He tackled the in-tray with vigour. He threw himself at the paperwork, checking figures, correcting spelling, and humming to himself to drown out the inner voice of temptation.
Lunchtime arrived, and with it a plate of one-foot-wide cheese sandwiches delivered by Gladys, along with the midday copy of the Times.
Mrs Lavish had died in the night. Moist stared at the news. It said she had passed away quietly in her sleep, after a long illness.
He dropped the paper and stared at the wall. She'd seemed like someone hanging together by sheer grit and gin. Even so, that vitality, that spark... well, she couldn't hold on for ever. So what would happen now? Ye gods, he was well out of it!
And it was probably not a good day to be Mr Fusspot. He'd looked a waddly sort of dog, so he'd better learn to run really quickly.
The latest post that Gladys had brought up contained a long and thoroughly second-hand envelope addressed to him 'personly' in thick black letters. He slit it open with the paperknife and shook it out into the waste bin, just in case.
There was a folded newspaper inside. It was, it turned out, yesterday's Times, and there was Moist von Lipwig on the front page. Circled.
Moist turned it over. On the other side, in tiny neat handwriting, were the words:
Dear Sir, I have took the small precawtion of loging certain affedavids with trusted associates. You will here from me gain.
a friend
Take it slowly, take it slowly... It can't be from a friend. Everyone I think of as a friend can spell. This must be some kind of con, yes? But there were no skeletons in his closet...
Oh, all right, if you were going for the fine detail, there were in fact enough skeletons in his closet to fill a big crypt, with enough left over to equip a funfair House of Horrors and maybe also make a macabre but mildly amusing ashtray. But they'd never been associated with the name Lipwig. He'd been careful about that. His crimes had died with Albert Spangler. A good hangman knows exactly how much rope to give a man, and had dropped him out of one life and into another.
Could anyone have recognized him? But he was the least recognizable person in the world when he wasn't wearing his golden suit! When he was young his mother had sometimes gone home from school with the wrong child!
And when he wore the suit, people recognized the suit. He hid by being conspicuous...
It had to be a scam of some kind. Yes, that was it. The old 'guilty secret' job. Probably no one got to a position like this without accumulating some things they'd rather not see made public. But it was a nice touch to include the bit about affidavits. It was there to set a nervous man to wondering. It suggested that the sender knew something so dangerous that you, the recipient, might try to silence him, and he was in a position to set the lawyers on you.
Hah! And he was being given some time in which, presumably, to stew. Him! Moist von Lipwig! Well, they might just find out how hot a stew could get. For now, he shoved the paper in a bottom drawer. Hah!
There was a knock at the door.
'Come in, Gladys,' he said, rummaging in the in-tray again.
The door opened and the worried, pale face of Stanley Howler appeared around it.
'It's me, sir. Stanley, sir,' it said.
'Yes, Stanley?'
'Head of Stamps at the Post Office, sir,' Stanley added, in case pinpoint identification was required.
'Yes, Stanley, I know,' said Moist patiently. 'I see you every day. What is it that you want?'
'Nothing, sir,' said Stanley. There was a pause, and Moist adjusted his mind to the world as seen through the brain of Stanley Howler. Stanley was very... precise, and as patient as the grave.
'What is the reason for you, coming here, to see me, today, Stanley?' Moist tried, enunciating carefully in order to deliver the sentence in bite-sized chunks.
'There is a lawyer downstairs, sir,' Stanley announced.
'But I've only just read the threatening - ' Moist began, and then relaxed. 'A lawyer? Did he say why?' he said.
'A matter of great importance, he said. There's two watchmen with him, sir. And a dog.'
'Really?' said Moist calmly. 'Well, you'd better show them up, then.'
He glanced at his watch.