"I don't care what he's done," Gaunt continued, gathering courage as he went. "He wasn't a bad man. He was a bit sharp maybe, but so he would be, being continental; we all know that." He pointed to the desk and the open drawers. "But he wasn't bad like this."

"No one is. Know that? No one's ever this bad. That's what mercy's about. We're all lovely people, really . There's a hymn about that, isn't there? One of the hymns he used to play, and you and I used to sing, Gaunt, before we grew up and got elegant. That's a lovely thing about hymns: we never forget them, do we? Like limericks. God knew a thing or two when he invented rhyme, I will say."