“Devil’s Tail, Lemuel, no one’s blaming you, you cretin! Quite the opposite! What I’m saying is that you are by far too good a businessman not to keep careful records, and I need you to check ’em out. We both know everything goes through you . . . you’ve got to get me the name of whoever originally got the big fat caterpillar. The enormous one with really weird colours. You know?”

“Vaguely remember it, yes.”

“Well, that is good.” Isaac calmed a little. He ran his hands over his face and sighed enormously. “Lemuel, I need your help,” he said simply. “I’ll pay you . . . But I’m also begging. I really need you to help me here. Look.” He opened his eyes and glared at Lemuel. “The damn thing may have keeled over and died, right? Maybe it’s like a mayfly: one glorious day. Maybe Lub’ll wake up tomorrow happy as a sandboy. But maybe not. Now, I want to know: one—” he counted off on fat fingers “—how to snap Lublamai out of this; two, what this damn thing is—the one description we have is a little garbled.” He glanced at the wyrman sleeping in the corner. “And three, how we catch the fucker.”

Lemuel stared at him, his face immobile. Slowly and ostentatiously, he pulled a snuff-box from his pocket and took a sniff. Isaac’s fists clenched and unclenched.

“Fine, ’Zaac,” Lemuel said quietly, replacing his little jewelled box. He nodded slowly. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be in touch. But I’m not a charity, Isaac, I’m a businessman and you’re a customer. I get something for this. I’ll bill you, all right?”

Isaac nodded wearily. There was no rancour in Lemuel’s voice, no viciousness, no spite. He was simply stating the truth that underlay his bonhomie. Isaac knew that if it paid better not to uncover the purveyor of the peculiar grub, Lemuel would simply do that.

“Mayor.” Eliza Stem-Fulcher swaggered into the Lemquist Room. Rudgutter looked up at her questioningly. She threw a thin newspaper onto the table before him. “We’ve got a lead.”

Teafortwo left quickly when he woke, with David and Isaac trying to reassure him that no one held him responsible. By the evening, a horrible kind of drab calm had arrived at the warehouse on Paddler Way.