Maskerade

'Oh, there's plenty of places to sleep in the Opera House. He knows that if I don't come for him he's to stop there for the night. He does what he's told, Mistress Weatherwax. He's never any trouble.'

'I never said he was.'

Mrs Plinge fumbled in her purse, as much to escape Granny's stare as to look for the key.

'I expect your Walter sees most of what goes on in the Opera House,' said Granny, taking one of Mrs Plinge's wrists in her hand. 'I wonder what your Walter... saw?'

The pulse jumped at the same time as the thieves did. Shadows unfolded themselves. There was the scrape of metal.

A low voice said, 'There's two of you, ladies, and there's six of us. There's no use in screaming.'

'Oh, deary deary me,' said Granny.

Mrs Plinge dropped to her knees. 'Oh, please don't hurt us, kind sirs, we are harmless old ladies! Haven't you got mothers?'

Granny rolled her eyes. Damn, damn and blast. She was a good witch. That was her role in life. That was the burden she had to bear. Good and Evil were quite superfluous when you'd grown up with a highly developed sense of Right and Wrong. She hoped, oh she hoped, that young though these were, they were dyed‑in‑the‑wool criminals . .

'I 'ad a mother once,' said the nearest thief. 'Only I think I must of et 'er...'

Ah. Top marks. Granny raised both hands to her hat to draw out two long hatpins...

A tile slid off the roof, and splashed into a puddle.

They looked up.

A caped figure was visible for a moment against the moonlight. It thrust out a sword at arm's length. Then it dropped, landing lightly in front of one astonished man.

The sword whirled.

The first thief spun and thrust at the shadowy shape in front of him, which turned out to be another thief, whose arm jerked up and dragged its own knife along the ribcage of the thief beside him.

The masked figure danced among the gang, his sword almost leaving trails in the air. It occurred to Granny later that it never actually made contact, but then, it never needed to–when six are against one in a melee in the shadows, and especially if those six aren't used to a target that is harder to hit than a wasp, and even more so if they got all their ideas of knife­fighting from other amateurs, then there's six chances in seven that they'll stab a crony and about one chance in twelve that they'll nick their own earlobe.

The two that remained uninjured after ten seconds looked at one another, turned, and ran.

And then it was over.

The surviving vertical figure bowed low in front of Granny Weatherwax. 'Ah. Bella Donna!'

There was a swirl of black cloak and red silk, and it too was gone. For a moment soft footsteps could be heard skimming over the cobbles.

Granny's hand was still halfway to her hat.

'Well I never!' she said.

She looked down. Various bodies were groaning or making soft bubbling noises.

'Deary deary me,' she said. Then she pulled herself together.

'I reckon we're going to need some nice hot water and some bits of bandage, and a good sharp needle for the stitching, Mrs Plinge,' she said. 'We can't let these poor men bleed to death now, can we, even if they do try to rob old ladies...'

Mrs Plinge looked horrified.

'We've got to be charitable, Mrs Plinge,' Granny insisted.

'I'll pump up the fire and tear up a sheet,' said Mrs Plinge. 'Don't know if I can find a needle...'

'Oh, I 'spect I've got a needle,' said Granny, extracting one' from the brim of her hat.

She knelt down by a fallen thief. 'It's rather rusty and blunt,' she added, 'but we shall have to do the best we can.'

The needle gleamed in the moonlight. His round, frightened eyes focused on it, and then on Granny's face. He whimpered. His shoulderblades tried to dig him into the cobbles.

It was perhaps as well that no one else could see Granny's face in the shadows.

'Let's do some good,' she said.

Salzella threw his hands in the air. 'Supposing he'd come down in the middle of the act?' he said.

'All right, all right,' said Bucket, who was sitting behind his desk as a man might hide behind a bunker. 'I agree. After the show we call in the Watch. No two ways about it. We shall just have to ask them to be discreet.'

'Discreet? Have you ever met a Watchman?' said Salzella.

'Not that they'll find anything. He'll have been over the rooftops and away, you may depend upon it. Whoever he is. Poor Dr Undershaft. He was always so highly strung.'

'Never more so than tonight,' said Salzella.

'That was tasteless!'

Salzella leaned over the desk. 'Tasteless or not, the company are theatre people. Superstitious. One little thing like someone being murdered on stage and they go all to pieces.'

'He wasn't murdered on stage, he was murdered off stage. And we can't be sure it was murder! He'd been very... depressed, lately.'