Hogfather

incidentally taught them how to kill, cleanly and dispassionately, for money and for the good of society, or at least that part of society that had money, and what other kind of society was there?
    But very occasionally you found you’d got someone like Mister Teatime, to whom the money was merely a distraction. Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.
    Mister Teatime enjoyed himself too much. And other people, also.
    Downey had privately decided that some time soon Mister Teatime was going to meet with an accident. Like many people with no actual morals, Lord Downey did have standards, and Teatime repelled him. Assassination was a careful game, usually played against people who knew the rules themselves or at least could afford the services of those who did. There was considerable satisfaction in a clean kill. What there wasn’t supposed to be was pleasure in a messy one. That sort of thing led to talk.
    On the other hand, Teatime’s corkscrew of a mind was exactly the tool to deal with something like this. And if he didn’t…well, that was hardly Downey’s fault, was it?
    He turned his attention to the paperwork for a while. It was amazing how the stuff mounted up. But you had to deal with it. It wasn’t as though they were murderers, after all…
    There was a knock at the door. He pushed the paperwork aside and sat back.
    “Come in, Mister Teatime,” he said. It never hurt to put the other fellow slightly in awe of you.
    In fact the door was opened by one of the Guild’s servants, carefully balancing a tea tray.
    “Ah, Carter,” said Lord Downey, recovering magnificently. “Just put it on the table over there, will you?”
    “Yes, sir,” said Carter. He turned and nodded. “Sorry, sir, I will go and fetch another cup directly, sir.”
    “What?”
    “For your visitor, sir.”
    “What visitor? Oh, when Mister Teati—”
    He stopped. He turned.
    There was a young man sitting on the hearth rug, playing with the dogs.
    “ Mister Teatime !”
    “It’s pronounced Teh-ah-tim-eh, sir,” said Teatime, with just a hint of reproach. “Everyone gets it wrong, sir.”
    “How did you do that ?”
    “Pretty well, sir. I got mildly scorched on the last few feet, of course.”
    There were some lumps of soot on the hearth rug. 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