Men at Arms (Discworld #15)

'I should like to make it clear that Lord Vetinari will be hearing about this directly,' said Dr Whiteface.

'Oh, yes. I shall tell him,' said Carrot.

'I can't imagine why you're bothering me when there's rioting in the streets.'

Ah, well . . . we shall deal with that later. But Captain Vimes always told me, sir, that there's big crimes and little crimes. Sometimes the little crimes look big and the big crimes you can hardly see, but the crucial thing is to decide which is which.'

They stared at one another.

'Well?' the clown demanded.

'I should like you to tell me,' said Carrot, 'about events in this Guild House the night before last.'

Dr Whiteface stared at him in silence.

Then he said, 'If I don't?'

'Then,' said Carrot, 'I am afraid I shall, with extreme reluctance, be forced to carry out the order I was given just before entering.'

He glanced at Colon. 'That's right, isn't it, sergeant?'

'What? Eh? Well, yes—'

'I would much prefer not to do so, but I have no choice,' said Carrot.

Dr Whiteface glared at the two of them.

'But this is Guild property! You have no right to . . . to . . .'

'I don't know about that, I'm only a corporal,' said Carrot. 'But I've never disobeyed a direct order yet, and I am sorry to have to tell you that I will carry out this one fully and to the letter.'

'Now, see here—'

Carrot moved a little closer.

'If it's any comfort, I'll probably be ashamed about it,' he said.

The clown stared into his honest eyes and saw, as did everyone, only simple truth.

'Listen! If I shout,' said Dr Whiteface, going red under his makeup, 'I can have a dozen men in here.'

'Believe me,' said Carrot, 'that will only make it easier for me to obey.'

Dr Whiteface prided himself on his ability to judge character. In Carrot's resolute expression there was nothing but absolute, meticulous honesty. He fiddled with a quill pen and then threw it down in a sudden movement.

'Confound it!' he shouted. 'How did you find out, eh? Who told you?'

'I really couldn't say,' said Carrot. 'But it makes sense anyway. There's only one entrance to each Guild, but the Guild Houses are back to back. Someone just had to cut through the wall.'

'I assure you we didn't know about it,' said the clown.

Sergeant Colon was lost in admiration. He'd seen people bluff on a bad hand, but he'd never seen anyone bluff with no cards.

'We thought it was just a prank,' said the clown. 'We thought young Beano had just done it with humorous intent, and then he turned up dead and we didn't—' 'You'd better show me the hole,' said Carrot.

The rest of the Watch stood to variations on the theme of At Ease in the courtyard.

'Corporal Nobbs?'

'Yes, Lance-Constable Cuddy?'

'What is it everyone says about dwarfs?'

'Oh, come on, you're pulling my leg, right? Everyone knows that who knows anything about dwarfs,' said Nobby.

Cuddy coughed.

'Dwarfs don't,' he said.

'What do you mean, dwarfs don't?'

'No-one's told us what everyone knows about dwarfs,' said Cuddy.

'Well . . . I expect they thought you knew,' said Nobby, weakly.

'Not me.'

'Oh, all right,' said Nobby. He glanced at the trolls, then leaned across to Cuddy and whispered in the approximate region of his ear.

Cuddy nodded.

'Oh, is that all?'

'Yes. Er . . . is it true?'

'What? Oh, yes. Of course. It's nat'ral for a dwarf. Some have got more than others, of course.'

'That's the case all round,' said Nobby.

'I myself, for example, have saved more than seventy-eight dollars.'

'No! I mean, no. I mean, I don't mean well-endowed with money. I mean . . .' Nobby whispered again. Cuddy's expression didn't change.

Nobby waggled his eyebrows. 'True, is it?'

'How should I know? I don't know how much money humans generally have.'

Nobby subsided.

'There's one thing that's true at least,' he said. 'You dwarfs really love gold, don't you?'

'Of course we don't. Don't be silly.'

'Well—'

'We just say that to get it into bed.'

It was in a clown's bedroom. Colon had occasionally wondered what clowns did in private, and it was all here – the overlarge shoe tree, the very wide trouser press, the mirror with all the candles round it, some industrial-sized sticks of make-up . . . and a bed which looked like nothing more complicated than a blanket on the floor, because that's what it was. Clowns and fools weren't encouraged to live the soft life. Humour was a serious business.

There was also a hole in the wall, just big enough to admit a man. A little pile of crumbling bricks was heaped next to it.

