason bein', you buggers never bring 'em back!'

'Okay,' said Moist. 'C'mon, it's freezing out here.'

Bellyster grunted. He was not a happy man. He bent down, unlocked the shackles, and stood up again with his hand once more on the man's shoulder. His other hand thrust out, holding a clipboard.

'Sign!' he commanded. Moist did so.

And then came the magic bit. It was why the paperwork was so important, in the greasy world of turnkeys, thief-takers and bang-beggars, because what really mattered at any one moment was habeas corpus: whose hand is on the collar? Who is responsible for this corpus?

Moist had been through this before as the body in question, and knew the drill. The prisoner moved on a trail of paper. If he was found without a head, then the last person to have signed for a prisoner whose hat was not resting on his neck might well have to answer some stern questions.

Bellyster pushed the prisoner forward and spake the time-honoured words: 'To you, sir!' he barked. 'Habby arse corparse!'

Moist thrust the clipboard back at him and laid his other hand on Owlswick's other shoulder. 'From you, sir!' he replied. 'I habby his arse all right!'

Bellyster grunted and removed his hand. The deed was done, the law was observed, honour was satisfied and Owlswick Jenkins  –

–  looked up sadly at Moist, kicked him hard in the groin, and went off down the street like a hare.

As Moist bent double, all he was aware of outside his little world of pain was the sound of Bellyster laughing himself silly and shouting: 'Your bird, milord! You habbyed him all right! Ho yus!'

Moist had managed to walk normally by the time he got back to the little room he rented from I-don't-know Jack. He struggled into the golden suit, dried off the armour, bundled it into the bag, stepped out into the alley and hurried back to the bank.

It was harder to get back in than it had been to get out. The guards changed over at the same time as the staff left, and in the general milling about Moist, wearing the tatty grey suit he wore when he wanted to stop being Moist von Lipwig and turn into the world's most unmemorable man, had strolled out unquestioned. It was all in the mind: the night guards started guarding when everyone had gone home, right? So people going home were no problem or, if they were, they were not mine.

The guard who finally turned up to see who was struggling to unlock the front door gave him a bit of trouble until a second guard, who was capable of modest intelligence, pointed out that if the chairman wanted to get into the bank at midnight then that was fine. He was the damn boss, wasn't he? Don't you read the papers? See the gold suit? And he had a key! So what if he had a big fat bag? He was coming in with it, right? If he was leaving with it that might be a different matter, ho ho, just my little joke, sir, sorry about that sir…

It was amazing what you could do if you had the nerve to try, thought Moist, as he bid the men goodnight. F'r instance, he'd been so theatrically working the key in the lock because it was a Post Office key. He didn't have one for the bank yet.

Even putting the armour back in the locker was not a problem. The guards still walked set routes and the buildings were big and not very well lit. The locker room was empty and unregarded for hours at a time.

A lamp was still alight in his new suite. Mr Fusspot was snoring on his back in the middle of the in-tray. A night-light was burning by the bedroom door. In fact there were two, and they were the red, smouldering eyes of Gladys.

'Would You Like Me To Make You A Sandwich, Mr Lipwig?'

'No, thank you, Gladys.'

'It Would Be No Trouble. There Are Kidneys In The Ice Room.'

'Thank you, but no, Gladys. I'm really not hungry,' said Moist, carefully shutting the door.

Moist lay on the bed. Up here, the building was absolutely silent. He'd grown used to his bed in the Post Office, where there was always noise drifting up from the yard.

But it was not the silence that kept him awake. He stared up at the ceiling and thought: stupid, stupid, stupid! In a few hours there would be a shift change at the Tanty. People wouldn't get too worried about the missing Owlswick until the hangman turned up looking busy, and then there would be a nervous time when they decided who was going to go to the palace to see if there was any chance of being allowed to hang their prisoner this morning.

The man would be miles away by now, and not even a werewolf could smell him on a wet and windy night like this. They couldn't pin anything on Moist, but in the cold wet light of two a.m. he could imagine bloody Commander Vimes worrying at this, picking away at it in that thick-headed way of his.

