I was kept waiting for some time. When I was finally let into the party, I found Marponius, Petro and Helena sitting together somewhat awkwardly. The first thing they all saw was my bruised face from the auction fight: an unimpressive start.
We were in a bright red and gold salon. The wall panels were a short series of the adventures of Aeneas, shown as rather a stodgy, bow-legged chap-the artist's diplomatic allusion to the owner's own physique. The judge's wife was dead, so Dido was spared such indignity and could appear as a highly voluptuous, handsome young piece having trouble with her drapery. The artist considered himself a dab hand at diaphanous veils.
Like his Aeneas, Marponius had a flat-topped head and a lather of light curly hair, receding each side of his rather square brow. His backside was too large, so he tended to strut like a pigeon with too much tail. As I came in he was just telling Helena he was 'a man of ideas'. A female slave was present for propriety, and she had Petro for extra protection, but Helena knew what men's ideas were like. She was listening with the usual calm expression she applied to stressful situations, though her pale face told me everything.
I crossed the room and kissed her formally on one cheek. Her eyes closed briefly, with relief. 'I'm sorry, Marcus…'
I sat alongside on an elaborately gilded couch, and held her hand in a light grip. 'Never apologise!'
'You don't know what I've done!'
I said to Marponius. 'Hail, Judge! I gather from the smell of new paint there is still money in scientific tomes?'
He looked torn. He wanted to slap me down, but had trouble resisting the urge to discuss business. He was proud of his efforts. Unfortunately he was also proud of being a judge. 'Pity it still leaves you time to indulge an interest in criminology. What's the charge against my wench?'
'You're both in this, Falco!' He had a sharp voice, its effect as subtle as dragging a sword across a ceramic plate.
I noticed that Petronius Longus was looking embarrassed. This depressed me. He rarely made a lot of noise, but he was perfectly capable of treating Marponius with the contempt he deserved. When Petro stayed quite so silent things must be bad.
I nodded to him as he picked up on my scrutiny. 'You owe my disreputable nephew Gaius a finder's fee But I want it on record that I came here voluntarily.' Petro's stare remained unhelpful. I tackled his glib superior. 'So what's going on, Marponius?'
'I am waiting for someone to appear as a spokesman for the lady.'
Women possess no judicial identities; they are not allowed to appear in court, but must have a male relation representing them.
'I'll do it. I act for her father.'
'A message has gone to the Senator,' Marponius fussed. Helena pursed her lips while even Petronius winced. I hoped Camillus Verus was missing at some unknown public baths.
'Falco will speak for me,' Helena said coldly, adding, 'if I must have a male mouthpiece!'
'I require your guardian,' Marponius corrected. He was a pedantic nuisance.
'We regard ourselves as married,' said Helena. I tried not to look like a husband who had just been told the household bills were three times what he thought.
The judge was shocked. I murmured, 'Socially, it's a future fixture in the calendar, though a man with your grasp of the Twelve Tables will appreciate that the mere agreement of two parties that a marriage exists brings the contract into effect-'
'Don't get clever, Falco!' Marponius knew the legal tables backwards, but rarely met women who broke the rules. He glanced at Petronius for help, though was obviously remembering he distrusted Petro's loyalties. 'What am I supposed to make of this?'
'I'm afraid it's true love,' Petronius pronounced, with the sombre air of a public works engineer reporting a cracked sewer in the vicinity.
I decided against upsetting the judge's middle-class ethics with further wit. He was more used to threats. 'Marponius, Helena Justina is an innocent party. Camillus is very public-spirited, but having his noble child wrongly arrested may offend his tolerance. Your best plan is to establish the facts before the Senator arrives, and greet him by restoring his daughter with a public apology.'
I could sense that the others present were sharing an awkward moment. Agitation flickered in the wondrous dark depths of Helena's eyes, and her grip on my hand felt tense. More was wrong here than I yet knew.
