Thud! by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online

corners, well, why not stash it away and wait awhile? You get in as a customer one day, see, hide under a sheet, take out the muriel in the night, hide it somewhere, then go out with the customers next day. Simple, eh?” He beamed at Nobby. “You’ve got to outsmart the criminal mind, see?”
    “Or they could’ve just smashed down a door and pushed off with the muriel in the middle of the night,” said Nobby. “Why mess about with a cunning plan when a simple one will do?”
    Fred sighed. “I can see this is going to be a complicated case, Nobby.”
    “You should ask Vimesy if we can have it, then,” said Nobby. “I mean, we already know the facts, right?”
    Hovering in the air, unsaid, was: Where would you like to be in the next few days? Out there, where the axes and clubs are likely to be flying, or in here, searching all the attics and cellars very, very carefully? Think about it. And it wouldn’t be cowardice, right? ’Cos a famous muriel like this is bound to be part of our national heritage, right? Even if it is just a painting of a load of dwarfs and trolls having a scrap.
    “I think I will do a proper report and suggest to Mr. Vimes that maybe we should handle this one,” said Fred Colon slowly. “It needs the attention of mature officers. D’you know much about art, Nobby?”
    “If necessary, Sarge.”
    “Oh, come on, Nobby!”
    “What? Tawneee says what she does is Art, Sarge. And she wears more clothes than a lot of the women on the walls around here, so why be sniffy about it?”
    “Yeah, but…” Fred Colon hesitated here. He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.
    “No urns,” he said at last.
    “What urns?” said Nobby.
    “Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added: “Or a plinth. Both is best, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.”
    “What about a potted plant?”
    “That’s okay if it’s in an urn.”
    “What about if it’s not got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?” said Nobby.
    “Have you one in mind, Nobby?” said Colon suspiciously.
    “Yes, The Goddess Anoia * Arising from the Cutlery ,” said Nobby. “They’ve got it here. It was painted by a bloke with three i ’s in his name, which sounds pretty artistic to me.”
    “The number of i ’s is important, Nobby,” said Sergeant Colon gravely, “but in these situations you have to ask yourself: ‘Where’s the cherub?’ If there’s a little fat pink kid holding a mirror or a fan or similar, then it’s still okay. Even if he’s grinning. Obviously you can’t get urns everywhere .”
    “All right, but supposing—” Nobby began
    The distant door opened, and Sir Reynold came hurrying across the marble floor with a book under his arm.
    “Ah, I’m afraid there is no copy of the painting,” he said. “Clearly, a copy that did it justice hwould be quite hard to make. But, er, this rather sensationalist treatise has many detailed sketches, at least. These days every visitor seems to have a copy, of course. Did you know that more than two thousand four hundred and ninety individual dwarfs and trolls can be identified by armor or body markings in the original picture? It drove Rascal quite mad, poor fellow. It took him sixteen years to complete!”
    “That’s nothing,” said Nobby cheerfully. “Fred here hasn’t finished painting his kitchen yet, and he started twenty years ago!”
    “Thank you for that, Nobby,” said Colon coldly. He took the book from the curator. The title was The Koom Valley Codex . “Mad how?” he said.
    “hWell, he neglected his other hwork, you see. He hwas constantly moving his