girlfriend.”
“Very wise.”
“I had to stop telling people you were a doctor,” he said. “Some of them wanted to tell me what was wrong with them.” He winced. “One even wanted me to look at it.”
“I know,” agreed Ruso. “That’s why I don’t tell them either.”
“A couple of them said they wouldn’t talk to me because a doctor had murdered that trumpeter they found in the alley.”
“Really?” said Ruso. Evidently Thessalus’s confession was no longer a secret. He wondered whether anybody had told Metellus.
“Then some ignorant clod in the vehicle repair shop said if I was snooping around his woman I would end up in the alley too. And some people wouldn’t talk to me at all. I suppose they were hoping for a bribe.”
“Probably,” said Ruso, wondering how the news about Thessalus had leaked out.
“But I didn’t have any money, sir,” the clerk pointed out, clearly feeling his officer did not appreciate the difficulty of the fool’s errand on which he had wasted most of the morning. “And I had no idea she might be using a native name.”
“Albanus,” said Ruso, who had forgotten to warn his clerk beforehand that Tilla’s current name had only been adopted after he met her, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right, sir.”
“Never mind. I think neither of us knows quite how things work around here.”
“I think it helps if you’re Batavian, sir.”
This was not encouraging. “Apparently I have to go down to the bathhouse and face a clinic full of the Batavians’ friends and relations. I can’t think of a good excuse not to go.”
Albanus seemed to be on the verge of coming up with one when Gambax put his head around the door frame of the treatment room to announce that he had put together a box of the sort of medicines and dressings Doctor Thessalus usually took with him. The regular assistant was on leave but he had assigned a bandager to clinic duty. Clearly, to back out now would be a sign of weakness. No Batavian was going to be allowed to accuse him of that.
Albanus, offered a choice of activities, decided that despite his complaints he would rather resume the search for Tilla than face the ailing families of the Batavians. “While you’re out,” suggested Ruso, handing him some small change, “just listen out for any gossip about the murder, will you?”
Albanus’s eyes widened. “Are you doing another investigation, sir?”
“No,” said Ruso. “I’m just trying to help Doctor Thessalus. Officer Metellus is… it’s ah… it’s just that there seem to be some rumors going around that may be…”
He stopped. If he told Albanus the rumors were false, the clerk would quite reasonably want to know what the truth was. And since almost everything about this wretched business was supposed to be a secret, Ruso would not be able to tell him. Finally he said, “What have you heard?”
Albanus was apologetic. He had not heard anything new, apart from the suggestion that a doctor had been the murderer, which was obviously ridiculous. “And I spoke to lots of gate guards but I still can’t find anyone who remembers what time Doctor Thessalus came back in that night, sir. Or where he went. Several of them told me where I could go, though. I’m not doing very well, am I?”
“Never mind,” said Ruso. “Have you mentioned any of this to anybody?”
Albanus observed glumly that he didn’t know anybody to mention anything to.
“Good. Don’t discuss the murder. Just let me know anything you happen to pick up.”
35
The designated bandager for this morning’s clinic was the oversized Ingenuus, from whom Ruso rapidly discovered that the rumor about Thessalus’s confession had reached the infirmary. Ruso’s attempt to trace the source produced a list of names. To his relief none were infirmary staff. Maybe Thessalus had repeated his confession to his guard. Whatever the source, Metellus would have to deal with it. As they tramped out of the east gate in the direction of the bathhouse, the big man was eager to insist that nobody believed a word of it.
“Somebody should have arrested that local when he started playing up in the bar, sir. We’re too soft with ’em, that’s the trouble. You can’t treat a barbarian like a civilized man. They can’t understand it. You have to think of them like dogs. They need to know who’s boss.”
“So why do you think Doctor Thessalus might have confessed?” asked Ruso, “If he has.”
“Ah, but has he, sir?” said Ingenuus, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s what they want us to think.”
Ruso returned the nod of the owner of We Sell Everything. “What who want you to think?” he said, wondering what the distant shouting was about. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the river.
“The officers, sir,” said Ingenuus, shifting the weight of his box of medicines to get a better grip.
“I really don’t think that’s very likely.”
“They put that story out before they found that native to arrest, just to stop us thinking it might be the Stag Man. But if it wasn’t the Stag Man, why wouldn’t they let us see the body?”
Fortunately he did not wait for an answer before continuing. “Doctor Thessalus is off sick and he’s leaving anyway, so it won’t matter what they accuse him of, will it?”
Evidently the military rumor mill had been turning at quite a rate this morning. “He’s certainly ill,” said Ruso, moving onto safer ground. “Have you noticed him behaving oddly lately?”
“He’s been looking a bit tired, sir. And he’s a bit forgetful. Sometimes he forgets he’s on duty and we have to fetch him. But that’s no reason to blame him for murdering Felix.”
The commotion was growing louder. “I’m looking into the arrangements for night calls,” said Ruso, who wasn’t, but supposed that as part of his overhaul of the infirmary he should be. “You don’t happen to know where Doctor Thessalus was called out to on the night of the murder, do you?”
Ingenuus looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know where he went, sir. He was supposed to be on duty. But when I went to remind him, his door was locked and he didn’t answer.”
“So who was working at the infirmary that night? Gambax?”
“It was a quiet night, sir. Me and one of the orderlies managed on our own.”
“I see.” Ingenuus had understandably chosen not to call on Gambax if he didn’t have to. “That was until Doctor Thessalus got back?”
Ingenuus coughed. “That was until Gambax came on duty in the morning, sir. I expect Doctor Thessalus went straight to bed.”
“I see.”
“We’d have called him if we needed him,” insisted Ingenuus. “He’s a good man. And a good doctor. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. Speaking frankly, sir, not everybody in the Tenth thinks you can cure the sick with cold baths and-” He broke off. “What’s that?”
This time they had both heard the blare of an alarm horn.
“Come on, sir!” urged Ingenuus, breaking into a run. “Someone’s in trouble!”
Ruso sprinted after him, grasping the hilt of his knife. There was more shouting. He could hear the medicines rattling in the box as Ingenuus lumbered along ahead of him. The alarm sounded again. They turned onto another street. Other men were running in the same direction. One of them yelled something at him and he shouted, “What?” as they joined them, but nobody answered. Ingenuus was towering over the rest of the mob, still clutching the box, and dodging around an old man waving a stick. What brought Ruso to a lone halt moments later was the sudden realization that the old man had not been shouting encouragement to the pursuers, but the words, “They’re in here! Come back!”
The mob disappeared around the corner with a trail of small boys and dogs in its wake.
“In there, officer!” cried the old man, jabbing his stick toward another of the narrow alleyways.
Inside the depths of the alley a knot of men was lurching about, cursing and grunting in some kind of struggle.