A slave came in and informed the judge that the messengers had failed to find Camillus Verus. People were still looking, but his current whereabouts were unknown. Good man. My future father-in-law (as it seemed best to regard him while we were pretending to be respectable) knew when to lie low in a ditch.
His sensible daughter forced herself to be gracious to the judge: 'Ask your questions. I do not object in principle to answering in the presence of Didius Falco, and that of Lucius Petronius Longus, who is a valued family friend. Ask me what you want. If they advise me to defer my response on a particular matter, we can stop until Father arrives.'
I loved her. She was hating herself for sounding so meek-and hating Marponius for swallowing the act. 'Alternatively,' I told him, 'we can all sit around a finger-bowl of honey cakes, and while we wait for her furious parent you can try to sell the lady thirteen scrolls on natural philosophy in a filigree library box.'
Helena boasted prosaically, 'If it's concerned with fiery particles, I think I've read that one.'
'Tread gently,' I teased Marponius. 'The watch captain has apprehended an educated girl!'
'I'll expect a rapid batch of injunctions!' he quipped wryly, taking a grip on himself. Marponius could be an objectionable prig-but he was no fool. If a man had any sense of humour at all, Helena was likely to bring out the best in him.
'Actually, it lets her out of the murder,' I smiled. 'She never gets into trouble; she's always curled up on all the cushions in the house, with her nose in a scroll…' As we joked, those eyes of hers were still sending me agonised messages. I was desperate to find out the cause. 'Sweetheart, perhaps the man you regard as your marriage partner can properly ask why you are sitting in a stranger's house with a distressed expression and somewhat lightly chaperoned?'
'This is a formal examination,' Marponius interrupted, stiffly reacting to the implied criticism. 'It is a private session of my court! The lady knows I am a judge attached to the permanent tribunal relating to the Cornelian Law against assassins and drug-making-'
'Poisons, knifings and patricide,' I interpreted for Helena. The special murder tribunal had been established by the dictator Sulla. After a hundred and fifty years it had signally failed to stamp out death in the streets, but at least killers were processed efficiently, which suited Rome. The praetor had a whole panel of locally elected judges he could call on to hear cases, but Marponius had set himself up as the expert. He enjoyed his duties. (He enjoyed the status.) When he took an interest in the early stages of a particular investigation, he could rely on being chosen for the hearing afterwards if the officers of the watch ever caught someone.
Now they had caught me. Helena's distress made me attack Marponius. 'Under that legislation is there not a penalty by fire and water for inciting a judge falsely to bring a capital charge?'
'That is correct.' He had replied too calmly. He was too sure of his ground. Trouble was licking its fangs at me. 'No charge has been brought yet.'
'Then why is the lady here?'
'A charge does seem likely.'
'On what accusation?'
Helena answered me herself. 'Acting as an accessory.'
'Oh cobnuts!' I looked across at Petronius. His eyes, which were brown, honest and always frank, told me to believe it. I turned back to Helena. 'What's happened today? I know you went to the Saepta and visited my father.' I felt annoyed at having to mention Geminus, but making Helena sound like a girl who devoted her attentions to the family seemed a good idea. 'Did something occur afterwards?'
'I was going home to your mother's house. On the way,' she said rather guiltily, 'I happened to pass Flora's Caupona.'
I was starting to worry. 'Carry on!'
'I saw the body of Censorinus being taken away. The street was blocked temporarily, so I had to wait. I was of course in a carrying-chair,' she inserted, having grasped that some niceties were called for. 'The bearers talked to the waiter from the caupona while we were stuck there, and he happened to be bewailing the fact that he now had to tidy up the rented room.'
'So?'
'So I offered to help.'
I let go of her hand and folded my arms. The bad memory of that bloody room where Censorinus was murdered forced itself back into my mind. I had to repel it. Petronius knew I had been there, which was damning enough; admitting it to Marponius would be my key to a jail cell. Sending my girlfriend looked like the act of a desperate man.
