Next evening she let him get his coat off, change into slippers, wash his hands. (Turning the hall broom cupboard into a downstairs cloakroom had been a worthwhile investment, Esme reminded herself, nearly worth the cost.)
“I’m in the lounge,” she called, for Mr. Shale was making towards the dining room, by training. Breakfast in the kitchen, the dining room for high tea, Esme Huddle knew how to maintain standards.
“The police were here,” she greeted him. “Never had them in the house, then two at once. Plainclothesman... well, I say plain clothes, he was got up like they used to for student rag weeks, with his leather jacket and tennis shoes. Him and a girl PC. That uniform isn’t becoming, she did look dowdy.”
“They came here,” he repeated, final word a squeak. And he looked around, radiating dread.
“No,” said Esme, “this was before lunchtime, why would they wait? Wanted to know where you were on Wednesday night. Here, I said, same as usual. Tea, you watched the quiz with me, some silly comedy show afterwards while we were chatting. Then upstairs to play with your stamps. Your light went out about half-past ten, I noticed that when I went to the bathroom.”
David Shale studied her curiously, lips parted. She sighed impatiently. “That’s what you told them, I expect.”
Still digesting what he had heard, Mr. Shale dithered.
His, “Er, yes, that’s what I told them,” was belated, followed with, “I should have mentioned it, I’m sorry. That’s why I was late yesterday, the police asking me questions. There was a murder, and I must be somebody’s double—”
Esme raised a hand. “There’s enough murder on television and in the papers without talking about it.” She was airing a pet grumble.
Stumbling on regardless, he mumbled, “Not murder, it was... accidental.” Mr. Shale contrived a motionless shiver, implied by his troubled eyes. “Accident, definitely,” he whispered.
Some people wouldn’t listen — what had she just told him about discussing such matters? Raising her voice, Esme rapped, “I dare say.”
And a shade less harshly, immediately breaking her own ban: “What do these women expect, carrying on that way. Promiscuous, the sergeant fellow said. Married woman, and a string of fancy men? I should just about think she was promiscuous.”
David Shale seemed to shrink within himself. Esme smiled grimly. “They didn’t tell you that, what sort she was? A sensible man wouldn’t need telling. Touch tar and you dirty your fingers. There’s a lot of truth in old sayings.”
Flinching, he asked almost inaudibly, “What now?”
“A nice bloater, it’s fish night. Answer or Bust starts in twenty minutes, we must look sharp.”
“No! I mean...” He broke off to smile wryly, bitterly, at his own stupidity. “Money, you’ll be wanting more money.”
Esme Huddle’s ears sang and she willed herself to breathe steadily, riding out a surge of anger. Her voice shook. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
She stood up. “But since we’re speaking plainly — I would stay in of an evening in future, if I were you. All this nonsense when you took to going out... Didn’t do you a scrap of good, not in the long run. There is television and your stamps, you haven’t done your stamps for ages. And three library books, weeks overdue. I keep seeing them upstairs. Thoughtless; sorry to be personal, but it is — others may be waiting for what you can’t be bothered with.”
Esme wanted to laugh at his expression, guarded blankness succeeded by hope, giving way to incredulous gratitude. She experienced a complex pang of half-irritated toleration — men! — and covert amusement at his transparency.
“You’re right,” said a fervent Mr. Shale. He moved to the other room in an awkward, experimental fashion, like a far older man or an invalid. “I must catch up on my reading. Absolutely right, as usual, Mrs. Huddle.”
Adding, with a wan trace of his former, hand-rubbing zeal, “I do believe I could eat something. A bloater is a bloater is a bloater, eh?”
Which reminded her... She might as well get everything settled before they returned to safe ground; there would never be a better time to impose her will. “There is just one thing, Mr. Shale.”
His face registered defeat settling once more. “I thought there might be.”
Esme’s lips tightened. Trust a man to get sarky just because his meal wasn’t ready the minute he walked in. But she kept her voice reasonable. “I wish you wouldn’t make such a to-do about what I put on the table. Nobody ever said I wasn’t a fair cook, for anything plain and wholesome. There’s no need for comments, ‘Thank you’ would do, though I take that for granted. It gets on my nerves a bit, frankly. I know you don’t intend to, but it does.”
There, she had said what she wanted to. If he didn’t like it, he could lump it.
Mr. Shale said wonderingly, “Praising your cooking too much. That’s it?”
“I can’t think of anything else. It probably seems trivial, but we can’t help the way we are. ‘Over-egging the pudding,’ my father called that kind of thing. It’s only plain cooking when all is said and done, and you pay me for it.”
“Good God,” Mr. Shale mouthed dazedly. He struggled for further words, thought better of them, and nodded humbly.
Time would tell, she reflected. A few days later she gave the still-subdued lodger a little test when he sat down to tea, warning briskly, “Mind out, your plate’s very hot.”
Back turned while she reached through the serving hatch for salt and pepper, Esme waited for his once-inevitable rejoinder: “Well, it came from a hot plate, Mrs. Huddle.” But waiting politely for her to sit down before taking up his knife and fork, Mr. Shale spoke not a word.
She felt no sense of victory, though she was gratified to find her character assessment justified. Whatever David Shale had done to that bad woman, he would always behave himself under her roof, not to mention her eye. And he was an undeniably quick learner.
Little Caesar and the Pirates
by Steven Saylor
The eight published short stories in Steven Saylor’s Gordianus series, all set in the period between the Roman civil wars, fill in the temporal gap between the first two Gordianus novels, Roman Blood (which begins in79 B.C.) and Arms of Nemesis (72 B.C.). Mr. Saylor plans eventually to use short stories to cover other periods skipped over as he continues Gordianus’s adventures in his novels. His current offering remains in the period between the wars, when Julius Caesar was a young man. Readers who would like a look ahead in time might try the latest Gordianus novel, The Venus Throw (St. Martin’s Press).
“Well met Gordianus! Tell me, have you heard what they’re saying down in the Forum about Marius’s young nephew, Gaius Julius Caesar?”
It was my good friend Lucius Claudius who called to me on the steps of the Senian Baths. He appeared to be on his way out, while I was on my way in.
“If you mean that old story about his playing queen to King Nicomedes while he was in Bythinia, I’ve heard it all before — from you, I believe, more than once, and with increasingly graphic details each time.”
“No, no, that bit of gossip is ancient history now. I’m talking about this tale of pirates, ransom, revenge — crucifixions!”
I looked at him blankly.
Lucius grinned, which caused his two chins to meld into one. His chubby cheeks were pink from the heat of the baths and his frazzled orange curls were still damp. The twinkle in his eyes held that special joy of being the first to relate an especially juicy bit of gossip.