Snuff

man, I’m going to give you a chance to kill me first. That means one or other of us will die, so whatever happens the world is going to be a better place, eh? Call it … cleaning up. I know you have a weapon because you’d have run if you didn’t, and so I reckon you have a blade from one of those poor buggers from Quirm and I warrant that in all the confusion you probably stabbed him with it.’
    ‘I did, too,’ said Stratford. ‘And he was a copper and you’re just a butler.’
    ‘Very true,’ said Willikins, ‘and much older than you and heavier than you and slower than you, but still a bit spry. What’ve you got to lose?’
    Only the horse, steaming patiently in the mist, saw what happened next, and being a horse was in no position to articulate its thoughts on the matter. Had it been able to do so it would have given as its opinion that one human ran towards another human carrying a huge metal stick while the other human quite calmly put his hand into his breast pocket. This was followed by a terrible scream, a gurgling noise and then silence.
    Willikins staggered to the side of the road and sat down on a stone, panting a little. Stratford certainly had been fast, no doubt about that. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, staring at nothing but the fog. Then he stood up, looked down at the shadow on the ground and said, ‘ But not fast enough .’ Then, like a good citizen, Willikins went back to see if he could help the unlucky gentlemen of the law, who appeared to be in difficulties. You should always help the gentlemen of the law. Where would we be without them?
    The chief sub-editor of the Ankh-Morpork Times really hated poetry. He was a plain man and had devoted a large part of his career to keeping it out of his paper. But they were a cunning bunch, poets, and could sneak it up on you when your back was turned. And tonight, with the paper already so late that the lads downstairs were into overtime, he stared at the report just delivered by hand from Knatchbull Harrington, the paper’s music critic. A man of whom he was deeply suspicious. He turned to his deputy and waved the page angrily. ‘“Whence came it, that ethereal music?” See what I mean? What’s wrong with “Where did that music come from”? Bloody stupid introductory sentence in any case. And what does ethereal mean, anyway?’
    The deputy sub hesitated. ‘I think it means runny. Could be wrong.’
    The chief sub-editor stood in misery. ‘Definitely poetry!’
    Somebody had played some music that was very good. Apparently it made everybody amazed. Why didn’t that twit in his rather feminine purple silk shirts just write something like that? After all, it said everything that you needed to know, didn’t it? He took out his red pencil, and just as he was applying it to the wretched manuscript there was a sound on the metal staircase and Mr de Worde, the editor, staggered into the office, looking as if he had seen a ghost or, perhaps, a ghost had seen him.
    He looked groggily at the two puzzled men and managed to say, ‘Did Harrington send in his stuff?’
    The chief sub held out the offending stuff in front of him. ‘Yes, guv, a load of rubbish in my opinion.’
    De Worde grabbed it, read it with his lips moving and thrust it back at the man. ‘Don’t you dare change a single word. Front page, Bugsy, and I hope to hell that Otto got an iconograph.’
    ‘Yessir, but, sir—’
    ‘And don’t bloody argue!’ screamed de Worde. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my office.’
    He clattered on up the stairs while the sub-editor and his deputy stood gloomily reading Knatchbull Harrington’s copy again. It began:
    Whence came it, that ethereal music, from what hidden grot or secret cell? From what dark cave? From what window into paradise? We watched the tiny figure under the spotlight and the music poured over us, sometimes soothing, sometimes blessing, sometimes accusing. Every one of us confronting ghosts, demons and old memories. The recital by Tears of the Mushroom, a young lady of the goblin persuasion, took but half an hour or, perhaps, it took a lifetime, and then it was over, to a silence which spread and grew and expanded until at last it exploded. Every single patron standing and clapping their hands raw, tears running down our faces. We had been taken somewhere and brought back and we were different people, longing for another journey into