'Murder, I think. Perhaps Zeno and Alexandros strike again?'
Crassus was not amused.
Part Four
XX
'One disaster follows another!' Crassus stopped pacing long enough to stare at me with one eyebrow raised, as if holding me responsible for complicating his life. 'For once I think I shall actually be glad to get back to the relative calm and security of Rome. This place is accursed!'
'I agree, Marcus Crassus. But cursed by whom?' I glanced at the corpse of Dionysius, which lay sprawled on the library floor where Crassus had ordered his men to put it for want of a better place, simply to get it out of sight of the dinner guests. Eco stood peering down at the dead man's contorted face, apparently fascinated by the way that Dionysius's tongue refused to recede into his mouth.
Crassus pinched his nose and made a wave of dismissal. 'Take it away!' he shouted to one of his bodyguards.
'But where shall we put him, Marcus Crassus?'
'Anywhere! Find Mummius and ask him what to do — just get the body out of here! Now that I no longer have to listen to the fool, I certainly don't intend to put up with his stench.' He fixed his stare on me. 'Poison, Gordianus?'
'An obvious deduction, given the symptoms and circumstances.'
'Yet the rooms were full of other people eating. No one else was affected.'
'Because no one else drank from Dionysius's cup. He had a peculiar habit of drinking some herbal concoction before his midday meal and again with his dinner.'
Crassus blinked and shrugged. 'Yes, I remember hearing him extol the virtues of rue and silphium at other meals. Another of his irritating affectations.'
'And an ideal opportunity for anyone who might wish to poison him — a drink which he alone ingests, and always at a prescribed time and place. You must agree now, Marcus Crassus, that there is a murderer at large, here in this house. Quite likely it's the same person who murdered Lucius, since only last night Dionysius publicly pledged to expose that person. This could hardly have been the work of Alexandros or Zeno.'
'And why not? Zeno may be dead, but we still don't know where Alexandros is, or with whom he might be in contact. No doubt he has confederates in the household, among the kitchen slaves.'
'Yes, perhaps he does have friends in this house,' I said, but I was not thinking of slaves.
'Obviously, it was a mistake for me to allow any of the slaves to go on serving Gelina. As soon as the dinner is finished and the overnight guests are seen to their quarters, I shall have every slave rounded up and locked into the annexe. It would have to be done in the morning, anyway. Fabius!' He called to Faustus Fabius, who had been waiting in the hall, and issued instructions. Fabius nodded coolly and left the room without even looking at me.
I shook my head wearily. 'Why do you think it was one of the slaves who poisoned Dionysius, Marcus Crassus?'
'Who else had access to the kitchens, where no one would notice? I suppose that's where Dionysius kept his herbs.'
'All sorts of people have been in and out of the kitchens all day. People were half-starved from waiting for dinner; guests dropped by to filch food or sent slaves to do it for them long before the meal began; the kitchen slaves were rushing about and could hardly be expected to take note of everyone who stepped in their way. And you're mistaken, Crassus; Dionysius gathered his herbs himself and kept them in his room. He sent fresh batches down to the kitchens to be prepared each day; he usually bundled them up first thing in the morning and gave them to a kitchen slave, but today he didn't deliver them until after the funeral. That means the herbs could have been tampered with in Dionysius's room this morning, while everyone was busy preparing for the funeral.' 'How do you know all this?'
'Because while you and your men were gathering up Dionysius's body and bringing it here, I asked a few questions of the serving girl who brought him the drink tonight. She says that he brought the herbs to the kitchen after returning from the funeral. As usual, they were already mixed and crushed and gathered up in a scrap of cloth. Apparently Dionysius made quite a ritual of measuring and preparing them in advance. She herself added the watercress and grape leaves, then boiled and strained the concoction just before the meal.'
'She could have added the poison as well,' Crassus insisted. 'You must know something of poisons, Gordianus. What do you think it was?'
'I would guess aconitum.'
'Panther's-death?'
'Some people call it that. It's said to be palatable, so he might not have noticed it in his concoction. It's the fastest of poisons. The symptoms match — a burning in the tongue, choking, convulsions, vomiting, loosening of the bowels, death. But who,' I wondered aloud, 'would have known enough of such things to have obtained the poison and administered a proper dose?' I glanced at Eco, who pursed his lips. He had napped while I browsed through the various herbs and extracts in the house of Iaia at Cumae, but I had told him about them later.
Crassus stretched his shoulders and grimaced. 'I hate funerals. Even worse than funerals are funeral games. At least this will all be over tomorrow.'
'If only Dionysius had been able to tell us what he knew about the murder of Lucius,' I said, 'if indeed he knew anything at all. I should like to have a look in his rooms.'
'Certainly.' Crassus shrugged. His mind had already wandered to other matters.
I found the boy Meto in the atrium and instructed him to show us to the philosopher's chambers. We passed the dining rooms.
The meal had abruptly ended with the death of Dionysius and the withdrawal of the host and hostess, but many of the guests still lingered among the tables and couches. I paused and searched the crowd.
'Who are you looking for?' asked Meto.
'Iaia and her assistant Olympias.'
'The painter lady left already,' he said. 'Right after the philosopher started having his fit.' 'Left the room?'
'Left the house, for her own house at Cumae. I know, because she sent me to the stables to see that their horses were ready.'
'Too bad,' I said. 'I should very much like to talk with her.'
Meto led us farther up the hall and around a corner. 'Here it is,' he said, indicating the door to Dionysius's rooms.
The apartment consisted of two small rooms separated by a hanging curtain. In the outer room a round table was surrounded by chairs, set beside a window that faced the low wooded hills on the west. A clay urn was set atop a small table in one corner. When I lifted the lid I smelled the mingled scents of rue, silphium, and garlic. 'Dionysius's concoction. Poisoned or not, it should all be burned or emptied into the bay to be sure it harms no one else.'
The inner room, furnished with a Stoic's austerity, contained only a sleeping couch, a hanging lamp, and a large trunk.
'Not much to see,' I remarked to Eco, 'unless something has been hidden out of sight.' I started to open the trunk and found that it was clasped shut with a lock that required a key. 'We could break it open, I suppose. I doubt that Crassus would object, and we can ask the shade of Dionysius to forgive us. Indeed, it looks to me as if someone has already tried to force it open, and failed. See the scratches, and this scarred strip of metal, Eco? We shall need a strong, slender bar of steel to pry it open.'