Venus in copper

'I did. And I discovered that for years his own doctor had been treating him for piles. The medicine man reckoned Eprius was very vain-and so embarrassed about his problem that Severina may not have known.'

'Does this have a bearing on our enquiry?'

'Ah well!' Lusius was really enjoying himself. 'I showed the normal doctor the remnants of the cough lozenge that allegedly choked Eprius-though I didn't tell him what it was supposed to be. It was rather mutilated, and partly dissolved, but he was fairly sure the thing was his own handiwork.'

'Then what?'

'When I did tell him which end of his patient the lozenge had been recovered from, he was extremely surprised!' I was beginning to guess. 'That's right,' said Lusius cheerfully. 'She must have known Eprius possessed a little box of magic gumdrops - but he lied to her about their purpose. The "cough lozenge" which Severina says choked him was actually one of his suppositories for piles!'

I said, trying not to laugh too hard, 'This will make a sensation in court!'

A narrow expression crossed the clerk's face. 'I told you this was mine, Falco.'

'So what?' He said nothing. I remembered he liked redheads. 'You're mad, Lusius!'

'I haven't made up my mind yet.'

'If you go in mere to see her, she will make your mind up for you ... Whatever do you see in her?'

'Apart from quiet habits, interesting looks-and the fact I would be living on the verge of danger every minute I was with her?' the clerk asked, with a rueful lack of delusion.

'Well you know exactly what you're in for - which is more than most people do! She says she has no intention of remarrying-which means she's actively looking for her next husband. Step right up, my boy-but don't fool yourself you'll be the one who can control her-'

'Don't worry. What's left of the lozenge will do that.'

'Where is the disgusting evidence?'

'It's safe.'

'Where, Lusius?'

'I'm not an idiot. Nobody can get at it.'

'If you ever tell her where it is, you're a dead man!'

Lusius patted my shoulder. He had a quiet confidence that almost frightened me. 'I've arranged perfect protection, Falco: If I'm a dead man before I'm ready to go, my executors will find the evidence together with the doctor's sworn statement, and an explanatory note.'

A true lawyer's clerk!

'Now I'm going in,' he said. 'Wish me luck!'

'I don't believe in luck.'

'Neither do I really,' admitted Lusius.

'Then I'll tell you this: I met a fortune-teller, who told me the next husband Severina fastens on will live to a ripe old age ... it depends if you believe in fortune-tellers, I suppose. Have you got a nest egg?'

'I might have,' answered Lusius warily.

'Don't tell her.'

Lusius laughed. 'I was not intending to!'

I stepped away from the porch; he lined up to bang the bell.

'I still think you ought to tell me where you have put the fatal jujube.'

He decided it might be useful for someone else to know: 'Corvinus deposited his will in the House of the Vestals recently.' Standard procedure for a senator. 'He let me put mine in with it. if anything happens to me, Falco, my executors will find that my testament has a rather intriguing seal...'

He was right: he was no idiot. No one, not even the Emperor, could get hold of a will without proper sanction, once it had been given for safekeeping into the Vestal Virgins' charge.

'Satisfied?' he asked me, smiling.

It was brilliant. I loved it. If he hadn't had such a ghastly taste in women, Lusius and I could have been real friends.

I even thought, with just the slightest tinge of jealousy,that it was possible Severina Zotica might at last have met her match.

Chapter XLVII

The Senator was sitting in his courtyard garden, talking to his wife. In fact they looked as if they had been wandering round and round some subject until they were both tired of it: probably me. But Camillus Verus had a cluster of grapes in his hand and continued pulling off the fruit in an easy manner even after he saw me, while Julia Justa-whose dark hair in the dusk made her startlingly like Helena -made no move to breach the peace.

'Good evening, sir-Julia Justa! I hoped I might find your daughter here.'

'She comes,' grumbled her father. 'Borrows my books; uses up the hot water; raids the wine cellar! Her mother usually manages some snatch of conversation; 1 count myself lucky if I glimpse her heel disappearing round a doorframe.' I started to grin. He was a man, sitting in his garden among the moths and flower scents, allowing himself the privilege of sounding off against his young. '... I brought her up; I blame myself-she's mine ...'

'True!' said his wife.

'She has been here tonight?' I butted in to ask her mother,with a smile.

'Oh yes!' her father burst out rowdily. 'I hear your house fell down?'

'One of those things, sir! Lucky we were out...' He waved me to a stone bench with a flourish. 'Your house fell down; so Helena Justina had to ask me how to replace the deeds for her Aunt Valeria's legacy; Helena came to raid her old room for dresses; Helena wanted me to tell you that she would see you later-'

'Is she all right?' I managed to squeeze in, turning again to her mama in hope of sense.

'Oh, she seemed her usual self,' Julia Justa commented.

The Senator had run out of jokes; a silence fell.

I braced myself. 'I should have come before.'

Helena's parents exchanged a glance. 'Why bother?' shrugged Camillus. 'It's pretty clear what's going on-'

'I should have explained.'

'Is that an apology?'

'I love her. I won't apologise for that.' Julia Justa must have moved abruptly for I heard her ear-rings shivering and the flounce on her stole swished against the stonework with a scratch of embroidery.

The silence stretched again. I stood up. 'I'd better go and find her.'

Camillus laughed. 'Can I assume you know where to look, or should we get up a search party?'

'I think I know where she is.'

Tired as I was, I walked. I approached my old lair over the high crest of the Aventine; I came to it with dragging feet, thinking about the handsome houses rich people own, and the awful holes where they then expect the poor to live.

I entered the Twelfth district. Home smells assaulted my nose. A wolf whistle, without violence, followed me in the darkness as I took the lane.

Fountain Court.

Of all the groaning tenements in all the sordid city alleyways, the most degrading must be Fountain Court...

Outside the barber's, Rodan and Asiacus lifted their gladiatorial frames from a bench where they were chatting; then they sank down again. They could find another day to batter me. At the laundry I heard convivial strains from where Lenia must be entertaining her sordid betrothed. Rome was full of women planning how to fleece their men; grinning, I wondered if she had managed to persuade him yet to name a day.

A door opened. Outlined against the light behind I glimpsed a disorderly lump, topped by a few scrags of hair; Smaractus!

I was all paid up until November; no point stopping to insult him. It would keep. I could exercise my rhetoric some other day. Pretending not to notice him, I tightened my cloak and pulled down my hat so I could pass by like some sinister wraith, enveloped in black. He knew it was me; but he stepped back.

I steeled my legs, then warmed by nostalgia for familiar aggravation, I broached the first of those depressing six flights of stairs.

Chapter LXVIII

The place was a dump.

An amphora, nobbled from the Senator's mansion, stood leaning against what passed for a table. The bung was out. So this was what went on here when I was off elsewhere, struggling with a case ... Two pastry doves, oozing with raisin juice, were standing in an old chipped dish, beak to beak like battered lovebirds. One still managed to look sleek enough, but the other had a tired droop to his tail-like me.