Roger Maroon had decided to up the ante in my absence, so I would have to do likewise. I asked Stafford if there was anyone in the village who could write romantic poetry.
“But,” I added, “it’s got to be really good, and not too racy—Constance isn’t one for overtly rude metaphors, worse luck.”
“I think I know someone who might be able to help,” returned Stafford, “but it won’t come cheap. There are risks involved. You know how the prefects take a dim view of irresponsible levels of creative expression.”
“Five percent finder’s fee?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I pushed open our front door and checked the hall table to see if there were any messages. There was one from the persistent Dorian G-7 of the Mercury inviting me to give my account of the trip to Rusty Hill, several from Reds suggesting we become friends, and one from “the desk of Violet deMauve” reminding me of my obligations to the orchestra. There were several for my father, too, and Imogen Fandango’s spousal information pack. The scrapbook contained a studio photograph of Fandango’s daughter, who was, I had to admit, not unattractive in an upmarket perky-nose Purplish sort of way. Written testimonials were followed by a long list of her virtues, which numbered seventy-five. They began with a well-worded implication of her potentially high Ishihara rating, and ended with her wish to one day help represent East Carmine in the Jollity Fair unicycle relay. I put the details aside, and decided to wire Bertie Magenta first thing tomorrow morning. Fandango had been asking six thousand for Imogen, and a 2 percent finder’s fee would be one hundred and fifty—a useful addition to my dowry, in order to sway Constance from Roger and his perfidious use of proxy poets.
I walked upstairs to add Constance’s telegram to my collection. It was, in truth, a pretty feeble collection—less one of letters professing undying love than of letters requesting favors for one thing or another, or telling me how I should be more like Roger Maroon. I did actually consider burning it, but I was nothing if not dutiful with my filing, as Our Munsell had once noted that life is an anagram of file, and the relevance was pretty clear.
As I passed the door of the bathroom I noticed that it was swinging shut. It seemed odd, since there wasn’t a breath of wind either within the house or without. I paused in my stride, and the door stopped swinging. I was the only one in the house; I had even seen the Apocryphal man shouting at a drainpipe in the corner of the town square as I came in.
“Hello?”
There was no answer to my call, and I very gently pushed the door. It opened easily for six inches or so, then stopped. But it wasn’t as if it were pushing against a chair—it was the soft, yielding sensation of a hand. There was someone behind the door. I briefly thought it might be Jane, who had decided to perhaps kill me after all, but on reflection I decided that hiding behind the bathroom door with a hatchet or something was decidedly not her style.
“Who’s there?”
There was no answer, and then it struck me: It might be the Apocryphal man’s roommate, the one I had heard overhead.
“Do you live upstairs?” I asked, and whoever-it-was knocked once, for yes. I asked, “Can I see you?”
and heard two urgent raps, for no. I was just about to frame a more complex question when I heard someone trot up the stairs below. I thought it might be the Colorman or the Apocryphal man, but it wasn’t. It was Mr. Turquoise—the Blue prefect.
“Mr. Turquoise!” I said. “How do you do?”
I felt the bathroom door close slowly behind me.
“Good afternoon, Master Russett,” he said in a businesslike tone. “The front door was open, so I came straight in. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Good lad. How’s the chair census going?”
“I’ve yet to start.”
“Plenty of time. May I use the bathroom?”
He moved forward, but I stepped into his path. “No!”
“What?”
I had to think fast. Whatever the truth about our unseen lodger, it was something that would be best learned without any prefects getting involved.
“It’s . . . broken. Something to do with the cistern.”
He smiled. “I only want to wash my hands.”
“That’s broken, too.”
“Both broken?”
“Yes, sir. Must be the cold water supply.”
“Then I’ll use the hot.”
“Are wheelbarrows made of bronze?”
“What?”
“I was just wondering.”
He shook his head and pushed past me. The door opened easily, and Turquoise strode to the sink. I looked around the bathroom. The shower curtain, usually open, was drawn all around the bath, and I could see the faint outline of a figure within. Turquoise, however, didn’t.
“The cold is working, Russett.”
“Must have been a blockage.”
“Must have,” he said, drying his hands. “Now, then, I’m responsible for career advice, organized glee, employment rosters and allocation of Useful Work. Can we walk and talk? I’ve got to check the inertia racer for Leapback Compliance. Fandango wants to run it at the Red Sector Jollity Fair next month at Vermillion, and it reflects badly on the village if he turns up with something that gets busted by the scrutineers.”
I readily agreed, and we walked downstairs, out the front door and across the square.
“Here,” said Turquoise, showing me my carefully prepared timetable.
“Sally Gamboge has raised the Grey retirement age to the maximum allowable, and is currently running sixteen-hour days, but we’re still short a thousand person-hours a week, so the demands on Chromatic time are perhaps a little more than you might be used to. I daresay, in fact, that you might have to give up tennis or croquet, as there won’t be time enough to do both.”
“I quite understand the need for sacrifices, sir.”
“Good fellow. I’ve got you down for Boundary Patrol first thing tomorrow, lightning watch on Saturday, anti-drowning supervision Mondays and Wednesdays and a turn teaching the juniors—this afternoon, in fact. Can you do that?”
“I’ve not much experience of teaching, sir.”
“I shouldn’t worry—there isn’t much left to teach. Talk to them about the different sorts of chairs or something. By the way,” he added, “top marks on the Rusty Hill expedition. If you enjoyed laughing in the face of death, you might like to have a crack at High Saffron. One hundred merits, and all you have to do is take a look.”
“I understand there’s a one hundred percent fatality rate?”
“True. But up until the moment of death there was a one hundrerd percent survival rate. Really, I shouldn’t let anything as meaningless as statistics put you off.”
“I think I may have to pass.”
“Well,” he replied, mildly irked, “if you’re going to insist on being so negative, I suppose we could raise the consideration to two hundred.”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ll put you down as a ‘maybe.’ ” We had reached the racetrack, which was a large oval of perhaps a mile in length. Because horses were too valuable to risk on the track, the Collective had found alternatives to race at Jollity Fair race day.
Ostriches had been briefly fashionable, as had kudu and large dogs ridden by infants. Bicycles had been popular until the single-gearing Leapback had made the races considerably less than exciting. To circumvent this, some bright spark had resurrected the notion of the pre-Epiphanic “Penny Farthing,” no doubt named after its inventor. The direct pedal drive on the outsize front wheel gave the cycles a healthy top speed but also made them dangerously top-heavy. With Mildew the most prevalent cause of death by a long shot, someone dying on the racetrack was of considerable novelty, and much applauded.