He blinked. Where would the little man run to? He wasn't part of a gang, according to the Watch. He'd just made his own stamps. What kind of a man goes to the trouble of forging a ha'penny stamp?

What kind of a man…

Moist sat up. Could it be that easy?

Well, it might be. Owlswick was crazy enough in a mild, bewildered sort of way. He had the look of one who'd long ago given up trying to understand the world beyond his easel, a man for whom cause and effect had no obvious linkage. Where would a man like that hide?

Moist lit the lamp and walked over to the battered wreckage of his wardrobe. Once again he selected the tatty grey suit. It had sentimental value; he had been hanged in it. And it was an unmemorable suit for an unmemorable man, with the additional advantage, unlike black, of not showing up in the dark. Thinking ahead, he went into the kitchen, too, and stole a couple of dusters from a cupboard.

The corridor was reasonably well lit by the lamps every few yards. But lamps create shadows and in one of them, beside a huge Ping Dynasty vase from Hunghung, Moist was just a patch of grey on grey.

A guard walked past, treacherously silent on the thick carpet. When he'd gone, Moist hurried down the flight of marble steps and tucked himself behind a potted palm that someone had thought it necessary to put there.

The floors of the bank all opened on to the main hall which, like the one in the Post Office, went from ground floor to roof. Sometimes, depending on the layout, a guard on a floor above could see the floor below. Sometimes, the guards walked over uncarpeted marble. Sometimes, on the upper floors, they crossed patches of fine tiling which rang like a bell.

Moist stood and listened, trying to pick up the rhythm of the patrols. There were more than he'd expected. Come on, lads, you're working security: what about the traditional all-night poker game! Don't you know how to behave?

It was like a wonderful puzzle. It was better than night-climbing, better even than Extreme Sneezing! And the really good thing about it was this: if he was caught, why, he was just testing the security! Well done, lads, you found me…

But he mustn't be caught.

A guard came upstairs, walking slowly and deliberately. He leaned against the balustrade and, to Moist's annoyance, lit the stub of a cigarette. Moist watched from between the fronds while the man leaned comfortably on the marble, looking down at the floor below. He was sure that guards weren't supposed to do this. And smoking, too!

After a few reflective drags, the guard dropped the dog-end, trod on it and continued up the stairs.

Two thoughts struggled for dominance in Moist's mind. Screaming slightly louder was: he had a crossbow! Do they shoot first to avoid having to ask questions later? But also there, vibrating with indignation, was a voice saying: he stubbed out that damn cigarette right there on the marble! Those tall brass wossnames with the little bowls of white sand are there for a reason, you know!

When the man had disappeared above him Moist ran down the rest of the flight, slid across the polished marble on his duster-covered boots, found the door that led down to the basement, opened it quickly and remembered just in time to close it quietly behind him.

He shut his eyes and waited for cries or sounds of pursuit.

He opened his eyes.

There was the usual brilliant light at the far end of the undercroft, but there was no rushing of water. Only the occasional drip demonstrated the depth of the otherwise all-pervading silence.

Moist walked carefully past the Glooper, which tinkled faintly, and into the unexplored shadows beneath the wonderful fornication.

If we build it, wilt thou comest? he thought. But the hoped-for god never came. It was sad but, in some celestial way, a bit stupid. Well, wasn't it? Moist had heard that there were maybe millions of little gods floating around in the world, living under rocks, blown about like tumbleweed, clinging to the topmost branches of trees… They awaited the big moment, the lucky break that might end up with a temple and a priesthood and worshippers to call your own. But they hadn't come here, and it was easy to see why.

Gods wanted belief, not rational thinking. Building the temple first was like giving a pair of wonderful shoes to a man with no legs. Building a temple didn't mean you believed in gods, it just meant you believed in architecture.

