Terry Pratchett - Thud

hwe may have some details about the painting in our storeroom.

I'll, er, just go and, er, find them . .

He hurried off towards a small doorway.

`I wonder how they got it out?' said Nobby, when they were alone.

`Who says they did?' said Fred Colon. `Big place like this, full of attics and cellars and odd corners, well, why not stash it away and wait a while? You get in as a customer one day, see, hide under a sheet, take out the muriel in the night, hide it somewhere, then go out with the customers next day. Simple, eh?' He beamed at Nobby. `You've got to outsmart the criminal mind, see?'

`Or they could've just smashed down a door and pushed off with the muriel in the middle of the night,' said Nobby. `Why mess about with a cunning plan when a simple one will do?'

Fred sighed. `I can see this is going to be a complicated case, Nobby.'

`You should ask Vimesy if we can have it, then,' said Nobby. `I mean, we already know the facts, right?'

Hovering in the air, unsaid, was: Where would you like to be in the next few days? Out there where the axes and clubs are likely to be flying, or in here searching all the attics and cellars very, very carefully? Think about it. And it wouldn't be cowardice, right? 'cos a famous muriel like this is bound to be part of our national heritage, right? Even if it is just a painting of a load of dwarfs and trolls having a scrap.

`I think I will do a proper report and suggest to Mister Vimes that maybe we should handle this one,' said Fred Colon slowly. `It needs the attention of mature officers. D'you know much about art, Nobby?'

`If necessary, sarge.'

`Oh, come on, Nobby!'

`What? Tawneee says what she does is Art, sarge. And she wears more clothes than a lot of the women on the walls around here, so why be sniffy about it?'

`Yeah, but. ..' Fred Colon hesitated here. He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.

`No urns,' he said at last.

`What urns?' said Nobby.

`Nude women are only Art if there's an urn in it,' said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added, `or a plinth. Both

is best, o'course. It's a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it's Art and okay to look at.'

`What about a potted plant?'

`That's okay if it's in an urn.

`What about if it's not got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?' said Nobby.

`Have you one in mind, Nobby?' said Colon suspiciously.

`Yes, The Goddess Anoia [1] Arising from the Cutlery,' said Nobby. `They've got it here. It was painted by a bloke with three i's in his name, which sounds pretty artistic to me.'

`The number of i's is important, Nobby,' said Sergeant Colon gravely, `but in these situations you have to ask yourself: where's the cherub? If there's a little fat pink kid holding a mirror or a fan or similar, then it's still okay. Even if he's grinning. Obviously you can't get urns everywhere.'

`All right, but supposing-' Nobby began.

The distant door opened, and Sir Reynold came hurrying across the marble floor with a book under his arm.

`Ah, I'm afraid there is no copy of the painting; he said. `Clearly, a copy that did it justice hwould be quite hard to make. But, er, this rather sensationalist treatise has many detailed sketches, at least. These days every visitor seems to have a copy, of course. Did you know that more than two thousand, four hundred and ninety individual dwarfs and trolls can be identified by armour or body markings in the original picture? It drove Rascal quite mad, poor fellow. It took him sixteen years to complete!'

`That's nothing,' said Nobby cheerfully. `Fred here hasn't finished painting his kitchen yet, and he started twenty years ago!'

`Thank you for that, Nobby,' said Colon, coldly. He took the book from the curator. The title was The Koom Valley Codex. `Mad how?' he said.

[1] Anoia is the Ankh-Morpork Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers.

`Well, he neglected his other work, you see. He was constantly moving his lodgings because he couldn't pay the rent and he had to drag that huge canvas with him. Imagine! He had to beg for paints in the street, which took up a lot of his time, since not many people have a tube of Burnt Umber on them. He said it talked to him, too. You'll find it all in there. Rather dramatized, I fear.'

`The painting talked to him?'

Sir Reynold made a face. `We believe that's what he meant. We don't really know. He did not have any friends. He was convinced that if he went to sleep at night he would turn into a chicken. He'd leave little notes for himself saying, "You are not a chicken", although sometimes he thought he was lying. The general belief is that he concentrated so much on the painting that it gave him some kind of brain fever. Towards the end he hwas sure he hwas losing his mind. He said he could hearh the battle.'

`How do you know that, sir?' said Fred Colon. `You said he didn't have any friends.'

`Ah, the incisive intellect of the policeman!' said Sir Reynold, smiling. `He left notes to himself, sergeant. All the time. Hwhen his last landlady entered his room, she found many hundreds of them, stuffed in old chicken-feed sacks. Fortunately, she couldn't read, and since she'd fixed in her mind the ideah that the lodger was some sort of genius and therefore might have something she could sell, she called in a neighbour, a Miss Adelina Happily, hwho painted watercolours, and Miss Happily called in a friend hwho framed pictures, who hurriedly summoned Ephraim Dowster, the noted landscape artist. Scholars have puzzled over the notes ever since, seeking some insight into the poor man's tortured mind. They are not in order, you see. Some are very ... odd.'

`Odder than "You are not a chicken"?' said Fred.

`Yes,' said Sir Reynold. `Oh, there is stuff about voices, omens, ghosts ... He also hwrote his journal on random pieces of paper, you know, and never gave any indication as to the date or hwhere

he hwas staying, in case the chicken found him. And he used very guarded language, because he didn't hwant the chicken to find out.'

`Sorry, I thought you said he thought he was the chick-' Colon began.

'hWho can fathom the thought processes of the sadleah disturbed, sergeant?' said Sir Reynold wearily.

'Er ... and does the painting talk?' said Nobby Nobbs. `Stranger things have happened, right?'

`Ahah, no,' said Sir Reynold. `At least, not in my time. Ever since that book was reprinted there's been a guard in here during visiting hours and he says it has never uttered a word. Certainly it has always fascinated people and there have always been stories about hidden treasure there. That is hwhy the book has been republished. People love a mystereah, don't they?'

`Not us,' said Fred Colon.

`I don't even know what a mister rear is,' said Nobby, leafing through the Codex. `Here, I heard about this book. My friend Dave who runs the stamp shop says there's this story about a dwarf, right, who turned up in this town near Koom Valley, more'n two weeks after the battle, an' he was all injured 'cos he'd been ambushed by trolls, an' starvin, right, an' no one knew much dwarfish but it was like he wanted them to follow him and he kept sayin' this word over and over again which turned out, right, to be dwarfish for "treasure"; right, only when they followed him back to the valley, right, he died on the way an' they never found nothin, an' then this artist bloke found some ... thing in Koom Valley and hid the place where he'd found it in this painting, but it drove him bananas. Like it was haunted, Dave said. He said the government hushed it up.,