John was inspecting the corridor wall beside the door of the damaged room when Hero appeared. He greeted the man coolly. “I am surprised you didn’t arrive with that fire-fighting device of yours.”
Hero lifted the stump of his arm. “I’m afraid I’m not much good at operating such machinery, Lord Chamberlain. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Zeno broke into the conversation, effusively describing to Hero the ease of obliterating fires when equipped with such an ingenious water pump. He then hurried off “to calm everyone down,” as he put it-a task for which the elderly and excitable man was particularly ill suited, in John’s opinion.
“I am not quite so enthusiastic about your mechanical contrivances as your employer,” John remarked as Zeno’s orange-clad form disappeared from view. “Of late, they seem to be appearing rather too frequently in the general vicinity of those who have recently died.”
Hero placed his palm in a protective gesture on the side of the vat. “What do you mean, Lord Chamberlain? If it weren’t for this contrivance we’d all be standing in the garden watching the villa burn down like a city tenement.”
“I wasn’t referring to the pump but rather to this strange lighting contrivance.” John indicated a recess in the wall by the door to what had been Briarus’s room. The small niche and its contents were badly charred, with a black streak stretching from it to the water-puddled floor tiles.
“My self-lighting lamp? It’s a clever device indeed, Lord Chamberlain. It’s operated in a most cunning manner with the aid of a water clock, not unlike the automatically lit lamps inside the whale.”
John observed quietly that he was less interested in discovering how the lamp worked than the manner in which it appeared to have malfunctioned. “From the stains on the wall,” he continued, “it’s fairly obvious that lamp oil was somehow spilt, caught fire and then ran under the door.”
Hero inspected the blackened wreckage inside the recess. “Yes, that does seem to have been what happened,” he admitted thoughtfully. “Its oil supply is in a container set into the wall but it couldn’t have leaked accidentally. I have some expertise in designing such things and I can assure you that the arrangement was perfectly safe.”
Felix and John regarded him silently. It was obvious they were thinking about the mechanical whale, which had also been judged to be perfectly safe.
Hero’s jaws clenched in anger. “Surely it is clear that someone tampered with the lamp?”
“And who would know how to do that? Apart from a person with some expertise in these things-such as yourself?” Felix pointed out.
“Lord Chamberlain, this was a terrible event.” Hero waved his hand at the wreckage visible through the doorway a few paces from them but did not glance down at Briarus, who lay even closer. “But whoever did it remains at liberty.” He turned his gaze toward Felix although he continued to address John. “It is my opinion what whoever killed Gadaric murdered Briarus and as I believe you now know, the night that the boy was murdered, I was with Bertrada.”
***
At John’s brisk knock, Bertrada angrily yanked her bedroom door open, her lips already forming a virulent protest. Recognizing the Lord Chamberlain, she hastily amended her manner.
“I thought it was Godomar, excellency,” she explained in a nervous tone. “He’s always creeping around to spy on what we’re doing. He claims it’s his duty to keep an eye on all of us. The Evil Eye is what I call it!”
John, thinking that Godomar no doubt had good reason to keep a close watch on the young nursemaid, stepped into the room. He gestured the girl to sit down on her rumpled bed. She was wearing only the flimsy tunica she slept in. It revealed a form that was still boylike and angular.
“You surely cannot have slept through the recent uproar?” John said.
“No, I didn’t. It’s certainly a terrible thing that has happened, excellency.”
“And how do you know if you have not been out of your room?”
“I heard about it from a servant who went by a little while ago. Of course I heard all the commotion but I knew I should remain here with Sunilda,” she continued, looking toward the door connecting her room with her charge’s bedroom.
John suggested that apart from devotion to her duty, might she also have remained because she expected a visitor, perhaps one who could be described as a military man?
She blushed as she denied the charge.
A few brief questions elicited the information that no-one had visited her since her young charge had fallen asleep and she herself had retired to bed.
“But someone has tracked mud in on his boots,” John nodded toward the obvious evidence on the floor.
“Sunilda’s always playing in the mud.” Bertrada shook her head and smiled. “I have often had to correct her about that. It’s not at all lady-like.”
“I ordered Hero released because I believed what you told me,” John said, “which is to say that you were with him on the night Gadaric was murdered. Now, no sooner is Hero a free man than someone else is dead, and again through the agency of one of his mechanical devices.”
Bertrada’s face flushed as she insisted Hero was innocent of wrongdoing. “There is a room at the back of the workshop. We met there that night…” She hesitated, biting her lip for an instant, before continuing in a low voice. “Our entanglement was a mistake, I see that clearly now, excellency. Do you think Captain Felix was terribly hurt to learn about it? He is a fine man.”
John ignored the question and instead instructed her to relate her movements on the night of the banquet in detail.
“Both children were put to bed early and were soon fast asleep,” the girl replied, looking ashamed. “There were guards all over the place with the empress being here, not to mention many of the banquet guests had their own bodyguards. So I just assumed this villa was as safe as the palace.”
“Indeed? As you now realize, it’s exactly as safe as the palace, or in other words, not at all. So you crept out to visit Hero? Didn’t anyone remark on your leaving the children unattended?”
“Why would they? I’m their nursemaid and it’s not for servants to question me. Besides, Calyce and Livia sometimes take charge of the children. So has Godomar, on occasion.”
John questioned her concerning the time when she had left the children asleep.
“I couldn’t say exactly, but it was after the banquet had started. I could hear all the laughter and chatter going on and the clatter in the kitchen as I went out to the workshop. There were lots of servants scurrying about the corridors but they didn’t take much notice of me.”
The information was of little use, John realized, since the banquet had been in progress well before the whale appeared on stage. “Was Hero there when you arrived?”
She confirmed he was.
“He didn’t keep you waiting?”
The girl shook her head. “Nor did he leave at any time, excellency, and neither of us emerged until we heard screams coming from the villa.” Her face darkened. “Would you like me to describe further how we passed the hours?” she blurted out angrily.
“You would perhaps do better to describe that to Felix, Bertrada,” John replied evenly. “It would prove most instructive for him, although not in the manner that you meant.”
Bertrada looked stricken. “Hero is nothing to me, Lord Chamberlain. I was lonely, it was a whim, an accident. He is but a boy compared to Felix, I swear it.”
John felt sudden fury boiling in his veins. Bertrada had been lax in carrying out her duty and a tragedy had ensued. Yet now, apparently, she was still more interested in pursuing affairs of the heart.
“The captain is of no concern to you nor can he ever be,” he replied in an cold, controlled tone. “And as for boys, it is important right now that you assist in every way you can to find Gadaric’s murderer. The boy was in your charge, remember. His family entrusted him to your care but you failed them. Now he is dead and they will never see him again.”