There was darkness on the other side.

On the other side, people killed other people for money.

Carrot stuck his head and shoulders through the hole, but Colon tried to pull him back.

'Hang on, lad, you don't know what horrors lie beyond these walls—'

'I'm just having a look to find out.'

'It could be a torture chamber or a dungeon or a hideous pit or anything!'

'It's just a student's bedroom, sergeant.'

'You see?'

Carrot stepped through. They could hear him moving around in the gloom. It was Assassin's gloom, somehow richer and less gloomy than clown's gloom.

He poked his head through again.

'No-one's been in here for a while, though,' he said. 'There's dust all over the floor but there's footprints in it. And the door's locked and bolted. On this side.'

The rest of his body followed Carrot.

'I just want to make sure I fully understand this,' he said to Dr Whiteface. 'Beano made a hole into the Assassins' Guild, yes? And then he went and exploded that dragon? And then he came back through this hole? So how did he get killed?'

'By the Assassins, surely,' said Dr Whiteface. 'They'd be within their rights. Trespass on Guild property is a very serious offence, after all.'

'Did anyone see Beano after the explosion?' said Carrot.

'Oh yes. Boffo was on gate duty and he distinctly remembers him going out.'

'He knows it was him?'

Dr Whiteface looked blank.

'Of course.'

'How?'

'How? He recognized him, of course. That's how you know who people are. You look at them and you say . . . that's him. That's called re-cog-nit-ion,' said the clown, with pointed deliberation. 'It was Beano. Boffo said he looked very worried.'

'Ah. Fine. No more questions, doctor. Did Beano have any friends among the Assassins?'

'Well . . . possibly, possibly. We don't discourage visitors.'

Carrot stared at the clown's face. Then he smiled.

'Of course. Well, that about wraps it all up, I think.'

'If only he'd stuck to something, you know, original,' said Dr Whiteface.

'Like a bucket of whitewash over the door, or a custard pie?' said Sergeant Colon.

'That's right!'

'Well, we might as well be going,' said Carrot. 'I imagine you don't want to lay a complaint about the Assassins?'

Dr Whiteface tried to look panicky, but this did not work very well under a mouth painted into a wide grin.

'What? No! I mean – if an Assassin broke into our Guild, I mean, not on proper business, and stole something, well, we'd definitely consider we were within our rights to, well—'

'Pour jelly into his shirt?' said Angua.

'Hit him around the head with a bladder on a stick?' said Colon.

'Possibly.'

'Each Guild to their own, of course,' said Carrot. 'I suggest we might as well be going, sergeant. Nothing more for us to do here. Sorry to have troubled you, Dr Whiteface. I can see this must have been a great strain on you.'

The clown was limp with relief.

'Don't mention it. Don't mention it. Happy to help. I know you have your job to do.'

He ushered them down the stairs and into the courtyard, bubbling with small talk now. The rest of the Watch clanked to attention.

'Actually . . .' said Carrot, just as he was being ushered out of the gate, 'there is one thing you could do.'

'Of course, of course.'

'Um, I know it's a bit cheeky,' said Carrot, 'but I've always been very interested in Guild customs . . . so . . . do you think someone could show me your museum?'

'Sorry? What museum?'

'The clown museum?'

'Oh, you mean the Hall of Faces. That's not a museum. Of course. Nothing secret about it. Boffo, make a note. We'd be happy to show you around any time, corporal.'

'Thank you very much, Dr Whiteface.'

Any time.'

'I'm just going off duty,' said Carrot. 'Right now would be nice. Since I happen to be here.'

'You can't go off duty when— ow!' said Colon.

'Sorry, sergeant?'

'You kicked me!'

'I accidentally trod on your sandal, sergeant. I'm sorry.'

Colon tried to see a message in Carrot's face. He'd got used to simple Carrot. Complicated Carrot was as unnerving as being savaged by a duck.

'We'll, er, we'll just be going, then, shall we?' he said.

'No point in staying here now it's all settled,' said Carrot, mugging furiously. 'May as well take the night off, really.'

He glanced at the rooftops.

'Oh, well, now it's all settled we'll be off, right,' said Colon. 'Right, Nobby?'

'Oh, yeah, we'll be off all right, because it's all settled,' said Nobby. 'You hear that, Cuddy?'


'What, that it's all settled?' said Cuddy. 'Oh, yeah. We might as well be off. OK, Detritus?'