Something akin to a workshop had been built on the end wall of the undercroft, around a huge and ancient fireplace. An Igor was working over an intense, blue-white flame, carefully bending a piece of glass pipe. Behind him, green liquid surged and fizzed in giant bottles: Igors seemed to have a natural affinity with lightning.

You could always recognize an Igor. They went out of their way to be recognized. It wasn't just the musty dusty old suits, or even the occasional extra digit or mismatched eyes. It was that you could probably stand a ball on the top of their head without it falling off.

The Igor looked up. 'Good morning, thur. And you are… ?'

'Moist von Lipwig,' said Moist. 'And you would be Igor.'

'Got it in one, thur. I have heard many good thingth about you.'

'Down here?'

'I alwayth keep an ear to the ground, thur.'

Moist resisted the impulse to look down. Igors and metaphors didn't go well together.

'Well, Igor… the thing is… I want to bring someone into the building without troubling the guards, and I wondered if there was another door down here?'

What he did not say, but which passed between them on the ether, was: you're an Igor, right? And when the mob are sharpening their sickles and trying to break down the door, the Igor is never there. Igors were masters of the unobtrusive exit.

'There ith a thmall door we uthe, thur. It can't be opened from the outthide, tho it'th never guarded.'

Moist looked longingly at the rainwear on its stand. 'Fine. Fine. I'm just popping out, then.'

'You're the bothth, thur.'

'And I shall be popping back shortly with a man. Er, a gentleman who is not anxious to meet civic authority.'

'Quite, thur. Give them a pitchfork and they think they own the bloody plathe, thur.'

'But he's not a murderer or anything.'

'I'm an Igor, thur. We don't athk quethtionth.'

'Really? Why not?

'I don't know, thur. I didn't athk.'

Igor took Moist to a small door that opened into a grimy trash-filled stairwell, half flooded by the unremitting rain. Moist paused on the threshold, the water already soaking into his cheap suit. 'Just one thing, Igor…'

'Yeth, thur?'

'When I walked past the Glooper just now, there was water in it.'

'Oh, yeth, thur. Ith that a problem?'

'It was moving, Igor. Should that be happening at this time of night?'

'That? Oh, jutht thyphonic variableth, thur. It happenth all the time.'

'Oh, the old syphonics, eh? Ah, well, that's a relief – '

'Jutht give the barber-thurgeon'th knock when you return, thur.'

'What is the – '

The door closed.

Inside, Igor went back to his workbench and fired up the gas again.

Some of the little glass tubes lying beside him on a piece of green felt looked… odd, and reflected the light in disconcerting ways.

The point about Igors… the thing about Igors… Well, most people looked no further than the musty suit, lank hair, cosmetic clan scars and stitching, and the lisp. And this was probably because, apart from the lisp, this was all there was to see.

And people forgot, therefore, that most of the people who employed Igors were not conventionally sane. Ask them to build a storm attractor and a set of lightning storage jars and they would laugh at you.[5] They needed, oh, how they needed someone in possession of a fully working brain, and every Igor was guaranteed to have at least one of those. Igors were, in fact, smart, which was why they were always elsewhere when the fiery torches hit the windmill.

And they were perfectionists. Ask them to build you a device and you wouldn't get what you asked for. You'd get what you wanted.

In its web of reflections, the Glooper glooped. Water rose in a thin glass tube and dripped into a little glass bucket, which tipped on to a tiny seesaw and caused a tiny valve to open.

Owlswick Jenkins's recent abode, according to the Times, was Short Alley. There wasn't a house number because Short Alley was only big enough for one front door. The door in question was shut but hanging by one hinge. A scrap of black and yellow rope indicated, for those who hadn't spotted the clue of the door, that the place had come to the recent attention of the Watch.

The door fell off the hinge when Moist pushed at it, and landed in the stream of water that was gushing down the alley.

It wasn't much of a search, because Owlswick hadn't bothered to hide. He was in a room on the first floor, surrounded by mirrors and candles, a dreamy look on his face, peacefully painting.

