Chris Patterson - Going Postal

‘I thought you called them penpushers?'

‘Yeah, but I didn't say where, heehee.' Groat caught Moist's expression and coughed. ‘Sorry, didn't mean it, just my little joke. We reckon the last new postmaster we had, Mr Whobblebury, he was a dark clerk. Can't hardly blame him, with a name like that. He was always snooping around.'

‘And why do you think that was?' said Moist.

‘Well, Mr Mutable, he was the first, decent chap, he fell down into the big hall from the fifth floor, smack, sir, smack on to the marble. Head first. It was a bit... splashy, sir.'

Moist glanced at Stanley, who was starting to tremble.

‘Then there was Mr Sideburn. He fell down the back stairs and broke his neck, sir. Excuse me, sir, it's eleven forty-three.' Groat walked over to the door and opened it, Tiddles walked through, Groat shut the door again. ‘At three in the morning, it was. Right down five flights. Broke just about every bone you could break, sir.'

‘You mean he was wandering around without a light?'

‘Dunno, sir. But I know about the stairs. The stairs have lamps burning all night, sir. Stanley fills them every day, regular as Tiddles.'

‘Use those stairs a lot, then, do you?' said Moist.

‘Never, sir, except for the lamps. Nearly everywhere on that side is bunged up with mail. But it's a Post Office Regulation, sir.'

‘And the next man?' said Moist, a little hoarsely. ‘Another accidental fall?'

‘Oh, no, sir. Mr Ignavia, that was his name. They said it was his heart. He was just lyin' dead on the fifth floor, dead as a doorknob, face all contorted like he'd seen a ghost. Natural causes, they said. Werrrl, the Watch was all over the place by then, you may depend on it. No one had been near him, they said, and there was not a mark on him. Surprised you didn't know about all this, sir. It was in the paper.'

Except you don't get much chance to keep up with the news in a condemned cell, Moist thought.

‘Oh yes?' he said. ‘And how would they know no one had been near him?'

Groat leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘Everyone knows there's a werewolf in the Watch and one of them could bloody nearly smell what colour clothes someone was wearing.'

‘A werewolf,' said Moist, flatly.

‘Yes. Anyway, the one before him—'

‘A werewolf.'

‘That's what I said, sir,' said Groat.

‘A damn werewolf .'

‘Takes all sorts to make a world, sir. Anyway—'

‘A werewolf.' Moist awoke from the horror. ‘And they don't tell visitors?'

‘Now, how'd they do that, sir?' said Groat, in a kindly voice. ‘Put it on a sign outside? "Welcome To Ankh-Morpork, We Have A Werewolf", sir? The Watch's got loads of dwarfs and trolls and a golem - a free golem, savin' your presence, Mr Pump - and a couple of gnomes and a zombie... even a Nobbs.'

‘Nobbs? What's a Nobbs?'

‘Corporal Nobby Nobbs, sir. Not met him yet? They say he's got an official chitty saying he's human, and who needs one of those, eh? Fortunately there's only one of him so he can't breed. Anyway, we've got a bit of everything, sir. Very cosmopolitan. You don't like werewolves?'

They know who you are by your smell, thought Moist. They're as bright as a human and can track you better than any wolf. They can follow a trail that's days old, even if you cover yourself with scent - especially if you cover yourself with scent. Oh, there's ways around, if you know there is going to be a werewolf on your tail. No wonder they caught up with me. There should be a law!

‘Not a lot,' he said aloud, and glanced at Stanley again. It was useful to watch Stanley when Groat was talking. Now the boy had his eyes turned up so much that they were practically all whites.

‘And Mr Whobblebury?' he said. ‘He was investigating for Vetinari, eh? What happened to him?'

Stanley was shaking like a bush in a high wind.

‘Er, you did get given the big keyring, sir?' Groat enquired, his voice trembling with innocence.

‘Yes, of course.'

‘I bet there is one key missing,' said Groat. ‘The Watch took it. It was the only one. Some doors ought to stay closed, sir. It's all over and done with, sir. Mr Whobblebury died of an industrial accident, they said. Nobody near him. You don't want to go there, sir. Sometimes things get so broke it's best to walk away, sir.'

‘I can't,' said Moist. ‘I am the Postmaster General. And this is my building, isn't it? I'll decide where I go, Junior Postman Groat.'

Stanley shut his eyes.

‘Yes, sir,' said Groat, as if talking to a child. ‘But you don't want to go there-, sir.'

‘ His head was all over the wall !' Stanley quavered.

‘Oh dear, now you've set him off, sir,' said Groat, scuttling across to the boy. ‘It's all right, lad, I'll just get you your pills—'

‘What is the most expensive pin ever made commercially, Stanley?' said Moist quickly.

It was like pulling a lever. Stanley's expression went from agonized grief to scholarly cogitation in an instant.

‘Commercially? Leaving aside those special pins made for exhibitions and trade shows, including the Great Pin of 1899, then probably it is the Number Three Broad-headed "Chicken" Extra Long made for the lace-making market by the noted pinner Josiah Doldrum, I would say. They were hand-drawn and had his trademark silver head with a microscopic engraving of a cockerel. It's believed that fewer than a hundred were made before his death, sir. According to Hubert Spider's Pin Catalogue, examples can fetch between fifty and sixty-five dollars, depending on condition. A Number Three Broad-headed Extra Long would grace any true pinhead's collection.'

‘Only... I spotted this in the street,' said Moist, extracting one of that morning's purchases from his lapel. ‘I was walking down Market Street and there it was, between two cobblestones. I thought it looked unusual. For a pin.'

Stanley pushed away the fussing Groat and carefully took the pin from Moist's fingers. A very large magnifying glass appeared as if by magic in his other hand.

The room held its breath as the pin was subjected to serious scrutiny. Then Stanley looked up at Moist in amazement.

‘You knew ?' he said. ‘And you spotted this in the street ? I thought you didn't know anything about pins!'

‘Oh, not really, but I dabbled a bit as a boy,' said Moist, waving a hand deprecatingly to suggest that he had been too foolish to turn a schoolboy hobby into a lifetime's obsession. ‘You know... a few of the old brass Imperials, one or two oddities like an unbroken pair or a double-header, the occasional cheap packet of mixed pins on approval...' Thank the gods, he thought, for the skill of speed-reading.

‘Oh, there's never anything worthwhile in those,' said Stanley, and slid again into the voice of the academic: ‘While most pinheads do indeed begin with a casually acquired flashy novelty pin, followed by the contents of their grandmothers' pincushions, haha, the path to a truly worthwhile collection lies not in the simple disbursement of money in the nearest pin emporium, oh no. Any dilettante can become "king pin" with enough expenditure, but for the true pinhead the real pleasure is in the joy of the chase, the pin fairs, the house clearances and, who knows, a casual glint in the gutter that turns out to be a well-preserved Doublefast or an unbroken two-pointer. Well is it said: "See a pin and pick it up, and all day long you'll have a pin".'

Moist nearly applauded. It was word for word what J. Lanugo Owlsbury had written in the introduction to his work. And, much more important, he now had an unshakable friend in Stanley. That was to say, his darker regions added, Stanley was friends with him . The boy, his panic subsumed by the joy of pins, was holding his new acquisition up to the light.