Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (119 page)

‘You found him like this?’

Eco nodded.

How had such a thing happened? Agathinus must have been standing on the cube where Eco now stood, and somehow fallen backwards on to the point. I flinched, picturing it. The force of his fall had pushed his body halfway down the cone. But why should he have been standing on the cube at all? The faded inscriptions on the column could as easily be read from the ground. And how could he have been so careless as to fall in such a dangerous spot?

Unless someone had pushed him.

I thought of a triangle, not of the sort which Archimedes studied, but with properties just as predictable – a triangle made not of abstract lines but of the powerful forces that link mortal to mortal.

I told Eco to stop gawking and get down from the cube.

Given the circumstances of our discovery, and the fact that we were strangers in Syracuse, Eco and I might very well fall under suspicion ourselves if it was decided that Agathinus had been murdered. I thought it best to report what I had seen to Cicero, to let him handle reporting the death to the appropriate provincial magistrate, and then to book passage for Rome and have as little to do with the matter as possible.

‘But Gordianus,’ Cicero protested, ‘this sort of thing is your specialty. And if I understand you correctly, Agathinus was there to meet you, and to do you a favour – though it seems he could as easily have shown the tomb to me instead. Do you feel no obligation to discover the truth?’

Cicero is a master at playing on a man’s honour. I resisted. ‘Are you hiring me to investigate his death?’

‘Gordianus – always money! Paying you for such a service would hardly be my responsibility, but I’m sure I can persuade the local Roman magistrate to do so. I might point out that your participation would also remove you from suspicion. Well?’ He raised an eyebrow.

There was no debating logic with Cicero. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘Good! First, someone will have to inform his friends and family. Dealing with a widow takes a certain finesse – I’ll handle that. I leave it to you to deliver the sad news to his partner, Dorotheus.’

‘And Margero?’

‘Ah yes, I suppose the poet will want to compose some funeral verses in praise of his dead patron.’

Unless, I thought, Margero had been the author of Agathinus’ death.

Margero’s place was a small but respectable house in the heart of the city. I rapped upon the door politely with my foot and was shown by a slave through a modest atrium into a modest garden. After a long wait, Margero appeared wearing a rumpled robe. The ringlets across his forehead were in disarray and his eyes were puffy with sleep.

‘It’s close to midday,’ I said. ‘Do all poets sleep this late?’

‘They do if they’ve drunk as much as I did last night.’

‘I didn’t notice you drinking any more than the rest of us.’

‘What makes you think I stopped drinking after I left?’

‘You had a late night, then?’

‘What business is that of yours, Roman?’

‘One of your patrons is dead.’

In the span of a heartbeat several emotions crossed his handsome features, beginning with what might have been surprise and a flicker of hope, and ending with a grimace that might have been no more than a symptom of his hangover. ‘Dorotheus?’

‘No.’

A definite smile of satisfaction flickered across his lips. ‘Agathinus – dead? But how?’

‘Eco and I found him this morning, outside the Achradina Gate.’ I described the circumstances.

‘Impaled? How gruesome.’ Margero’s disgust slowly turned to amusement. ‘Yet how appropriate! An ironical turnabout from his usual preference.’ He laughed out loud. ‘Agathinus, impaled. Delicious! Poor Nikias will be distraught, no doubt. I shall make a poem to console him.’

‘Nikias – the boy at the gymnasium?’

Margero darkened. ‘How do you know about him?’

‘I know more than I care to about your affairs, and those of Agathinus – and yet, still not enough . . .’

‘What do you think?’ I said to Eco as we made our way towards the large building near the docks where Agathinus and Dorotheus kept their offices and warehouse. ‘Was Margero really surprised by our bad news?’

Eco looked pensive. He rotated his palm up and down inconclusively.

‘Let’s suppose that Margero overheard Agathinus last night when he arranged to meet us outside the Achradina Gate—’

Eco shook his head.

‘Yes, you’re right, Margero and Dorotheus had already moved on and were out of earshot. But suppose Agathinus caught up with them and told them of his plan. That’s certainly possible.’

Eco nodded sagely.

‘And suppose that Margero volunteered to meet Agathinus this morning, and the two of them got there ahead of us and began to search for the tomb without us – or perhaps Margero showed up on his own, staying hidden, and secretly followed Agathinus into the maze. One way or the other, the two of them ended up there inside the thicket, safely out of sight, and Margero took the opportunity to get rid of his rival for Nikias once and for all.’

Eco shook his head and mimed a poet in the throes of recitation.

‘Yes, I know: Margero is a man of words, not actions. And he’d have to be an awfully good actor, too, if he was faking all his reactions when we gave him the news this morning.’

Eco put his cheek against folded hands and feigned sleep.

‘And yes, he was obviously asleep when we called on him – but that proves nothing. Perhaps he stayed up all night so as to ambush Agathinus, then went to bed after the crime.’

Eco clutched an imaginary spike erupting from his chest, then feigned sleep, then shook his head dismissively. How, he asked, could any man sleep after doing such a thing?

‘You have a point there,’ I admitted. Eco winced, catching the pun before I did. ‘And another thing: Margero is younger than Agathinus, but was he that much stronger – strong enough to force Agathinus up on to the cube, then push him on to the cone?’

Dorotheus kept us waiting for some time in the atrium of his business establishment. At last he appeared, smiling glumly and stroking his bushy beard. ‘Gordianus and Eco!’ he boomed. ‘Come to say a last farewell before you head back for Rome?’

