Holy Smoke: A Jerusalem Mystery

by Frederick Ramsay

  “I have become suspicious of everyone,” he said aloud and attracted the curious stares of the crowd on the mount. “I practically accused the high priest of staging a murder. Did I only mean to annoy him or did I think there might be some truth in it?” He shook his head angrily. “No, of course not. Still, one should never rule out anything.”

  A passerby, unfamiliar with who the rabban of the Sanhedrin was, a pilgrim no doubt, pulled up beside him.

  “Are you all right, Father?”

  “What? All right? Of course I am all right. Who do you think I am? Do not call me father as if I were in my dotage, sir. Foreigners!”

  The poor man stepped back and started an apology but Gamaliel barreled off, still muttering to himself. “Of course I could be completely wrong about all of this. It might still be an elaborate ruse to discredit the guards or the priests or…or what? Why tempt the Lord’s wrath in such a way? But the dead man was only recently circumcised. Now there is something we must reckon with, and soon.”

  His headlong rush took him into the path of a youth equally oblivious to his surroundings hurrying from the opposite direction. The young man barreled into Gamaliel, caught his balance just in time, and snapped at the old man.

  “Watch it, you old fool.”

  Gamaliel spun around and gave the boy a tongue-lashing he would remember until the day he died. Had the young man known that it had been delivered by the highest laic member of the Sanhedrin, he might have felt suitably chastised instead of angry. As he did not, he made a rude gesture and continued on his way.

  ***

  Gamaliel burst through his gate to find Loukas arguing with the crew of kohanim assigned to burials. The final disposition of the late Draco apparently posed a problem for them.

  “No matter what else we may discover from here on out,” Gamaliel groused without the usual greeting in the Name, “We are most definitely looking at some sort of conspiracy. Who is this?”

  “These are the agents assigned to manage Draco’s burials rites. We have a problem.”

  “I see. Well, a conspiracy, Loukas.”

  “You say that with great finality. It raises two questions. What sort of conspiracy and by whom? Also, how did you arrive at that conclusion?”

  “That is three questions, and the answers in order are ‘I don’t know,’ ‘I don’t know,’ and ‘what possible alternatives do we have for piecing together what we know thus far?’ Wait, Draco is dead and these are agents sent to bury him? When? And what problem could he pose now?”

  “Draco died last night. I am quarreling with these men over burial practices. They say because Draco was not of the faith and his manhood had been mutilated as well, he cannot rest among those who are of the faith and intact. I do not know what the situation would be if he were one, but not the other. Either way, I contend that dead is dead and who, except possibly Ha Shem Himself, could possibly care. And I seriously doubt that He does. This man’s response is that He does care and the Law is the law. As rabban, can you enlighten me here?”

  “I see. I am sorry for the loss of such a faithful servant, but you said death would be a blessing.”

  “It was a blessing from, and now an inconvenience to the Lord. I wish him to be placed in a tomb, and these men say he cannot because his corpse will somehow defile the ones already there.”

  “I will have a word with the priest.” Gamaliel took the young man aside and they spoke briefly. The kohen seemed intimidated in the presence of so notable a person as the rabban of the Sanhedrin, but still remained stubborn. Finally, Gamaliel said something that satisfied the priest. He nodded and departed.

  “He will arrange for the body to be picked up shortly.”

  “Draco will be entombed? How did you manage that and do I want to know?”

  “As it happens, I have an empty rolling stone tomb and your Draco will inhabit it until such time as his bones can be collected and placed in an ossuary. At that time you may find him a place on the Hill of the Dead.”

  “Your tomb? What happens if you die before his bones can be collected?”

  “Then he and I, both of us, will be someone else’s problem, won’t we?”

  “I see. Thank you. Now, you came crashing in here with talk of conspiracy. What did you mean?”

  “I did? Oh, yes I did. I have been thinking. On my way over here I had a chat with Yehudah, you know, the captain of the Temple Guards. It seems the night shift captain, Zach ben Azar’el…you know the one who told me about the interference from the Palace? Zach has gone missing.” Gamaliel paused and wiped his face with a cloth he pulled from his sleeve. “Is it my imagination or are young people ruder than they used to be?”

  “Are they? Sorry, how does that question relate to the missing guardsman?”

  “There was a young man who nearly ran me down on my way over here. He called me an old fool. Do you believe the effrontery?”

  “You told him who you were, of course?”

  “No, I told him who I thought he was.”

  “And?”

  “He made a rude gesture. Appalling, what has the world has come to?”

  “Indeed. You did say someone is missing and there must be a conspiracy?”

  “Oh, yes. Here it is in a nutshell.”

  Chapter XXVIII

  Gamaliel finished his narrative as the Temple shofars sounded the third hour. Loukas had listened, at first patiently, and then with increased agitation. Gamaliel paused and took a breath, then shook his head. “I have listened to myself speak and now realize it cannot true. Have you ever noticed, Loukas, that sometimes a thing which you have convinced yourself must be true, vanishes like the morning dew when you speak it aloud?”

  “Often.”

  “Really, to suppose the palace, the Roman authorities, and the high priest are somehow connected in a vast plot to eliminate one lone apothecary is absurd.”

