“Sophocles,” I asked, “was anyone else at the theatre last night?”
“No,” he said. “I saw no one. Only...” He stopped.
“Who? You must tell me.”
“I saw friends. But they were not in the theatre. They stopped me nearby to tell me that Nicias had on the evening of the procession bragged that he would act in my plays next year and that we would win, guaranteed.”
“Who?” I asked again, already knowing who might have warned Sophocles of the slanderous tongue of Nicias.
But Sophocles did not answer at first. “Sophides,” he said finally. He was staring at the sword.
“Let me see it,” he said.
I took a deep breath, assured myself that I could run faster than Sophocles, as I did at the gymnasium, and handed him the sword.
He ran his hand over the handle. “I just noticed. This isn’t the sword I bought at the forger’s shop for the play. The one I bought had rings of gold down the entire handle. I wanted the gold to gleam in the suicide scene. This handle has the rings only partway down and they are not gold. It was made by the same forger. You see his mark here, and it is close to the one I bought, but not exactly. I never noticed during the performance, so commanding was Tidius.”
I thought carefully about the suicide scene I had watched. I had seen no gleam of gold from the sword handle. I knew then who had murdered Nicias. Had it been Sophocles, he would not have told me that this sword was not the one he had purchased for the play.
Sophocles was staring at the sword again. “By Hades,” he said, “I had not thought, but... but I must go to him.”
“He is not at your house?”
“No. I must find him.”
“No. Go home, Sophocles. Let me do my work.”
I turned and hurried out of the skene, leaving by the front double door. I glanced back as I exited. Sophocles had his head in his hands.
I wasn’t sure exactly where to head, so I paused a moment to think. Something caught my eye, and I raised my head. Gold. Rings of gold.
Tidius rose, sword in hand, from the first of the wooden tiers. He stepped down and walked across the circle of the theatre toward me. He stopped in the middle.
“Sophocles is not to blame,” he said.
“I know.” I considered backing up, but stood my ground.
“I was on my way to Sophocles’ house. I heard that you asked him to meet you here. I knew why. It was quite obvious.”
The whole matter was becoming obvious. “You were here last night too, weren’t you? You heard Nicias’ threats to blacken Sophocles’ reputation. But then you must also have heard Sophocles dismiss the threats with a laugh. So your motive was not to protect Sophocles.”
Tidius shook his great head, the one that had worn the mask of tragedy for so long. “Partly, perhaps, but in truth, I killed him because he laughed at me, as Ajax’s enemies laughed at him. My voice is weakening, as is my strength. Neither will last much longer. My day is over, as was Ajax’s. When Sophocles left, I berated Nicias for his evil. He brushed me aside, called me ‘a dried leaf.’ I crumpled against the wall and my hand found the sword. I struck him in rage. I had come to the theatre to relive the glory of this great festival.” His voice cracked. “I ended up killing a man.” He shook his great head again.
I began to move forward, knowing what was coming.
“Stop,” he called out, his actor’s voice loud and sure again.
I stopped.
He raised the sword and pointed it downward toward his gut. “I stopped him. But I cannot stop time.”
“No, Tidius, no!” Sophocles came running out of the skene.
“My day is over. Better to end in triumph.” His voice rasped over the last three words.
The sword rose higher, catching the sun on its gold rings.
Tidius plunged it into himself. He stood for a moment, like a magnificent warrior of old, then tumbled down the wooden stairs.
I did not go to Selkine that night. I stayed with my ailing old father. He listened with sadness as I explained why Tidius had done what he had done.
“He’d taken the sword with which he’d killed Nicias,” I said. “After he killed Nicias, he went to the forger’s early in the morning and bought another, as close to the original as he could to replace the one he had taken. I knew when Sophocles told me that the sword in the theatre was not the original that the murderer had to have been Tidius. He was the only one besides Sophocles and the forger himself who knew exactly what the original one looked like, who would know that the forger had made the original sword.”
My father stared into the smoke that rose from the terracotta lamps. He pulled his chiton closer round his stooped shoulders. “A great actor,” he said. “He had played the defeated Xerxes in Aeschylus’ great play The Persians with such dignity and compassion that we who saw the performance could almost feel sorrow for our defeated enemy. But all that is past,” he said, rising to go up to his bed.
I watched him climb the stairs slowly, the olive oil burning in the lamp, leaving its pungent odor and smoke lingering on the stair.
I sighed and reached for the scroll of Herodotus’ history of the Persian War. I had been a child then and was a young man now in our democracy. The old warrior glory had indeed passed. I wondered if under Pericles’ guiding hand Athens would rise to such heights that her glory would never pass from men’s minds.
I was young enough to hope so.
Simon and Dorothea
by Eleanor Boylan
The elegant museum in Sarasota glittered with Christmas lights, but in one of the galleries, something different glittered...
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Simon Judson, his mind a million miles away, “the museum will close in fifteen minutes. This is the last room on your tour. As you leave, kindly take the stairs in the hall, which lead to the parking lot. Now,” he dragged his mind back to the job, “if you will observe the painting on the wall behind me...”
Simon went on, looking unseeingly at the faces in the group before him. He was thinking that seven o’clock would be too early. There were bright gleams in the Florida night sky at that hour, and the area blazed with Christmas lights. If he was even seen on the museum grounds after hours it would be all over before it began. He could hear his boss saying, “That’s what I get for hiring a black kid.”
He continued, glancing back at the painting, “This is the portrait in oils of Dorothea Fox-Nugent, founder of the museum. It was commissioned by her husband, a wealthy businessman, for the opening of the museum in 1935. That opening, which was held on Mrs. Fox-Nugent’s fortieth birthday, was the event of the year in Sarasota and was attended by this city’s most distinguished society.”
Even eight o’clock would be risky, he thought, and if there was a moon... He went on, “Mrs. Fox-Nugent is wearing a sky blue satin evening gown designed for her in Paris especially for the occasion.” Here Simon smiled a little, as he had learned to do. “Some members of proper Sarasota society of that day considered the gown a bit daring and décolleté.”
A little girl in the group said, “What’s decol — decol — what?” and everybody laughed.
Simon smiled at her. “It means very low cut. However, Mrs. Fox-Nugent was noted for her daring — and for her diamonds. Observe that she is wearing a tiara, rings, necklace, and earrings of these jewels. She was considered striking rather than beautiful, with dark brown hair and a diminutive figure.”