We started down the hill where we'd materialized, following a sheep trail.

"Not a chance," Chumley said with regret, kicking gorse out of his way with his big feet. "The fireballs Mums would throw if both of us turned our back on her project now I would simply not like to consider. What about Bunny? She has considerable skills in the retail-therapy sector."

"It'd be hard to extract her without alerting Skeeve something was up. I don't want to bug Skeeve over a minor misunderstanding."

Bunny was also a Klahd, but a sophisticated, beautiful, and streetwise one, the niece of a Mob boss known as the Fairy Godfather. "Besides, it'd be good to make sure we have someone we can trust looking after him."

I felt in my pocket for a message ball. These handy-dandy little spells, which had been making their manufacturer rich in the Bazaar, could find whomever you addressed them to, even cross dimensions to a limited extent. I scrawled Bunny a quick note on the parchment, tweaked the spell into an outbound globe of golden light, and flung it into the air. It hovered for a moment, then zinged off in the direction of the inn.

"And you don't want to involve Skeeve personally because ..." Chumley began.

I scowled. There were plenty of reasons, but I didn't want to talk about some of them.

"The last person you'd believe protesting his innocence is the guy you accused, right? That's just what you'd would expect him to say. It's like saying you're looking for the real arsonist, when everyone can see the lighter in your pocket. Why, I remember a number of years ago when I was pricing magikal security for a Gnomish funds transfer service, and one of the little guys whose cash register was always short kept going on about how he saw some mystery employee taking crates of gold out of the door just before the supervisor was coming through, and—"