Downey sat and thought, while Winvoe stood and worried.

     'We'll take it,' he said.

     'But...'

     'Thank you,  Mr  Winvoe. That is  my decision,' said Downey.  He stared into  space for a while, and then smiled.  'Is  Mister Teatime still in  the building?'

     Winvoe  stood  back. 'I thought the council had agreed to dismiss him,' he said stiffly. 'After that business with...'

     'Mister Teatime does not  see the world in  quite the same way as other people,' said Downey, picking up the picture from his desk and looking at it thoughtfully.

     'Well, indeed, I think that is certainly true.'

     'Please send him up.'

     The  Guild attracted  all  sorts of people, Downey  reflected. He found himself wondering  how it had come to attract Winvoe, for one thing. It  was hard to imagine him stabbing anyone in the heart in case he got blood on the victim's wallet. Whereas Mister Teatime...

     The problem was that the Guild took young boys and gave them a splendid education  and   incidentally  taught   them  how  to   kill,  cleanly and dispassionately, for money  and for the good  of  society, or at  least that part of society that had money, and what other kind of society was there?

     But very  occasionally you found you'd got someone like Mister Teatime, to  whom  the money was merely  a  distraction. Mister Teatime  had  a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.

     Mister Teatime enjoyed himself too much. And other people, also.

     Downey  had  privately decided that some  time soon  Mister Teatime was going to meet with an accident. Like many people with no actual morals, Lord Downey did  have  standards,  and Teatime repelled him. Assassination was  a careful game, usually played against people who knew the rules themselves or at least could afford the services of  those who did. There was considerable satisfaction in a clean kill.  What there wasn't supposed to be was pleasure in a messy one. That sort of thing led to talk.