'Well. I'll be a...' the man began. 'This is a --ing treasure! I fort so! A genuine --ing Intaglio Ernesto, too. See that mother-of-pearl work there?'
'This isn't the time, Mr Tulip--'
'He only made six of them. Oh, no, they haven't even kept it --ing tuned!'
'Godsdammit, we're supposed to be professionals
'Perhaps your - colleague would like it as a present?' said a voice from the centre of the room.
There were half a dozen chairs around the circle of candlelight. They were an old-fashioned kind, and the backs curved out and up to form a deep leathery arch that had, presumably, been designed to keep out the draughts but now gave the occupants their own deep pools of shadow.
Mr Pin had been here before. He'd admired the set-up. Anyone inside the ring of candles couldn't see who was in the depths of the chairs, while at the same time being fully visible themselves.
It occurred to him now that the arrangement also meant that the people in the chairs couldn't see who was in the other chairs.
Mr Pin was a rat. He was quite happy with the description. Rats
had a lot to recommend them. And this layout had been dreamed up by someone who thought like him.
One of the chairs said, 'Your friend Daffodil--'
'Tulip,' said Mr Pin.
'Your friend Mr Tulip would perhaps like part of your payment to be the harpsichord?' said the chair.
'It's not a --ing harpsichord, it's a --ing virginal,' growled Mr Tulip. 'One --ing string to a note instead of two! So called because it was an instrument for --ing young ladies!'
'My word, was it?' said one of the chairs. 'I thought it was just a sort of early piano!'
'Intended to be played by young ladies,' said Mr Pin smoothly. 'And Mr Tulip does not collect art, he merely... appreciates it. Our payment will be in gems, as agreed.'
'As you wish. Please step into the circle...'
'--ing harpsichord,' muttered Mr Tulip.
The New Firm came under the hidden gaze of the chairs as they took up their positions.
What the chairs saw was this:
Mr Pin was small and slim and, like his namesake, slightly larger in the head than ought to be the case. If there was a word for him apart from 'rat' it was 'dapper'; he drank little, he watched what he ate and considered that his body, slightly malformed though it was, was a temple. He also used too much oil on his hair and parted it in the middle in a way that was twenty years out of style, and his black suit was on the greasy side, and his little eyes were constantly moving, taking in everything.
It was hard to see Mr Tulip's eyes, because of a certain puffiness probably caused by too much enthusiasm for things in bags.* The bags had also possibly caused the general blotchiness and the thick veins that stood out on his forehead, but Mr Tulip was in any case the kind of heavy-set man who is on the verge of bursting out of his clothes and, despite his artistic inclinations, projected the image of a would-be wrestler who had failed the intelligence test. If his
* Your Brain On Drugs is a terrible sight, but Mr Tulip was living proof of the fact that so was Your Brain on a cocktail of horse liniment, sherbet and powdered water-retention pills.
body was a temple, it was one of those strange ones where people did odd things to animals in the basement, and if he watched what he ate it was only to see it wriggle.
Several of the chairs wondered, not if they were doing the right thing, since that was indisputable, but whether they were doing it with the right people. Mr Tulip, after all, wasn't a man you'd want to see standing too close to a naked flame.
'When will you be ready?' said a chair. 'How is your... protege today?'
'We think Tuesday morning would be a good time,' said Mr Pin. 'By then he'll be as good as he's going to get.'
'And there will be no deaths involved,' said a chair. 'This is important.'
'Mr Tulip will be as gentle as a lamb,' said Mr Pin.
Unseen gazes avoided the sight of Mr Tulip, who had chosen this moment to suck up his nose a large quantity of slab.