  “Of course it is.” Loukas said and shook his head in apparent frustration. “I am at a loss. You just spent the better part of an hour describing in elaborate detail a bit of chicanery in high places and now you say it meant nothing?”

  “I didn’t say it meant nothing even though in retrospect, it is. I ask you instead, what doing so does for our investigation.”

  Loukas threw up his hands. “I am clueless. What does it do?”

  “It tells us that, once again, an illusion has been created to lead us astray. It is a very elaborate and deliberately crafted illusion. You, I, and who knows who else, have been lured into another trap. We have been set to wasting valuable time looking for connections where none exist. The question I put to you now is, why is that?”

  “To cover the reality of the thing, I suppose.”

  “Close enough. First we were stuck in the Temple trying to connect the death and the apparent facts of the murder to an angry Ha Shem. Then, because we assumed our dead man practiced as an apothecary, we went to the herbalists and looked there. Now we hear from two differing sources that the palace and the Romans must be involved. It is like the Oracle at Delphi—all smoke and mirrors.”

  “You’ve been to the Oracle at Delphi?”

  “Only vicariously. I have received reports. The illusion of other worldliness has to do with polished reflective surfaces set at differing angles, torches, and a great deal of incense and its smoke. One has no idea where the message comes from or how many people are delivering it, who’s there and who is not. Very clever, if I do say so, but that is beside the point.”

  “Not holy smoke then?”

  “For the Greeks, possibly, for Israelites, never. We have been led by the nose like a bull going to slaughter.”

  “Or to be sacrificed up on the Temple mount?”

  “Exactly. We are being served up, you could say.”

  “By whom?”

  “There you go. You have put your finger on the quintessential question. Who indeed? You were quite correct in suggesting that we ignore the facts of the body in the Holy of Holies. Alive and simultaneously
dead, you said.”

  “And that led us nowhere.”

  “No, no, do not be so pessimistic. It was a good start. We just didn’t go back far enough.”

  “Now you have lost me. I have to say, Gamaliel, that I have always considered myself to be reasonably astute. I can solve complex problems and diagnose disease as well or better, if modesty permits, than most of my contemporaries. But at this moment I feel as confused as a student at his first geometry lesson—with Euclid himself as tutor.”

  “I suppose I should be flattered. I have no knowledge of either geometry or Euclid, so I cannot be sure. Forget what I just said. In a nutshell, the conspiracy, the real conspiracy, is that there is no conspiracy as we imagined—well, as I imagined. You have different thoughts?”

  “Let me see. All of the clues and actions taken in the execution of this murder were intended to lead us farther and farther away from the central core of the thing. And that is…what is it?”

  Gamaliel shook his head. “I haven’t figured that out yet, but I will.”

  “Of course you will. You will?”

  Gamaliel closed his eyes and tilted his head back as if to take the sun on his face. “In truth, I feel the way a man must if suspended over a chasm supported only by a fraying rope. For the sake of argument, let us suppose that the dead man in the Temple represents a second murder. That there had been an earlier one, a more significant one, but the fact of the body being placed where it was has diverted us. What then?”

  “What other murder? I don’t recall an antecedent murder.”

  “Neither do I, but if we posit that there was one, where will we be led?”

  “Is anybody of importance missing? I think we would have heard if that were the case.”

  “Must it be someone of importance? Suppose it was someone whose death would be unremarkable but for his connection to something of importance.”

  Loukas rolled his eyes. “Why do you do this to me? What thing of importance.”

  “I don’t know, but I have been considering two facts. First, your friend Ali arrives for a visit, but not at his usual time, and then he leaves in a hurry—heading north, he says. Then he suddenly reappears as someone else without explanation. What shall we make of that?”

  “I make nothing of it. Are you supposing that Ali bin Selah is somehow mixed up in these murders?”

  “For the time being, I am. I have only the thinnest of reasons to do so, but, yes, I believe he is connected somehow.”

  “I don’t believe it. He told me he searched for an acquaintance he was to meet elsewhere and came here on his trail.”

  “Yes, I know. And he brought you wine and a potion for Draco. Do you still have that mixture?”

  “I do. Why?”

  “Have you tested it yourself? Am I right in assuming that Draco took it regularly and it eased his pain greatly?”

  “Yes. In fact he seems to have downed the whole vial in his last moments.”

  “Is it possible it might have hastened his death as well as given him relief from pain?”

  “I don’t think so, but I suppose it might have, given his fragile condition.”

  “So, there is none left to test?”

  “I have a second, full bottle.”

  “I would like to see it.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  Loukas ducked into his chambers and emerged a moment later with a vial filled with liquid. Gamaliel admired the delicate Roman glass, but wondered whether placing such a tonic in something so easily broken would be considered prudent.

  “You test it, Loukas, but be careful. Just a taste on a fingertip should do for a start.”

  Loukas broke the wax seal on the vial’s neck and pulled the stopper. He placed a finger over the opening, tilted the bottle over and back and replaced the cap. He touched his finger to his tongue and ran it around in his mouth.

  “I am impressed and not a little dismayed,” he said. “Even this small dab has numbed my tongue and the rest of the mixture burns.”

