Read Online Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett - Free Book Online Page A

the manual.”
    “All right, it was a memo.”
    “Sorry, you have to say it again.”
    “Memo: See Corporal Nobbs re: time-keeping; also re: Earldom.”
    “Got it,” said the imp. “Would you like to be reminded of this at any particular time?”
    “The time here?” said Vimes, nastily. “Or the time in, say, Klatch?”
    “As a matter of fact, I can tell you what time it—”
    “I think I’ll write it in my notebook, if you don’t mind,” said Vimes.
    “Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,” said the imp proudly. “I’m quite advanced.”
    Vimes pulled out his notebook and held it up. “Like this?” he said.
    The imp squinted for a moment. “Yep,” it said. “That’s handwriting, sure enough. Curly bits, spiky bits, all joined together. Yep. Handwriting. I’d recognize it anywhere.”
    “Aren’t you supposed to tell me what it say?”
    The demon looked wary. “Says?” it said. “It’s supposed to make noises?”
    Vimes put the battered book away and shut the lid of the organizer. Then he sat back and carried on waiting.
    Someone very clever—certainly someone much cleverer than whoever had trained that imp—must have made the clock for the Partrician’s waiting room. It went tick-tock like any other clock. But somehow, and against all usual horological practice, the tick and the tock were irregular. Tick tock tick…and then the merest fraction of a second longer before…tock tick tock…and then a tick a fraction of a second earlier than the mind’s ear was now prepared for. The effect was enough, after ten minutes, to reduce the thinking processes of even the best-prepared to a sort of porridge. The Patrician must have paid the clockmaker quite highly.
    The clock said quarter past eleven.
    Vimes walked over to the door and, despite precedent, knocked gently.
    There was no sound from within, no murmur of distant voices.
    He tried the handle. The door was unlocked.
    Lord Vetinari had always said that punctuality was the politeness of princes.
    Vimes went in.

    Cheery dutifully scraped up the crumbly white dirt and then examined the corpse of the late Father Tubelcek.
    Anatomy was an important study at the Alchemists’ Guild, owing to the ancient theory that the human body represented a microcosm of the universe, although when you saw one opened up it was hard to imagine which part of the universe was small and purple and went blomp-blomp when you prodded it. But in any case you tended to pick up practical anatomy as you went along, and sometimes scraped it off the wall as well. When new students tried an experiment that was particularly successful in terms of explosive force, the result was often a cross between a major laboratory refit and a game of Hunt-the-Other-Kidney.
    The man had been killed by being repeatedly hit around the head. That was about all you could say. Some kind of very heavy blunt instrument. *
    What else did Vimes expect Cheery to do?
    He looked carefully at the rest of the body. There were no other obvious signs of violence, although…there were a few specks of blood on the man’s fingers. But, then, there was blood everywhere.
    A couple of fingernails were torn. Tubelcek had put up a fight, or at least had tried to shield himself with his hands.
    Cheery looked more closely at the fingers. There was something piled under the nails. It had a waxy sheen, like thick grease. He couldn’t imagine why it should be there, but maybe his job was to find out. He conscientiously took an envelope out of his pocket and scraped the stuff into it, sealed it up and numbered it.
    Then he took his iconograph out of its box and prepared to take a picture of the corpse.
    As he did so, something caught his eye.
    Father Tubelcek lay there, one eye still open as Vimes had left it, winking at eternity.
    Cheery looked closer. He’d thought he’d imagined it. But…
    Even now he wasn’t sure. The mind could play tricks.
    He opened the little door of the iconograph and