‘Oh, so someone just came in and hid them in your caffiene, did they?’

‘That must be it. I can think of no other explanation.’

‘I’ve had enough. Let’s process him.’

‘Slow down, Titus,’ said the officer.

‘He’s up to his ears in it.’

‘Slow down, I said.’

‘I had plans for tonight,’ Titus Endor scowled.

‘Fantastic for you. Give me the tablets.’

Endor tipped the yellodes into the officer’s hand. The officer sat down on the couch next to Master Imus.

‘Get lost,’ he told his companions. Endor went out onto the landing to smoke a lho-stick. The old man shuffled away to examine the books in the bedroom.

‘I’ll be frank. This is going badly for you, sir,’ the officer explained to Master Imus.

‘I realise that.’

‘The matter of the accounts is the main thing. But the yellodes. They complicate the matter.’

‘I understand.’

‘They are a prohibited substance. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, they’re yellodes.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Master Imus.

‘This isn’t the first time I’ve inspected an individual’s hab and found evidence of drug use. Obscura, gladstones, that sort of business. But yellodes... They’re mind expanders. We typically find them in circumstances connected to cult activity.’

‘Cult?’

‘We often find them used in association with prohibited texts and deviant knowledge. A man who has the Number of Ruin might use yellodes to help him fathom it and master its use.’

Master Imus put his head in his hands. ‘They’re not mine.’

‘Is the Ur-Saker yours?’

‘The what?’

‘I found it between the Frobisher and the early Tacits in your bedroom.’

‘I don’t know what an Ur-Saker is. I don’t know its significance.’

‘It’s a proscribed text. It defines the methodological use of psychotropic drugs in gnomic enlightenment. So that was just placed there too, was it? Someone just put it there?’

‘They must have done!’

The officer sighed. ‘Master Imus, you brought a matter to our attention, a serious matter. The numbers you showed me in the ledger are quite pernicious.’

‘And I came of my own volition! Remember that!’

‘I do, and that leaves me with two possibilities. You are a practising heretic with a pathological desire to be caught and condemned.’

‘Or?’

‘Or, Master Imus, you have been set up to take the fall for someone. There’s one last thing I would like to do. It’s necessary, for my work.’

‘What is it, sir?’ asked Master Imus.