Detritus was staring moodily at nothing with his knuckles resting on the ground. This was a normal stance for a troll while waiting for the next thought to arrive.

The syllables of his name kicked a neuron into fitful activity.

'What?' he said.

'It's all settled.'

'What is?'

'You know – Mr Hammerhock's death and everything.'

'Is it?'

'Yes!'

'Oh.'

Detritus considered this for a while, nodded, and settled back into whatever state of mind he normally occupied.

Another neuron gave a fizzle.

'Right,' he said.

Cuddy watched him for a moment.

'That's about it,' he said, sadly. 'That's all we're getting.'

'I'll be back shortly,' said Carrot. 'Shall we be off . . . Joey, wasn't it? Dr Whiteface?'

'I suppose there's no harm,' said Dr Whiteface. 'Very well. Show Corporal Carrot anything he likes, Boffo.'

'Right, sir,' said the little clown.

'It must be a jolly job, being a clown,' said Carrot.

'Must it?'

'Lots of japes and jokes, I mean.'

Boffo gave Carrot a lopsided look.

'Well . . .' he said. 'It has its moments . . .'

'I bet it does. I bet it does.'

'Are you often on gate duty, Boffo?' said Carrot pleasantly, as they strolled through the Fools' Guild.

'Huh! Just about all the time,' said Boffo.

'So when did that friend of his, you know, the Assassin . . . visit him?'

'Oh, you know about him, then,' said Boffo.

'Oh, yes,' said Carrot.

'About ten days ago,' said Boffo. 'It's through here, past the pie range.'

'He'd forgotten Beano's name, but he did know the room. He didn't know the number but he went straight to it,' Carrot went on.

'That's right. I expect Dr Whiteface told you,' said Boffo.

'I've spoken to Dr Whiteface,' said Carrot.

Angua felt she was beginning to understand the way Carrot asked questions. He asked them by not asking them. He simply told people what he thought or suspected, and they found themselves filling in the details in an attempt to keep up. And he never, actually, told lies.

Boffo pushed open a door and fussed around lighting a candle.

'Here we are then,' he said. 'I'm in charge of this, when I'm not on the bloody gate.'

'Ye gods,' said Angua, under her breath. 'It's horrible.'

'It's very interesting,' said Carrot.

'It's historical,' said Boffo the clown.

All those little heads . . .'

They stretched away in the candlelight, shelf on shelf of them, tiny little clown faces – as if a tribe of head-hunters had suddenly developed a sophisticated sense of humour and a desire to make the world a better place.

'Eggs,' said Carrot. 'Ordinary hens' eggs. What you do is, you get a hen's egg, and you make a hole in either end and you blow the egg stuff out, and then a clown paints his make-up on the egg and that's his official make-up and no other clown can use it. That's very important. Some faces have been in the same family for generations, you know. Very valuable thing, a clown's face. Isn't that so, Boffo?'

The clown was staring at him.

'How do you know all that?'

'I read it in a book.'

Angua picked up an ancient egg. There was a label attached to it, and on the label were a dozen names, all crossed out except the last one. The ink on the earlier ones had faded almost to nothing. She put it down and unconsciously wiped her hand on her tunic.

'What happens if a clown wants to use another clown's face?' she said.

'Oh, we compare all the new eggs with the ones on the shelves,' said Boffo. 'It's not allowed.'

They walked between aisles of faces. Angua fanded she could hear the squelch of a million custard-filled trousers and the echoes of a thousand honking noses and a million grins of faces that weren't smiling. About halfway along was a sort of alcove containing a desk and chair, a shelf piled with old ledgers, and a workbench covered with crusted pots of paint, scraps of coloured horsehair, sequins and other odds and ends of the egg-painter's spedalized art. Carrot picked up a wisp of coloured horsehair and twiddled it thoughtfully.

'But supposing,' he said, 'that a clown, I mean a clown with his own face . . . supposing he used another clown's face?'

'Pardon?' said Boffo.

'Supposing you used another clown's make-up?' said Angua.

'Oh, that happens all the time,' said Boffo. 'People're always borrowing slap off each other—'

'Slap?' said Angua.

'Make-up,' Carrot translated. 'No, I think what the lance-constable is asking, Boffo, is: could a clown make himself up to look like another clown?'

Boffo's brow wrinkled, like someone trying hard to understand an impossible question.

'Pardon?'

'Where's Beano's egg, Boffo?'

'That's here on the desk,' said Boffo. 'You can have a look if you like.'

