I did as he suggested: went in and looked around. The apartment was impressive, a spacious entrance hall which opened into a sort of central room, with what was clearly a bedroom and study beyond that. There was a handsome central table with a bowl of fruit on it, and a massive wooden chest against the further wall. On the right-hand side, so small that it seemed merely a recess in the wall, was a little dining alcove, complete with a wooden trestle and a couch. Antoninus had obviously been lunching recently — there was a platter with a hunk of bread and crumbs of cheese on it, a pot of what was clearly garum on a tray, an empty drinking cup and an equally empty wine jug standing on the floor.
On the left was a narrow passage to the rear, which I guessed led into spaces used for slaves or stores. If there was a kitchen area it was out of sight, but more likely Antoninus sent out for more elaborate meals, or wangled invitations from his friends or guilds. Even braziers were a danger in a block like this.
However there was one heating the corner of the room, beside an altar table with the household gods displayed. I went over to it, thinking to warm myself while I was waiting to be summoned by our host, since there was nowhere obvious for a guest to sit.
There was still no movement from the other room. From my new position I could glimpse it through the half-open door. It was obviously some kind of study area: there were several wooden racks containing scrolls in pots, while other — perhaps less-regarded — manuscripts were neatly stacked on top, beside half a dozen little oil-lamps and a water clock festooned with jet and gold around the base. It appeared that Antoninus liked expensive things. It seemed too, that he had seen and admired Redux’s foreign chair, because there was one exactly like it, pulled up to the bench which its owner was clearly using as a desk. He was leaning intently forward on it now, for though the open door obscured the greater part of him, the edges of his toga were clearly visible. There was another brazier standing quite close to him in there.
I was preparing to give a warning cough to remind him we were here, but something in his slumped attitude — combined with Redux’s obvious alarm — finally warned me of what I should have guessed before.
I glanced at my companions and rushed into the room. ‘Dear Jupiter!’ I cried.
He was sprawled across the desk, his hands outstretched and his face and upper body in a pool of seeping black. I thought for a moment it was drying blood, but it was only the contents of a bowl of ink that he’d been working with, and which his dying gesture had upset and spilled. The blood was quite a different colour, though there wasn’t much of it — apart from the thin stream that had trickled down his arm from the knife stuck into his back.
I turned to Minimus who had followed me inside and was staring at this spectacle with wide and stricken eyes. ‘Go at once and find a member of the town watch, if you can — or even a soldier from the garrison. You might find one off duty in the wine shop opposite. Someone in authority should know of this at once.’
The little slave glanced up at me. His skin had taken a pale and greenish hue and he looked as though he was close to being sick. The adventure of helping me with questioning had obviously dimmed. ‘You think that he is dead?’
At any other time that would have made me smile. Antoninus was as dead as it was possible to be. ‘It rather looks like it.’
‘The same hand that killed Honorius, you think?’
I shook my head. ‘We can’t be sure of that — at present anyway. You go and find that soldier while we take a closer look.’
Minimus nodded gratefully and disappeared at once.
‘What do you expect a closer look to tell you?’ Redux said. He had been hovering at a distance all this time, as if reluctant to come nearer to the corpse. ‘Surely he is dead, and there’s an end to it. But I suppose you are the expert on these things, pavement-maker. What do we do now?’
For want of a more intelligent reply, I raised the ink-stained head and taking the ink bowl, which was made of burnished brass, I held it closely to the lifeless lips. ‘No breath at all,’ I was saying smugly, when I stopped in some surprise. ‘There’s still a little warmth in him — that might be because of the brazier perhaps — but he’s still pliable. He cannot have been dead for very long.’
I turned to the brazier, where the coals still glowed but were covered by a pile of recent ash. Somebody had been burning something and not long ago. ‘Did you touch anything?’
Redux shook his head. ‘He was like this when I got here. And, in case you were about to ask me, that is not my knife. Mine is still here.’ He gestured at his belt.
It had not occurred to me to wonder about that, although his sharp assessment made me think I should have done. I tried to make amends by asking briskly, ‘All the same, it seems that someone came here fairly recently and ran a dagger into him. And set fire to some documents. Another of his so-called clients, do you think?’
Redux shook his head, but he did not speak and I noticed that his hands were trembling. He attempted to disguise the fact by gathering some of the scattered scraps of bark paper, and laying them fastidiously beneath the window space. ‘We might as well collect the rest of them,’ he said. He had contrived to turn his back towards me, I observed.
‘And you didn’t see anyone suspicious on the stairs?’ I said.
He spread out another sheet of writing and said, in a more collected tone of voice. ‘Not that I noticed. Should we make enquiries of the neighbours, do you think?’
‘I doubt they’ll talk to us.’ It was true. I walked over beside him and looked through the window, but there was nothing to be seen, only the usual gaggle of slaves and tradesmen going about their business in the town. We were not far from the temple and the forum area, and the streets were busy with commerce at this time of day, including Vinerius, whom I noticed haggling with a man — a tall stooped figure that might have been Honorius’s lugubrious doorkeeper. ‘If I had worn my working tunic, I might have had a chance, but our togas are a serious barrier in a place like this.’
He nodded. ‘Then we’ll leave questions to the authorities, since you have called them in. No doubt they’ll have the means to get a story from any witnesses — though whether it will be the truth or not, is quite another thing.’ He pretended to be rapt in examining a scroll. ‘It is only to be hoped that they don’t start suspecting us — though as citizens we should be safe from actual torturers.’
It was not a happy notion — but of course he was quite right, especially as Marcus wasn’t here to speak for me. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t been so quick to call the guard.
He put down the bark paper and picked up another sheet. ‘It might help if we could find a list of clients anywhere. I suspect he kept one, but I haven’t found it yet.’
So that was what he had been looking for! It was an interesting notion, and I joined him in his task. The little scraps were scribbled on in various different ways, but nothing that looked like an appointment list. There were columns of figures, a fragment of a note, something that might have been a bill. Not all in the same ink or writing, I observed. I picked up the last one, and placed it on the pile.
‘Of course it might not have been a client after all,’ Redux said. ‘It could have been a stranger — a robbery, perhaps. We cannot be certain that there’s nothing missing here.’