He dropped the brush when he saw Moist, grabbed a tube that lay on a bench, and held it in front of his mouth, ready to swallow.

'Don't make me use this! Don't make me use this!' he warbled, his whole body trembling.

'Is it some kind of toothpaste?' said Moist. He sniffed the very lived-in air of the studio and added: 'That could help, you know.'

'This is Uba Yellow, the most poisonous paint in the world! Stand back or I will die horribly!' said the forger. 'Er, in fact the most poisonous paint is probably Agatean White, but I've run out of that, it is most vexing.' It occurred to Owlswick that he had lost the tone slightly, and he quickly raised his voice again. 'But this is pretty poisonous, all the same!'

A gifted amateur picks up a lot, and Moist had always found poisons interesting. An arsenical compound, eh?' he said. Everyone knew about Agatean White. He hadn't heard of Uba Yellow, but arsenic came in many inviting shades. Just don't lick your brush.

'It's a horrible way to die,' he continued. 'You more or less melt over several days.'

'I'm not going back! I'm not going back!' squeaked Owlswick.

'They used to use it to make skin whiter,' said Moist, moving a little closer.

'Get back! I'll use it! I swear I'll use it!'

'That's where we get the phrase "drop-dead gorgeous",' said Moist, closing in.

He snatched at Owlswick, who rammed the tube in his mouth. Moist tugged it out, pushing the forger's clammy little hands out of the way, and examined it.

'Just as I thought,' he said, pocketing the tube. 'You forgot to take the cap off. It's the kind of mistake amateurs always make!'

Owlswick hesitated, and then said: 'You mean there's people who commit suicide professionally?'

'Look, Mr Jenkins, I'm here to – ' Moist began.

'I'm not going back to that jail! I'm not going back!' said the little man, backing away.

'That's fine by me. I want to offer you a – '

'They watch me, you know,' Owlswick volunteered. 'All the time.'

Ah. This was slightly better than suicide by paint, but only just.

'Er… you mean in jail?' said Moist, just to make sure.

'They watch me everywhere! There's one of Them right behind you!'

Moist stopped himself from turning, because that way madness lay. Mind you, quite a lot of it was standing right here in front of him.

'I'm sorry to hear that, Owlswick. That's why – '

He hesitated, and thought: why not? It had worked on him.

'That's why I'm going to tell you about angels,' he said.

People said there were more thunderstorms now that Igors were living in the city. There was no more thunder now, but the rain fell as if it had got all night.

Some of it swirled over the top of Moist's boots as he stood in front of the bank's unobtrusive side door and tried to remember the barber-surgeon's knock.

Oh, yes. It was the old one that went: rat tat a tat-tat TAT TAT!

Or, to put it another way: Shave and a haircut  –  no legs!

The door opened instantly.

'I would like to apologithe about the lack of creak, thur, but the hingeth jutht don't theem to – '

'Just give me a hand with this lot, will you?' said Moist, bent under the weight of two heavy boxes. 'This is Mr Jenkins. Can you make up a bed for him down here? And is there any chance you could change what he looks like?'

'More than you could poththibly imagine, thur,' said Igor happily.

'I was thinking of, well, a shave and a haircut. You can do that, can't you?'

Igor gave Moist a pained look. 'It ith true that technically thurgeonth can perform tonthorial operationth – '

'No, no, don't touch his throat, please.'

'That meanth yeth, I can give him a haircut, thur,' Igor sighed.

'I had my tonsils out when I was ten,' said Owlswick.

'Would you like thome more?' said Igor, looking for some bright edge to the situation.

'This is wonderful light!' Owlswick exclaimed, ignoring the offer. 'It's like day!'

'Jolly good,' said Moist. 'Now get some sleep, Owlswick. Remember what I told you. In the morning, you are going to design the first proper one-dollar banknote, understand?'

Owlswick nodded, but his mind was already elsewhere.

'You're with me on this, are you?' said Moist. 'A note so good that no one else could do it? I showed you my attempt, yes? I know you can do better, of course.'

