Nico hurried straight to the relevant box, drew out an exceptionally long writing tablet and flipped it open. Ruso suspected he had been staring at it in despair for much of the last few days. The black squiggle at the bottom apparently showed that the money had been signed out. “There’s a parallel record in Asper’s office,” Nico volunteered before Ruso thought to ask.
“You’ve got his records too?”
Nico looked worried again as he explained how the Council had arranged for Asper’s home to be searched and his office to be broken into. “Just in case he hadn’t taken the money with him.”
“Why wouldn’t he take it with him?” queried Ruso, guessing they had really been hoping Asper had enough money stashed away somewhere to replace what was missing.
Nico looked out the window and around the room, as if he was expecting to find the answer written somewhere on the wall.
“Why wouldn’t he take it with him?” Ruso tried again.
“I don’t know,” Nico confessed.
“Perhaps he was going somewhere else? Did he mention visiting anyone?”
“Oh no, sir, he was definitely going to Londinium.”
“I expect it made sense at the time,” Ruso suggested, recalling the extremes he and the apprentices had gone to during their desperate hunt for the missing letter. “I’ll be checking his office myself. Did he say anything about his security guards?”
Nico’s eyes widened in alarm. “I don’t know about visits and guards. I only know about money.”
“And you’re absolutely sure the money went out?”
“Oh, yes! I was there.” He seemed relieved to have an easy question at last.
“What time of day was it?”
“In the morning.”
“But he didn’t leave town until the afternoon.”
“Oh dear,” muttered Nico. “Oh dear, oh dear…”
“That’s not your fault,” Ruso assured him. “Who would have known that he had it?”
This seemed to be something the quaestor had not considered. “Well-anybody could have seen, I suppose. The Hall’s usually busy in the mornings.” Unprompted, he continued, “We had the guards put a watch on the gates. They called in reserves and sent all their best men out to look. We made a sacrifice to Jupiter and we offered a raven to Sucellus, and still nothing.”
“I heard it was a dog,” said Ruso. “But I’m sure he liked it, whatever it was. Is there any way we could identify the money if it’s found? Anything distinctive about it?” It was something he might never have thought of had Tilla not been given the stolen money that had somehow drawn her into Metellus’s web. When Nico still did not answer he rephrased the question. “Is there any way we can tell your money from anybody else’s?”
“Oh no!” The quaestor shook his head, as if “No” were not a clear enough answer. “No, no. It’s just ordinary money. Mostly silver.” He paused. “You could talk to our money changer. He labels all the bags.”
Ruso, who could think of nothing else to ask, thanked him and got up to leave. He was almost out the door when Nico blurted out, “Nothing like this has ever happened before! What will the procurator say?”
Ruso said truthfully, “I can’t tell you.”
46
Apparently the Council clerk had the key to Asper’s office on his belt and he was still trapped over in the Council meeting. Ruso decided to check the strong room below the shrine.
The guards stationed at the top of the descending flight of stone steps snapped to attention as he approached. Glancing down at the iron-studded door, Ruso ordered the men to stand easy. They seemed to like being addressed as soldiers. They liked it even more when he showed an interest in their duties, answering all his questions in passable Latin with the eagerness of the underappreciated. They told him there was an eight-man rota for guard duty in the Hall, alternating between the strong room and the entrances. At night everything was locked up and two men remained on patrol while two others slept at the top of the strong room steps. “Four hours on, four hours off, sir.”
“Very good,” said Ruso, as if he were a visiting dignitary come to inspect them.
He was informed with pride that this was a top job, which he understood to mean that it was under cover and involved very little effort. He restrained an urge to warn them about the dangers of varicose veins and bad feet from standing around all day. “And if I want to get in?”
They seemed genuinely sorry they were not able to oblige. “Nobody allowed in without the quaestor, sir. And him not on his own.”
“That applies to everyone? Even the tax collector?”
“Especially him, sir. If we knew what he was doing we would have kept him out.”
Ruso said, “You were on duty when he took the money?”
“He was with the quaestor, sir.” The tone was defensive, as if they were afraid he was accusing them of negligence.
“Was there anything unusual about him that day?” asked Ruso, noticing Nico emerge from his office and scurry across the hall to the exit. “Anything he said or did?”
The guards thought about it. Finally one of them said, “It is not our job to notice what our betters do, sir.”
“So you just saw him take the money out as usual?”
“It’s not our fault, sir!” put in the other one, suddenly anxious.
“No,” agreed Ruso, “I’m sure it wasn’t.” It was hard to imagine them being bright enough to steal anything.
The sign said, “Satto, official money exchange,” and there were crude paintings of coins, but the money changer’s office was chiefly notable for the guards standing on either side of the entrance. They were not as smartly turned out as Dias’s men, but the studded clubs and steely stares suggested that they would be happy to respond to any complaints.
Satto was a small wiry man of about forty. He was seated between a hefty oak chest and a counter substantial enough to hold a considerable weight in cash without rocking his weighing-scales. He responded to Ruso’s request for a private conversation by gesturing to his guards to wait outside. Ruso ordered his own men to join them.
When they were alone, Satto reached behind him for a folding stool. Ruso opened it, guessing that most of Satto’s clients had to stand and wait while he decided what rate he was prepared to offer them. “I’m investigating the theft of the tax money.”
“So I hear.”
“I’m told you might be able to show me how to identify it.”
Satto extended one bony hand across the counter. On his little finger was an oversized bronze ring with a red stone. As he rocked his fist from side to side, the light from the window caught the dip of what looked like a tiny human figure engraved into the stone. “I inspect all the coins that go into the strong room,” he said. “If it’s still bagged, my tag should be on it with the date and that seal.”
Ruso tried to picture the little figure in reverse, stamped into wax. “I’d imagine it’s been rebagged by now.”
Satto withdrew the hand. “Unless it’s been stolen by someone very stupid.”
“What do you think a thief would do with it?”
Satto pondered that for a moment. “He could trickle it out slowly, or go somewhere nobody knows him-but arriving with a lot of coins would make him noticed. I would melt it down. It would be worth less, but much easier to hide.”
“How would it be worth less? It’s still silver.”
He caught the surprise on the money changer’s face and guessed that a real procurator’s man would have known the answer to that. He said, “I’ve only just been transferred to the procurator’s office.”