‘I only wish that we were here on such happy business. It’s about Agathinus—’

‘Ah, yes, I learned of the tragedy earlier this morning – his wife sent a messenger the moment she was given the news by Cicero. I understand that you found his body. Horrible! Shocking!’

‘Did you know of his plan to meet me outside the Achradina Gate this morning?’

‘What? Of course not.’

‘I thought he might have mentioned it to you and Margero after you left Cicero’s house last night.’

‘Agathinus caught up with us, yes, and the three of us walked for a while together. But he said nothing of any plans to meet you. I left the two of them outside my door, so Margero saw him last. Now that you mention it—’

‘Yes?’

‘Of late there had been some trouble between them. Perhaps you noticed Margero’s rudeness last night, and Agathinus’ aloofness. Some silly business over a boy. Absurd, isn’t it, how people can go mad over such things? Still, it’s hard to believe that Margero could . . .’

A slave entered the room and spoke to Dorotheus in hushed tones.

He shrugged apologetically. ‘Business. Agathinus’ death leaves everything in terrible confusion. You must excuse me. Have a safe journey home, Gordianus!’

Dorotheus departed with his secretary, leaving us alone in the atrium.

Or leaving me alone, rather, for when I looked around, Eco had vanished.

I called his name softly, but this appeared to be another occasion when he had gone conveniently deaf. There were several doorways leading out of the atrium into various parts of the building, but my attention was drawn to a passageway covered by a curtain that had been straight when we arrived but now hung slightly askew. I pushed it back and stepped into a dark hallway.

On either side, the hall opened on to a series of small offices cluttered with scrolls, bits of papyrus and wax writing tablets. The offices were deserted, the clerks presumably sent home on account of Agathinus’ death. The records stacked all about appeared to be the normal stuff of business – invoices, bills, ledgers. I peeked into each room, softly calling Eco’s name.

The hallway ended in a door, which stood ajar. I pushed it open and stepped into a high, open warehouse filled with crates. The place appeared to be as deserted as the offices, and the mazelike aisles between the stacked boxes reminded me uneasily of the mazelike necropolis outside the Achradina Gate.

‘Eco!’ I called softly. ‘We’ve no right to be snooping here. Eco, where are you?’ I wandered up and down the aisles, until I discovered another door at the far corner of the room. It opened into yet another office. From small windows set high in the wall came the sounds of ships knocking together in the harbour and the cry of seagulls. There was no sign of Eco inside. I backed out of the room and closed the door behind me. I took several steps before I suddenly realized what I had seen and hurried back.

On a table against one wall I saw a simple scale. Neatly stacked beside it were some sample weights of silver and gold. There was also a small wooden tub on the table. I stepped closer. Sure enough, the tub was half filled with water, and there were several waterline markings made with a piece of chalk along the inner surface.

Behind me, I heard the door close.

‘I thought I bade you farewell, Gordianus.’ There was not the slightest hint of good humour in Dorotheus’ voice. Without the beaming smile, his round, bearded face had a stern, almost menacing look; the constant smile had kept me from seeing the cold, predatory gleam in his eyes, so common in successful traders and merchants. I also realized what a large man he was. Fat, yes, but the fellow had arms like a blacksmith’s – strong enough, I had no doubt, to drag the smaller, weaker Agathinus on to the stone cube, and then to push him backwards on to the cruel spike.

‘I’m looking for my son,’ I said, as innocently as I could. ‘Eco has a terrible habit of wandering off on his own. I really should be less indulgent . . .’

But Dorotheus wasn’t listening. ‘How much, Finder?’

‘For what?’

‘How much to shut you up and send you on your way back to Rome?’ He might be a murderer, but he was a businessman first.

If accepting his bribe meant getting safely through the door behind him, why not? But I thought of Agathinus on the night before – the final night of his life – saying,
I like you, Gordianus . . . and I like your son . . . the way he laughed at Dorotheus’ awful jokes
. . . and offering to do me the favour of showing me Archimedes’ tomb. I remembered the gaping grimace of horror on his face when we found him, and I shuddered, thinking of the appalling agony he must have suffered at the end, transfixed like an insect on a pin.

‘Agathinus did tell you last night about meeting me outside the Achradina Gate?’ I said.

Dorotheus, deciding to submit to a bit of conversation, let his face relax. The hint of a smile returned to his lips. ‘Yes. He was quite looking forward to tramping through the thicket with you. I insisted on coming along for the fun.’

‘And Margero?’

‘I’m afraid I lied to you about that, Finder. Margero excused himself as soon as Agathinus caught up with us last night. He could hardly stand dining in the same room with him, in case you didn’t notice, and he was in no mood to stroll along beside him afterwards. Probably Margero was in a great hurry to get home so he could get drunk in solitude and make up new poems for that silly boy at the gymnasium.’

‘And you?’

‘I saw Agathinus home. Then I came here.’

‘To your offices? In the middle of the night?’

‘Don’t be coy, Finder. You saw the scale and the tub of water.’

‘A demonstration of Archimedes’ principle?’

‘Would you believe, ‘I never quite grasped it, until Cicero explained it last night.’

‘What could be so important that you had to rush here at once to try it out?’

He sighed. ‘I’ve suspected for years that Agathinus must be cheating me. Why not? He was always smarter than me, ever since we were boys. And the smarter partner always cheats the stupider one – that’s the law of business. So I always watched every transaction, always counted every piece of silver and gold we divided between us. Still, I could never catch him cheating me.