Hogfather

There were some lumps of soot on the hearthrug. Downey realized he’d heard them fall, but that hadn’t been particularly extraordinary. No one could get down the chimney. There was a heavy grid firmly in place near the top of the flue.

‘But there’s a blocked-in fireplace behind the old library,’ said Teatime, apparently reading his thoughts. ‘The flues connect, under the bars. It was really a stroll, sir.’

‘Really …’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

Downey nodded. The tendency of old buildings to be honeycombed with sealed chimney flues was a fact you learned early in your career. And then, he told himself, you forgot. It always paid to put the other fellow in awe of you, too. He had forgotten they taught that, too.

‘The dogs seem to like you,’ he said.

‘I get on well with animals, sir.’

Teatime’s face was young and open and friendly. Or, at least, it smiled all the time. But the effect was spoiled for most people by the fact that it had only one eye. Some unexplained accident had taken the other one, and the missing orb had been replaced by a ball of glass. The result was disconcerting. But what bothered Lord Downey far more was the man’s other eye, the one that might loosely be called normal. He’d never seen such a small and sharp pupil. Teatime looked at the world through a pinhole.

He found he’d retreated behind his desk again. There was that about Teatime. You always felt happier if you had something between you and him.

‘You like animals, do you?’ he said. ‘I have a report here that says you nailed Sir George’s dog to the ceiling.’

‘Couldn’t have it barking while I was working, sir.’

‘Some people would have drugged it.’

‘Oh.’ Teatime looked despondent for a moment, but then he brightened. ‘But I definitely fulfilled the contract, sir. There can be no doubt about that, sir. I checked Sir George’s breathing with a mirror as instructed. It’s in my report.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ Apparently the man’s head had been several feet from his body at that point. It was a terrible thought that Teatime might see nothing incongruous about this.

‘And … the servants …?’ he said.

‘Couldn’t have them bursting in, sir.’

Downey nodded, half hypnotized by the glassy stare and the pinhole eyeball. No, you couldn’t have them bursting in. And an Assassin might well face serious professional opposition, possibly even by people trained by the same teachers. But an old man and a maidservant who’d merely had the misfortune to be in the house at the time …

There was no actual rule, Downey had to admit. It was just that, over the years, the Guild had developed a certain ethos and members tended to be very neat about their work, even shutting doors behind them and generally tidying up as they went. Hurting the harmless was worse than a transgression against the moral fabric of society, it was a breach of good manners. It was worse even than that. It was bad taste. But there was no actual rule …

‘That was all right, wasn’t it, sir?’ said Teatime, with apparent anxiety.

‘It, uh … lacked elegance,’ said Downey.

‘Ah. Thank you, sir. I am always happy to be corrected. I shall remember that next time.’

Downey took a deep breath.

‘It’s about that I wish to talk,’ he said. He held up the picture of … what had the thing called him? … the Fat Man?

‘As a matter of interest,’ he said, ‘how would you go about inhuming this … gentleman?’

Anyone else, he was sure, would have burst out laughing. They would have said things like ‘Is this a joke, sir?’ Teatime merely leaned forward, with a curious intent expression.

‘Difficult, sir.’

‘Certainly,’ Downey agreed.

‘I would need some time to prepare a plan, sir,’ Teatime went on.

‘Of course, and—’

There was a knock at the door and Carter came in with another cup and saucer. He nodded respectfully to Lord Downey and crept out again.

‘Right, sir,’ said Teatime.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Downey, momentarily distracted.

‘I have now thought of a plan, sir,’ said Teatime, patiently.

‘You have?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘As quickly as that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Ye gods!’

‘Well, sir, you know we are encouraged to consider hypothetical problems …?’

‘Oh, yes. A very valuable exercise—’ Downey stopped, and then looked shocked.

‘You mean you have actually devoted time to considering how to inhume the Hogfather?’ he said weakly. ‘You’ve actually sat down and thought out how to do it? You’ve actually devoted your spare time to the problem?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. And the Soul Cake Duck. And the Sandman. And Death.’

Downey blinked again. ‘You’ve actually sat down and considered how to—’

‘Yes, sir. I’ve amassed quite an interesting file. In my own time, of course.’

‘I want to be quite certain about this, Mister Teatime. You … have … applied … yourself to a study of ways of killing Death?’

‘Only as a hobby, sir.’

‘Well, yes, hobbies, yes, I mean, I used to collect butterflies myself,’ said Downey, recalling those first moments of awakening pleasure at the use of poison and the pin, ‘but—’