An egg was handed up. It had a blobby red nose and a red wig. Angua saw Carrot hold it up to the light and produce a couple of red strands from his pocket.

'But,' she said, trying one more time to get Boffo to understand, 'couldn't you wake up one morning and put on make-up so that you looked like a different clown?'

He looked at her. It was hard to tell his expression under the permanently downcast mouth, but as far as she could tell she might as well have suggested that he performed a specific sex act with a small chicken.

'How could I do that?' he said. 'Then I wouldn't be me.'

'Someone else might do it, though?'

Boffo's buttonhole squirted.

'I don't have to listen to this sort of dirty talk, miss.'

'What you're saying, then,' said Carrot, 'is that no clown would ever make up his face in another clown's, um, design?'

'You're doing it again!'

'Yes, but perhaps sometimes by accident a young down might perhaps—'

'Look, we're decent people, all right?'

'Sorry,' said Carrot. 'I think I understand. Now . . . when we found poor Mr Beano, he didn't have his clown wig on, but something like that could easily have got knocked off in the river. But his nose, now . . . you told Sergeant Colon that someone had taken his nose. His real nose. Could you,' said Carrot, in the pleasant tones of someone talking to a simpleton, 'point to your real nose, Boffo?'

Boffo tapped the big red nose on his face.

'But that's—' Angua began.

'—your real nose,' said Carrot. 'Thank you.'

The clown wound down a little.

'I think you'd better go,' he said. 'I don't like this sort of thing. It upsets me.'

'Sorry,' said Carrot again. 'It's just that . . . I think I'm having an idea. I wondered about it before . . . and I'm pretty certain now. I think I know about the person who did it. But I had to see the eggs to be sure.'

'You saying another clown killed him?' said Boffo belligerently. ' 'Cos if you are, I'm going straight to—'

'Not exactly,' said Carrot. 'But I can show you the killer's face.'

He reached down and took something from the debris on the table. Then he turned to Boffo and opened his hand. He had his back to Angua, and she could not quite see what he was holding. But Boffo gave a strangled cry and ran away down the avenue of faces, his big shoes flip-flopping hugely on the stone flags.

'Thank you,' said Carrot, at his retreating back. 'You've been very helpful.'

He folded his hand again.

'Come on,' he said. 'We'd better begoing. I don't think we're going to be popular here in a minute or two.'

'What was that you showed him?' Angua asked, as they proceeded with dignity yet speed towards the gate.

'It was something you came here to find, wasn't it? All that stuff about wanting to see the museum—'

'I did want to see it. A good copper should always be open to new experiences,' said Carrot.

They made it to the gate. No vengeful pies floated out of the darkness.

Angua leaned against the wall outside. The air smelled sweeter here, which was an unusual thing to say about Ankh-Morpork air. But at least out here people could laugh without getting paid for it.

'You didn't show me what frightened him,' she said.

'I showed him a murderer,' said Carrot. 'I'm sorry. I didn't think he'd take it like that. I suppose they're all a bit wound up right now. And it's like dwarfs and tools. Everyone thinks in their own ways.'

'You found the murderer's face in there?'

'Yes.'

Carrot opened his hand.

It contained a bare egg.

'He looks like this,' he said.

'He didn't have a face?'

'No, you're thinking like a clown. I am very simple,' said Carrot, 'but I think what happened was this. Someone in the Assassins wanted a way of getting in and out without being seen. He realized there's only a thin wall between the two Guilds. He had a room. All he had to do was find out who lived on the other side. Later he killed Beano, and he took his wig and his nose. His real nose. That's how clowns think. Make-up wouldn't have been hard. You can get that anywhere. He walked into the Guild made up to look like Beano. He cut through the wall. Then he strolled down to the quad outside the museum, only this time he was dressed as an Assassin.

He got the . . . the gonne and came back here. He went through the wall again, dressed up as Beano, and strolled away. And then someone killed him.'

'Boffo said Beano looked worried,' said Angua.

And I thought: that's odd, because you'd have to see a clown right up close to know what his real expression was. But you might notice if the make-up wasn't on quite right. Like, maybe, if it was put on by someone who wasn't too used to it. But the important thing is that if another clown sees Beano's face go out of the door, he's seen the person leave. They can't think about someone else wearing that face. It's not how they think. A clown and his make-up are the same thing. Without his makeup a clown doesn't exist. A clown wouldn't wear another clown's face in the same way a dwarf wouldn't use another dwarfs tools.'