I knew why she had done it. She wanted to scour the place for evidence that might clear me. But any stranger would assume she had gone there to remove clues that would convict. Marponius was bound to think it. Even Petro would be failing in his duty if he ignored the possibility. His deep sense of unhappiness filled the room almost like an odour. I had never before been so conscious of putting our long friendship under strain.
'It was stupid,' Helena spoke crisply. 'I offered on the spur of the moment.' I sat dumbstruck, unable to ask if she had got as far as the ghastly scene upstairs. She looked so white it seemed probable. My throat closed helplessly. 'I only reached the downstairs kitchen,' she said, as if I had transmitted my agony. 'Then I realised my presence there could only make things appear worse for you.'
'So what happened?' I managed to croak.
'The waiter seemed desperate for company. I suppose he was frightened to enter the murder room alone, even after he knew the body was no longer there. I was trying to think of an excuse to leave, without being rude to the poor man, when Petronius Longus arrived.'
I stared at him. He spoke to me at last. 'Encouraging your nicely bred girlfriend to visit the gory scene looks black, Falco.'
'Only if I'm guilty!' He must have known how closely I verged on losing my temper. 'And I did not send her.'
'A jury may not believe you,' Marponius commented.
'Juries are notoriously stupid! That's why the praetor will expect you to advise him on whether this charge is likely to stick before he lets things reach a court.'
'Oh I shall give the praetor good advice, Falco.'
'If justice is more than a dilettante hobby for you, your advice will be that this case stinks!'
'I don't think so.'
'Then you don't think-end of issue! I had no motive for killing the centurion.'
'He had a financial claim on you.' Without any formal signal, the atmosphere had shifted so that the judge was grilling me.
'No, he had a claim against my brother. But the claim was rocky. Marponius, I don't want to slander the brave centurions of the glorious Fifteenth Legion, but my private investigations already suggest it was a claim they could not pursue too openly. Anyway, where are your facts? Censorinus was seen alive, eating his dinner at the caupona, long after I had left and gone home to my own family. Petronius Longus has checked up on my movements the next day, and although there may be a period that I can't account for with witnesses, neither can you present anyone who will say they saw me at Flora's when the soldier lost his life.'
'The fact that you disagreed with him so violently-'
'Rules me out! We had a very strange quarrel, initiated by him, right in front of the very curious public. If you base your case on that, you are calling me a very stupid man.'
Marponius frowned. For a moment I had the illusion of controlling the situation, then the sensation altered. He made a gesture to Petronius. Some unpleasant challenge, previously arranged, was about to emerge.
Petronius Longus, with his air of misery deepening even further, stood up from his seat on the far side of the tasteful room and came across to me. He unwrapped a piece of cloth he had been guarding, and held out an object for me to inspect. He kept it just beyond my reach, and made sure that Marponius and Helena could both watch my face.
'Do you recognise this, Falco?'
I had a split second to reach the wrong decision. Delay would have answered for me. I took the honest option, like a fool. 'Yes,' I said. 'It appears to be one of my mother's cooking knives.'
Then Petronius Longus told me in a quiet voice, 'Helena Justina found it this morning amongst other utensils on the caupona's cooking bench.'
XXVIII
Criminals cut and run. For a second I knew why.
I stared at the knife. It was not one to excite a cutler. There was a gnarled bone handle, attached by a stout iron ring to a heavy blade that tapered to a solid point. The point had a small twist, as if at some time in its past the knife had been trapped and bent; such a nick at the end of a strong knife is impossible to straighten out.
It was like all my mother's other knives. They were not a true set, but they had all come from the Campagna when she was married. They were tough country items that she wielded with great force. Plenty of other homes in Rome must have similar gear. But I knew this was hers. Her initials were scratched on the handle: JT, for Junilla Tacita.
