John had initially thought that Castor’s estate, protected behind high walls and with a front gate kept securely locked, would afford a good hiding place for Barnabas. After their walk around it, however, it seemed much less likely.
The estate was certainly well guarded, as much by Briarus’s eagle eye as by bars and bolts, John thought as they returned to the gate through which Briarus had admitted them an hour or so before, carefully relocking it afterwards.
“Leave it with the others outside by the gate!” Briarus suddenly shouted. A farmer who had just arrived at the estate followed the estate manager’s bellowed instructions and set down a small basket of lettuce in the place indicated. It joined one or two others that had apparently been left by similar callers during Briarus’ absence.
“The master has fresh lettuce delivered regularly. He says it is good for the digestion,” Briarus explained.
“The farmers walk straight onto uncle’s estate,” Anatolius remarked casually.
“When the master is away it is appropriate that everything be kept securely locked, sir.” Briarus’s tone was curt.
John agreed, adding that since the estates were situated in a less inhabited area there was no telling who might decide to visit by stealth.
“Indeed, that’s true.” Briarus looked pleased that this holder of high office would share his opinion on such an important matter. “For you never know,” he went on, “what vagabond may decide to take the coast road. Sometimes even welcome visitors are not correctly announced. The house servants are constantly being startled when they go into the library in the morning.” He glanced uneasily toward Anatolius. “I regret to say that they often find our neighbor Zeno sitting there calmly reading the master’s priceless scrolls and the master nowhere to be seen!” His expression clearly conveyed his opinion of such abuse of hospitality.
Anatolius laughed at the revelation. “It doesn’t surprise me at all, Briarus. When Zeno’s thoughts fasten onto some fancy, it engages his attention to such an extent that he doesn’t know whether it’s day or night. Besides,” he added, “he does love knowledge and has often praised your master’s wonderful collection of works.”
“His library is without compare,” Briarus agreed. “In the usual course naturally I would see all the visitors entering the estate, but usually your uncle uses the private door at the back of the garden.”
“Barnabas couldn’t have got in that way. It’s always locked,” Anatolius observed.
Briarus glowered at the young man. “Unless your uncle told this fugitive you’re seeking that he has a key to it, in which case the man could simply have stolen it!”
“Zeno still has the key, as a matter of fact,” said John, “for he offered it to me this morning, thinking that we might prefer to simply let ourselves into your grounds. However, I felt it better that we enter formally by the front gate rather than skulking in through the back. After all, we must always be careful to observe the proprieties.”
If the remark mollified Briarus, his frown didn’t reveal it. “I will not say I doubt our neighbor’s judgment, sir. All the same, we were shocked to find a pile of scrolls knocked all over the floor a few days ago. The servants are not permitted to touch them, of course, although the room is cleaned daily. The master is very particular about that. And to make it worse, there were leaves and mud and such trodden in from the garden all over the tiles. He was furious. I have never seen him so angry.”
“An intruder, perhaps one who was disturbed, do you suppose?” John asked with interest.
“One of the house servants had told me that very morning she thought she’d heard voices in the library very late the night before, but I pointed out to her that possibly the master was entertaining a visitor.”
“And when you were called in and shown the scene next morning you felt it would not be discreet to mention her remarks?”
“Indeed, sir, that is so,” Briarus confirmed.
John suddenly asked the estate manager to show them the private door between the two estates.
Briarus unlocked the stout, nail-studded door set in a brick wall just beyond the overgrown bushes Anatolius had spotted from the library window. Capers dangled untidily, obscuring the door, which opened onto a path on Zeno’s estate, half-concealed in a particularly overgrown laurel thicket.
Relocking the door, Briarus emerged from behind the caper bed fussily brushing off his clothes and grumbling under his breath about ruining his garments just to further prove the utter unlikelihood of a famous dwarf going unnoticed by his well-supervised staff of servants. John thanked him for his assistance and dismissed him to his other duties.
Anatolius, wiping watering eyes with his tunic sleeve, pointed out that lingering overlong in Castor’s garden was bringing on an attack of his malady. “And what’s worse,” he went on mournfully, “either my vision is even worse than I imagine or else Zeno has managed to persuade Castor to harbor one of Hero’s more peculiar inventions.”
He pointed at the nearby fountain. A bronze ibis stood on the edge of its basin. Smaller silver birds and fruit swinging from chains occupied the branches of an intricately carved marble tree growing from a facsimile of a cliff face set in the middle of the basin. “This must be the contraption for which he showed me the diagram just a few weeks ago. When the fountain is working, the small birds sing and the fruits act as chimes. I understand that the effect is very melodic although after some hours it must become rather annoying.”
“Then it’s an excellent arrangement for it to be set out of earshot of the villa. And what about the ibis? What does that do?”
Anatolius shook his head. “I’m not certain. Perhaps Hero and Zeno haven’t decided yet. I gather this is only a working model.” A worried look crossed his face. “I hope that I’m not eventually going to be presented with a fully functional version for my own garden!”
As they returned to the front gate, John observed that he would have liked to have examined the papers in the missing estate owner’s office more closely. Solicitous of his master’s privacy, however, Briarus had seemed particularly anxious for his visitors not to linger there.
“On the other hand, Castor is Senator Balbinus’ nephew so it would be wise to proceed with caution. All the same, it seems very odd that Briarus doesn’t know where Castor has gone, or at least claims not to know.”
Anatolius snuffled miserably. “Since you appear to suspect everyone and his brother, I believe I can lend you a hand, John, especially as I intend to escape back to the city as soon as possible.”
“No,” John cut in firmly, “I do not wish you to question Balbinus about his nephew’s whereabouts.”
“But it would be so helpful to your investigations and I would be happy to visit Balbinus as soon as I arrive back in Constantinople.”
“Anatolius, I appreciate your kind offer but I fear that your leap into action is connected much more with the prospect of visiting Balbinus’ wife than of interviewing her husband.”
“Lucretia? That was years ago. She’ll most likely be elsewhere when I call anyway.” The expression in his eyes betrayed his hope that this would not prove to be the case.
John’s lips tightened. There were enough pitfalls strewn about court for a young man without inviting disaster by becoming involved, again, with a woman who was now a senator’s wife. Even so, he chided himself, it required the consent of both parties to have an affair and Lucretia had always conducted herself in an honorable way despite her less than happy arranged marriage. Then too, it might be the only way to find out quickly why the owner of the estate next to the one on which a young boy had been horribly murdered had suddenly departed for a destination unknown without even leaving instructions for his estate manager. That is, if what Briarus had said was true.