  “Numbs, you say? Could that be hul gil?”

  “If it is, it is not what I am used to. This is a mixture of mustard, this numbing substance in wine as a carrier, and honey, if I am not mistaken.”

  “Aside from the substance that numbs, is it a common admixture?”

  “Yes, I would say so. Except for this substance…” Loukas wetted the end of his finger again and repeated the tasting process.

  “Taste and see that the Lord He is good.” Gamaliel chanted. “Blessed is the man that puts his trust in Him.”

  “What?”

  “One of King David’s songs. Is the second trial any different? Have you discovered anything new?”

  “No. I am curious about whatever it is that has such a powerful effect on the senses. I must ask Ali when he comes again. Do you think he will? Why do you suppose he has disguised himself?”

  Gamaliel frowned. “Why does anyone disguise himself? He wishes not to be discovered. That being the case, the more important question is why did he break his anonymity and come here?”

  “To talk to me.”

  “Yes, but he could have done that any time. He could have done it without pretending to be someone else. No, something has happened between the time he left and the time he showed up again at your gate.”

  “What happened, and why did he come to me afterwards?”

  “I am not sure about the first part, but I think he came to find out what you had discovered about the Temple man or, more likely, what the two of us had deduced since he last talked to you.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Why indeed? If we knew that, we would be halfway home. That assumes I am correct in suspecting your friend’s involvement. Remember he said his brother Achmir had been murdered not so long ago.”

  “And…?”

  “Didn’t I suggest an antecedent murder? So, what if it were Ali’s brother, Achmir?”

  “How…? I am at sea, Rabban. Please explain.”

  “I wish I could.”

  Chapter XXIX

  Obviously Loukas did not share Gamaliel’s suspicions about his friend, Ali bin Selah. Whether that reflected a sense of loyalty to an acquaintance, a belief in the essential innocence of mankind in general, or distrust in his friend’s powers of deduction, Gamaliel could not say. But Loukas was having none of it. Gamaliel sighed. He did not want to lose his friend’s good counsel.

  “Of course, I could be completely wrong in this, Loukas. It’s just that one has to consider all possibilities.”

  Loukas’ face lost its stubborn look and he nodded. “There is the fact that he said he would leave the city, didn’t, and returned in disguise. I suppose we should explore that, but his brother? It is a reach.”

  Gamaliel opened his mouth to respond just as Loukas’ new servant stepped out into the sunshine of the courtyard

  “Master,” he said addressing Loukas, “there is a man here who insists on speaking to you. He says it is urgent.”

  “Is he a patient? Tell him to wait in the anteroom and I will attend him shortly.”

  A stocky man wearing an apron and a headdress made from some sort of animal hide pushed his way past the servant. “I am not a patient, sir, at least not today. I have knocked at the door of every physician between here and Bethany and you are the first and only one at home. I require your assistance immediately.”

  “But you say you are not a patient. What then?”

  “There has been an accident.”

  “An accident? What sort of accident?”

  “Not an accident, precisely. A guardsman from the Temple has…he is…”

  “He is what, man? Speak up.”

  “I am afraid he is dead and perhaps worse.”

  “Worse. What can possibly be worse than dead?”

  “He fell on his sword and the Law is strict about those things.”

  “Gamaliel, what is this man raving about? What law would apply to a man who accidently fell
and killed himself?”

  “I do not think this man means the dead man actually had an accident. He means the man committed suicide and the Law is strict in condemning that.”

  “The Law forbids suicide? And what, pray tell, is the punishment for that? Is it a capital crime? That would demonstrate the seriousness of the act, surely.”

  “Don’t be facetious, Loukas; it doesn’t become you. It is always a matter between the Creator and the created. The punishment is not at issue. Ha Shem expects obedience to the Law, no more, no less.”

  “Wonderful. I will think on that for a while.” Loukas turned to the messenger who, in his impatience, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Where is this dead guard that you require my presence to certify? That is why you are here?”

  “Yes, sir. Bethany.”

  “You did say Bethany, yes, I see. So, you came all the way from Bethany to talk to a physician? Why?”

  “The town Elder thought that since the dead man was attached to the Temple and because there has been talk of a mighty sign occurring there some days ago, we should have some official pronouncement about—”

  “Has anything been done to the body?” Gamaliel interrupted.

  “No, sir, the Elder said no one should touch or move the body. He lies where he fell.”

  “Good. We should be on our way, Loukas. It appears there has been a new development in our mystery. Let us hope it moves us forward.”

  “Development? Do you believe this suicide has something to do with the death of the man in the Temple? How?”

  “The dead man, our suicide, is a Temple guard. That alone speaks to a connection and, unless I am mistaken, this new corpse is our missing guardsman, Zach ben Azar’el, a fact that, if true, will add to our fund of knowledge but poses a question.”

  “Just one? You disappoint me, Rabban. What sort of question? Wait, I see. Why would the person who sought to uncover the briber of the guards on his watch and who accused the Palace of involvement turn around and kill himself?”

  “Exactly, and additionally, what drew him all the way to Bethany of all places? We must hurry.”

  ***