I chose my words carefully. Marcus is a powerful man, and when it comes to the exercise of that power, it is dangerous to thwart him, even if he does call you ‘friend’. Sometimes especially if he calls you friend.
‘Excellence,’ I said, ‘I am a humble maker of mosaics. It troubles me to cut a piece which will not fit the pattern. Yet sometimes, seen from another angle, the solution is obvious. The tile which would not match the centrepiece finds a place in the border.’
He looked at me wryly. ‘And which are the pieces of tile, to use your quaint analogy, which do not fit the pattern here? Everything points to Lupus. He had a pressing motive. He had the opportunity — he was in the front courtyard when the murder happened. He knew where the weapon was: the dagger was in full view when he was waiting in the ante-room earlier, and when he saw Mutuus leave the building he knew the coast was clear. Perhaps Mutuus even told him so — when you asked if he had spoken to Lupus this morning, he carefully avoided the question.’ He leaned forward from his chair and patted me on the shoulder. ‘You look surprised, old friend. Did you not notice that?’
In fact, my surprise was occasioned by the fact that Marcus had noticed it himself, but I had more wit than to say so. ‘You are perceptive, Excellence.’
He beamed. ‘Yes, I believe I am. There may be other suspects, Libertus, but one thing I am certain of: I know guilt when I see it. That old man had the smell of fear about him. Flavius may swear they were together in the garden, but I’ll wager there were times he turned his back. And they were at the chariot races, too.’ I must have looked dubious, because he waved his hand loftily. ‘Of course, I know you will argue that in that case Flavius might have committed the crime himself and that he hated Quintus too — but that old man Lupus has something to hide, or I’m a Druid.’
‘I am sure that you are right, Excellence,’ I said meekly. I did not mention the conversation I had overheard in the garden, or no doubt Lupus would have been clapped in irons then and there. In any case, I meant what I said. I, too, had the impression that Lupus knew more about this matter than he admitted, but I doubted that the solution was quite as clear-cut as Marcus supposed. It occurred to me, for instance, that an equal opportunity would have existed for Mutuus himself.
Besides, Marcus’s reasoning was faulty, in at least one respect.
I put it as delicately as I could. ‘Excellence,’ I said, ‘when Maximilian left his father, he didn’t, as far as we know, go into either courtyard garden. He came to us through the interior of the house. One reason I want to examine the grounds is to discover whether Lupus, or anyone else, could possibly have detected that. Otherwise, how could he know that Quintus was alone?’
There was a moment while Marcus digested the implications of this, and then he said rather sourly, ‘Perhaps you are right. But don’t be long about it. I shall carry on the questioning while you are gone. I shall have Flavius in and ask him about that alibi. Otherwise we shall still be here at dawn.’
This was not at all what I would have chosen, but I could not argue with Marcus, and it was too late to change my mind. I was regretting my decision by the time I reached the door, and when I saw that Maximilian was waiting impatiently on the veranda outside, I regretted it still more. He wore a dignified funeral wreath on his head and a ritual stole of rough sackcloth around his neck to signify sombre grief, but the impression he gave was one of barely concealed truculence.
‘At last, citizen!’ he exclaimed, as soon as he saw me. ‘I suppose this is what a man may expect, in his own house? To be summoned like a common servant and then left on the veranda, to be stared at by every passing menial sniggering behind their hands? My father would not even have used his meanest clients so.’
There were indeed ‘menials’ about, though they had little time for sniggering. The house and courtyard were abuzz with activity. The door of the ante-room opposite was open now, and through it I could see a press of people — red-faced anointing women packing up their wicker baskets of oils on the table, and pallid funeral musicians tuning their pipes. Four perfectly matched slaves (how Quintus would have enjoyed that) were manoeuvring a heavy gilded bier on a litter from the courtyard in the direction of the reception room, from the invisible recesses of which a plume of pungent smoke was already rising — presumably the first of the herbs and candles were being lighted around the corpse. All this seemed to be taking place under the direction of Sollers, who was supervising operations from the interior of the ante-room. He looked up and saw me, and raised a hand in salute before the litter made its way inside and the outer door was closed again.
‘You see?’ Maximilian demanded. ‘I shall be wanted any minute. It is I who should be there with my father’s corpse, not Sollers. My father did not want me living — he has resented me since my childhood — but I should at least be beside him in his death. It is my place to put the coin in his mouth for his ferry fare over the Styx. .’
‘And to start the lament,’ I finished. ‘I know. I am sure Marcus will not keep you long.’
‘There is nothing further I can tell him in any case. I came here to see my father, to do my filial duty, that is all.’
‘Except to ask for money,’ I reminded him.
He scowled. ‘Well, yes. That too. But it was a trivial amount, no more than five hundred sesterces.’
Five hundred sestertces would keep me in comfort for weeks, but I said nothing.
‘Anyway, he wouldn’t give it to me. Ranted about my extravagance and then sent me off to look for Julia. That’s all.’
I was about to tell him to explain it to Marcus, when a thought struck me. ‘And did you do it?’ I said.
‘Do what?’
‘Look for Julia? Did you go anywhere else before you came to us?’
He coloured. ‘I. . I don’t know. I can’t remember. What if I did? I was on my father’s errand.’
‘Maximilian,’ I said patiently, ‘think. You came here to borrow money. He refused you, even threatened to cut you out of his will. You were alone with him, and you knew there was a dagger on a table in the adjoining room. Shortly afterwards your father is found crawling about with that same knife in his back and your financial troubles are magically over. One does not need to be a Greek philosopher to draw a logical conclusion.’
He gaped at me, all irritation gone. ‘You think. .?’ — I saw the panic in his eyes — ‘You really think I killed him?’
‘I confess, citizen, that I find the circumstances just a little suspicious. Of course, if you are able to recall where you went when you left — whether you came straight to us, for example — that may assist you. Could anyone have seen you leave your father’s room, for instance?’
He seemed to consider this, and hesitated, but he said nothing.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘Marcus is waiting for you. Tell him your story, citizen, and try to sharpen your memory before he finds ways of doing it for you.’
Maximilian gave me a scowl as though I were the personal cause of all his miseries, and slammed past me into the study. Shortly afterwards I heard the murmur of voices.
In fact, simply by coming out here, I had answered one of my own questions. From here, between the screen of trees, I could see the front gate and most of the colonnaded walk: there was a clear view into the ante-room opposite, as I had just demonstrated, and Mutuus had been standing here earlier when he witnessed me eavesdropping by the hedge. Anyone leaving the study, or simply standing behind the open door, could take in most of the garden at a glance, apart from the deliberately secluded arbours. No other spot in the house commanded such a wide vista. Perhaps Quintus had designed it like that, on purpose, so that he could survey the fountains and greenery from the comfort of his study.