He looked nervously at the little man. He wasn't insane, Moist was sure, but it was clear that mostly, for him, the world happened elsewhere.

Owlswick paused in the act of unpacking his box. 'Um… I can't make things up,' he said.

'What do you mean?' said Moist.

'I don't know how to make things up,' said Owlswick, staring at a paintbrush as if expecting it to whistle.

'But you're a forger! Your stamps look better than ours!'

'Er, yes. But I don't have your… I don't know how to get started… I mean, I need something to work from… I mean, once it's there, I can…'

It must be about four o'clock, thought Moist. Four o'clock! I hate it when there are two four o'clocks in the same day…

He snatched a piece of paper from Owlswick's box, and pulled out a pencil. 'Look,' he said, 'you start with…'

What?

'Richness,' he told himself, aloud, 'richness and solidity, like the front of the bank. Lots of ornate scrolling, which is hard to copy. A… panorama, a cityscape… Yes! Ankh-Morpork, it's all about the city! Vetinari's head, because they'll expect that, and a great big One so they get the message. Oh, the coat of arms, we must have that. And down here'  –  the pencil scribbled fast  –  'a space for the chairman's signature, pardon me, I mean paw print. On the back… well, we are talking fine detail, Owlswick. Some god would give us a bit of gravitas. One of the jollier ones. What's the name of that god with the three-pronged fork? One like him, anyway. Fine lines, Owlswick, that's what we want. Oh, and a boat. I like boats. Tell 'em it's worth a dollar again, too. Um… oh yes, mystic stuff doesn't hurt, people'll believe in any damn thing if it sounds old and mysterious. "Doth not a penny to the widow outshine the unconquered sun?"'

'What does that mean?'

'I haven't the foggiest idea,' said Moist. 'I just made it up.' He sketched away for a while and then pushed the paper across to Owlswick. 'Something like that,' he said. 'Have a go. Think you can make something of it?'

'I'll try,' Owlswick promised.

'Good. I'll see you tomo –  later on. Igor here will look after you.'

Owlswick was already staring at nothing. Moist pulled Igor aside.

'Just a shave and a haircut, okay?'

'Ath you withth, thur. Am I right in thinking that the gentleman doeth not want any entanglementth with the Watch?'

'Correct.'

'No problem there, thur. Could I thuggetht a change of name?'

'Good idea. Any suggestions?'

'I like the name Clamp, thur. And for a firtht name, Exorbit thpringth to mind.'

'Really? Where did it spring from? No, don't answer that. Exorbit Clamp…' Moist hesitated, but at this time of the night, why argue? Especially when it was this time of the morning. 'Exorbit Clamp it is, then. Make certain he forgets even the name of Jenkins,' Moist added, with what, he later realized, was in the circumstances a definite lack of foresight.

Moist slipped back up to bed without ever having to duck out of sight. No guard is at his best in the small hours. The place was locked up tight, wasn't it? Who could break in?

Down in the well-fornicated vault, the artist formerly known as Owlswick stared at Moist's sketches and felt his brain begin to fizz. It was true that he was not, in any proper sense, a madman. He was, by certain standards, very sane. Faced with a world too busy, complex and incomprehensible to deal with, he'd reduced it to a small bubble just big enough to hold him and his palette. It was nice and quiet in there. All the noises were far away, and They couldn't spy on him.

'Mr Igor?' he said.

Igor looked up from a crate in which he had been rummaging. He held what looked like a metal colander in his hands. 'How may I be of thurvithe, thur?'

'Can you get me some old books with pictures of gods and boats and maybe some views of the city too?'

'Indeed, thur. There ith an antiquarian booktheller in Lobbin Clout.' Igor put the metal device on one side, pulled a battered leather bag from under the table and, after a moment's thought, put a hammer in it.

Even in the world of the newly fledged Mr Clamp, it was still so late at night that it was too early in the morning. 'Er, I'm sure it can wait until daylight,' he volunteered.

'Oh, I al