'You don't even make 'em of the right meat!'
Carrot sighed. There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.
'All right,' he said. 'But you can't get poisoned by steak. No, honestly. No. No, shut up, all of you. No, I don't care what your mothers told you. Now, I want to know about this poisoning, Gimlet.'
Gimlet struggled to his feet.
'We did Rat Surprise last night for the Sons of Bloodaxe annual dinner,' he said. There was a general groan. 'And it was rat.' He raised his voice against the complaining. 'You can't use anything else - listen - you've got to have the noses poking through the pastry, all right? Some of the best rat we've had in for a long time, let me tell you!'
'And you were all ill afterwards?' said Carrot, taking out his notebook.
'Sweating all night!'
'Couldn't see straight!'
'I reckon I know every knothole on the back of the privy door!'
'I'll write that down as a definitely ,' said Carrot. 'Was there anything else on the dinner menu?'
'Vole-au-vents and Cream of Rat,' said Gimlet. 'All hygienically prepared.'
'How do you mean, hygienically prepared ?' said Carrot.
'The chef is under strict orders to wash his hands afterwards.'
The assembled dwarfs nodded. This was certainly pretty hygienic. You didn't want people going around with ratty hands.
'Anyway, you've all been eating here for years,' said Gimlet, sensing this slight veer in his direction. This is the first time there's been any trouble, isn't it? My rats are famous!'
'Your chicken's going to be pretty famous, too,' said Carrot.
There was laughter this time. Even Gimlet joined in. 'All right, I'm sorry about the chicken. But it was that or very poor rats, and you know I only buy from Wee Mad Arthur. He's trustworthy, whatever else you may say about him. You just can't get better rats. Everyone knows that.'
That'll be Wee Mad Arthur in Gleam Street?' said Carrot.
'Yes. Not a mark on 'em, most of the time.'
'Have you got any left?'
'One or two.' Gimlet's expression changed. 'Here, you don't think he poisoned them, do you? I never did trust that little bugger!'
'Enquiries are continuing,' said Carrot. He tucked his notebook away. 'I'd like some rats, please. Those rats. To go.' He glanced at the menu, patted his pocket and looked questioningly out through the door at Angua.
'You don't have to buy them,' she said wearily. They're evidence.'
'We can't defraud an innocent tradesman who may be the victim of circumstances,' said Carrot.
'You want ketchup?' said Gimlet. 'Only they're extra with ketchup.'
The funeral carriage went slowly through the streets. It looked quite expensive, but that was Cockbill Street for you. People put money by. Vimes remembered that. You always put money by, in Cockbill Street. You saved up for a rainy day even if it was pouring already. And you'd die of shame if people thought you could afford only a cheap funeral.
Half a dozen black-clad mourners came along behind, together with perhaps a score of people who had tried at least to look respectable.
Vimes followed the procession at a distance all the way to the cemetery behind the Temple of Small Gods, where he lurked awkwardly among the gravestones and sombre graveyard trees while the priest mumbled on.
The gods had made the people of Cockbill Street poor, honest and provident, Vimes reflected. They might as well have hung signs saying 'Kick me' on their backs and had done with it. Yet Cockbill Street people tended towards religion, at least of the less demonstrative kind. They always put a little life by for a rainy eternity.
Eventually the crowd around the graves broke up and drifted away with the aimless look of people whose immediate future contains ham rolls.