"There's no hope of prints or spots of blood. We're too late-" I stood up. Time for a new tack. "Buxus, if you had been moving Leonidas to the arena, how would you have done it? I presume you don't take the big growlers out for walkies on dog leads?"
The slave looked shifty for some reason. "We have traveling cages."
"Where are they kept?"
Controlling his reluctance he led me slowly around the back of the barracks to a row of lean-to stores. Impassively he watched as I glanced into most of them, finding bales of straw and tools-buckets, long poles for controlling angry animals, straw figures to distract the wild beasts in the arena, and finally under an open-sided shed three or four compact cages on wheels, neat enough to be squeezed between the cages of the menagerie, and just large enough to transport a lion or leopard from place to place.
"How do you get the beasts inside one of these?"
"It's quite a game!"
"But you're well practiced?"
Buxus squirmed in his rough tunic; he was embarrassed, though pleased, by my praising his skill.
I examined the nearest cage closely. There was nothing suspicious. I was walking away when intuition drew me back.
Empty, the wheeled cages were easy to manipulate. I managed to pull out the one I had examined single-handed; Buxus stood by, glaring. He said nothing and made no attempt to stop me, but nor did he weigh in to help. Perhaps he knew, or guessed, what I would find: the next cage did provide evidence. Kneeling down inside it, I soon discovered traces of blood.
I jumped out and dragged the second cage into the light. "Someone has made a very crude attempt to hide this, simply pulling out another cage and parking the significant one at the back."
"Oh really?" said Buxus.
"Pathetic!" I showed him the blood. "Seen that before?"
"I might have done. It's just an old stain."
"That stain is not too old, my friend. And it looks as if somebody tried to wash it away-the kind of useless scrubber my mother would refuse to have working on her kitchen floor." The watery run-off had been absorbed far along the grain of the wooden floor of the cage, but the original splashes of blood could still be seen as darker, more concentrated marks. "Not much effort went into it-or else there wasn't enough time to do a good job."
"You think Leonidas was taken somewhere in this cart, Falco?"
"I bet he was."
"That's terrible."
I gave Buxus a sharp look. He seemed deeply unhappy, though I could not tell whether he was simply grieving for his lost big cat, or whether he was uncomfortable with my discovery and line of questioning. "He was taken away-and then brought back dead, Buxus. What's puzzling me, is how anyone could have extracted him from his normal cage without you hearing the commotion?"
"It's a real puzzle," the keeper said sorrowfully.
I kept my eyes boring into him. "He would have been quiet enough when he came back with the spear in him, but whoever delivered the corpse may well have been panicking. I doubt if they were able to stop themselves making some noise."
"I just can't understand it," Buxus agreed. A barefaced lie. "I don't think you're trying." He feigned not to notice my dangerously low tone.
I left the wheeled cage where it was. Someone else in this deceitful establishment could put it away again. Then something caught my eye, against the side wall of the shed. I pulled up what seemed to be a bundle of straw. What had attracted my attention were twined strands binding it into a definite form. "This is a straw man-or what's left of him." The crude shape had been savaged and torn. The ties at the tops of its legs were still in place but the shoulder bindings were broken. One of the arms and the head had been ripped off altogether. Half the straw of the body had been pulled away and the rest was all over the place. As I held the pathetic remains, they fell into two pieces. "Poor fellow's been thoroughly ravaged! You use these as decoys, don't you?"
"In the ring," said Buxus, still playing the unhelpful misery.
"You throw them in to draw the beasts' attention, and sometimes to madden them?"
"Yes, Falco."
Some extremely maddened creature had torn at the manikin I was holding. "What's this wrecked one doing here?"
"Must be just an old one," said Buxus, managing to find the innocent expression I had no faith in.
I looked around. Everywhere was neat. This was a yard where items were routinely stacked, counted, inventoried, and put away. Anything that was broken would be replaced or repaired. The straw men were kept on ceiling hooks in the same shack as the safety poles. All the used decoys that currently dangled there had been rebound to a reasonable shape.
I tucked the two halves of the dismembered figure under my arm, making a big point of confiscating the evidence. "On two occasions last night there must have been quite a commotion near Leonidas' cage-when he was fetched, and when he was brought home. You claim you missed all of it. So are you now going to tell me, Buxus, where you really were that evening?"
"I was here in bed," he repeated. "I was here and I heard nothing."
I was a good Roman citizen. No matter how brazenly he was defying me, I knew better than to beat up another citizen's slave.
Nine
WHEN WE RETURNED to the main area Buxus pointedly involved himself in his work while I took a last look around the cages. He surrounded himself with the four ostriches, who nuzzled close, lifting their feet with the exaggerated delicacy of any farmyard fowls. "Watch yourself, Falco; they can give a hefty kick."
Kicking was not their only talent; one of them took a fancy to the wavy-edged braid around the neck of my tunic and kept leaning over my shoulder to give it a peck. The keeper made no attempt to control the pestilential things, and I soon gave up my sleuthing, which was undoubtedly what he had hoped.
I walked back to the office, still holding the scraps of the straw man. Anacrites was talking to Calliopus. They both eyed my trophy. I propped up the pieces on a stool and said nothing about it.
"Calliopus, your lion was taken out on an excursion last night, and not-presumably-because his doctor had recommended fresh air carriage trips."
"That's impossible," the lanista assured me. When I described the evidence he merely scowled.
"You did not sanction the trip?"
"Of course not, Falco. Don't be ridiculous."
"Does it cause you concern that somebody made Leonidas their plaything on an illicit night out?"
"Of course it does."
"Any idea who might have done it?"
"None at all."
"It must have been someone who felt confident about handling lions."
"Mindless thieves."
"Yet thoughtful enough to bring Leonidas back."
"Madness," moaned Calliopus, burying any real feelings in a show of theatrical woe. "It's incomprehensible!"
"Had it ever happened before to your knowledge?"
"Certainly not. And it won't happen again."
"Well not now Leonidas is dead!" provided Anacrites. His sense of humor was infantile.
I tried ignoring my partner, which was always the safest way to deal with him except when he was actually hiring hitmen and had been seen writing my name on a scroll. Then I watched him very closely indeed.