The room was quite large, but suddenly felt close and full of smoke from the braziers heating it. There were high square windows; I could hear a squall beating on the expensive glass, and one casement rattled. Squat slaves with straight-cut hair moved about constantly. Here was I, under threat of exile or far worse, while these ninnies came and went removing empty bowls and attending to the lamps. Helena dropped her hand back over mine; hers was icy cold.
Marponius was doing everything strictly now. 'Petronius Longus, have you shown this knife to Didius Falco's mother?'
'Yes, sir. She admits it must have been hers originally, but claims she lost this one at least twenty years ago.'
'How can she be sure?'
'She recognised the misshapen point.' Petro's quiet patience as he answered the judge's questions only depressed me more. 'She remembered it being caught in a cupboard door when her children were small.'
'Has she any explanation as to how it reached the caupona?'
'No, sir.'
'Describe how it was found.'
Petronius now had a set face. He gave his report with impeccable neutrality: 'I had ordered the removal of the body this afternoon. Later I entered the caupona with a view to completing my search of the scene. The soldier's corpse had been impeding a full investigation previously. I saw Helena Justina talking to the waiter at the foot of the stairs that run up from the kitchen to the rented rooms.'
'I remember!' said Marponius importantly.
'At my approach, Helena turned towards me, and appeared to notice this knife on the work bench; she picked it up. Both of us have eaten at Falco's mother's house on many occasions. We both recognised the pattern and initials. Helena made no attempt to hide it, but handed it to me immediately. As you see, it has been washed, but is stained around the shaft junction with traces of reddish colouring.'
'You take that to be blood?'
'I am afraid so.'
'What is your interpretation?'
Petro dragged out the words slowly. 'I asked the waiter about the knife. I didn't tell him I knew where it came from. He maintained he had never seen it before; it was not one he used at Flora's.'
'Is this the weapon which killed Censorinus?'
Petronius answered reluctantly. 'It may well be. If the waiter is telling the truth, the killer may have brought his own weapon to the caupona. When he came down from the bedroom he washed it in one of the buckets of water that are always in the kitchen area; then he threw the knife among the other utensils.'
'You're looking for someone intelligent,' I said dryly. 'It was a good place to hide a domestic implement. Pity it was recognised!'
Helena murmured in anguish, 'I'm sorry, Marcus. I just saw it and picked it up.'
I shrugged. 'That's all right. I never put it there.'
'You cannot prove that you didn't,' said
the judge.
'And you cannot prove that I did!'
Helena demanded of Marponius, 'Are you really convinced that knowing someone had been stabbed upstairs, the waiter would not notice a strange knife among his tools?'
'Epimandos is pretty vague,' I said. Marponius looked unhappy, knowing it was bad practice to produce a slave in court. (Worse still if my pet theory was right and Epimandos was a runaway.)
Petronius agreed with me: 'He keeps a jumble of kitchen tools lying about at the back of the caupona. He's dreamy, untidy, and he was hysterical after the corpse's discovery. He could have missed anything.'
I was grateful for his help, but had to go on. 'Petronius, I still cannot accept unequivocally that this knife killed the centurion. Flora's is not renowned for hygienic practices; the red stains may not be blood at all, or if they are, it may be left from cutting up meat. What I'm saying is, you cannot actually prove that this is the murder knife.'
'No,' he replied levelly. 'But it's about the right size for the wounds.' It seemed too small, lying in his great hand. 'It's sharp enough,' he added. All my mother's knives were. They looked clumsy, but she used them a lot. They would slice through a cabbage stalk quite easily, taking any careless fingertip with them.
'The knife could have been anywhere since Ma lost it. It's not tied to me.'
'You are her son,' Petronius pointed out. 'Junilla Tacita is famously defensive. I cannot altogether take her word that the knife had been lost.'
'She would not lie, even for me.'
'Would she not?' Marponius asked, checking with me, Helena, Petronius. In fact none of us was sure. Attempting to appear reasonable, the judge said to me, 'If you ever brought me a suspect with this amount of evidence, you know you would expect me to order a trial.'
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