“Well, Fred…Is it a crime to be given something? I mean, without you knowing it?”
“Someone been giving you things, Throat?”
Throat nodded. “Dunno. You know I keep merchandise down here?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You see, I just come down to do a bit of stocktaking, and…” He waved a hand helplessly. “Well…take a look…”
He opened the cellar door.
In the darkness something went plop.
Windle Poons lurched aimlessly along a dark alley in the Shades, arms extended in front of him, hands hanging down at the wrists. He didn’t know why. It just seemed the right way to go about it.
Jumping off a building? No, that wouldn’t work, either. It was hard enough to walk as it was, and two broken legs wouldn’t help. Poison? He imagined it would be like having a very bad stomach ache. Noose? Hanging around would probably be more boring than sitting on the bottom of the river.
He reached a noisome courtyard where several alleys met. Rats scampered away from him. A cat screeched and scurried off over the rooftops.
As he stood wondering where he was, why he was, and what ought to happen next, he felt the point of a knife against his backbone.
“Okay, grandad,” said a voice behind him, “it’s your money or your life.”
In the darkness Windle Poons’ mouth formed a horrible grin.
“I’m not playing about, old man,” said the voice.
“Are you Thieves’ Guild?” said Windle, without turning around.
“No, we’re…freelances. Come on, let’s see the color of your money.”
“Haven’t got any,” said Windle. He turned around. There were two more muggers behind him.
“Ye gods, look at his eyes,” said one of them.
Windle raised his arms above his head.
“Ooooooooh,” he moaned.
The muggers backed away. Unfortunately, there was a wall behind them. They flattened themselves against it.
“OoooOOOOoooobuggeroffoooOOOooo” said Windle, who hadn’t realized that the only way of escape lay through him. He rolled his eyes for better effect.
Maddened by terror, the would-be attackers dived under his arms, but not before one of them had sunk his knife up to the hilt in Windle’s pigeon chest.
He looked down at it.
“Hey! That was my best robe!” he said. “I wanted to be buried in—will you look at it? You know how difficult it is to darn silk? Come back here this—Look at it, right where it shows—”
He listened. There was no sound but the distant and retreating scurry of footsteps.
Windle Poons removed the knife.
“Could have killed me,” he muttered, tossing it away.
In the cellar, Sergeant Colon picked up one of the objects that lay in huge drifts on the floor.
“There must be thousands of ’em,” said Throat, behind him. “What I want to know is, who put them there?”*