talk then?'
He nodded miserably. I let him out. Immediately he made a dash for freedom. Expecting it, Father had slid gracelessly down the front of the vast matron who was forming his armchair. He landed in front of Orontes and punched up the sculptor's chin with a mighty blow that knocked him out.
I caught him under the hot hairy armpits. 'Oh brilliant, Pa. Now he's unconscious! This way he'll tell us a lot!'
'Well what else did you want? To see the bastard escape?'
We got him laid neatly on the floor, then threw a jug of cold water over him. He came to, to find the pair of us lolling against the statuary while I complained to my father. 'You do have to overdo everything! Settle down, will you? We want him alive at least until he's talked
'I should have hit the girl harder,' mumbled Pa, like some demented thug who liked torturing people.
'Oh she's all right-so far.'
Orontes stared around wildly, looking for Rubinia. There was no sign of her in the studio. 'What have you done with her?'
'Not too much-yet,' smiled Father.
'Missed his vocation!' I commented. 'Don't worry; she's just a bit frightened. I've managed to hold him back so far, but I can't go on doing it. Now talk, Orontes, or you get a chisel somewhere you may not expect and Jupiter only knows what this maniac will inflict upon your bit of decorative womanhood!'
'I want to see Rubinia!'
I shrugged. Ignoring his frantic gaze, I carefully examined the statue I had chosen to lean on. It had the body of a Greek athlete in tiptop condition, but the head of a Roman countryman aged about sixty, with a lined face and very big ears. 'Ovonius Pulcher', according to its plinth. There were half a score of these monstrosities scattered through the studio, all with identical bodies but different heads. They were the latest craze; everyone who was anyone in Campania must have ordered one.
'These are horrible!' I said frankly. 'Mass-produced muscle with entirely the wrong faces.'
'He does a good head,' Pa disagreed. 'And there are some nice reproductions around us here. He's a damn good copyist.'
'Where do the youthful torsos come from?'
'Greece,' croaked Orontes, trying to humour us. Pa and I turned to each other and exchanged a slow, significant glance.
'Greece! Really?'
'He goes to Greece,' my father informed me. 'Now I wonder if he used to go there and find things for our Festus to sell?'
I whistled through my teeth. 'Treasure-hunting! So this is the clod-brained agent Festus used to employ! The legendary man he met in Alexandria: Greece, eh? I bet he wishes he'd stayed there sunbathing on the Attic Plain!'
'I need a drink!' interrupted the sculptor desperately.
'Don't give him any,' snapped Pa. 'I know him of old. He's a drunken sot. He'll drain it and pass out on you.'
'Is that how you spent the bribe, Orontes?'
'I never had a bribe!'
'Don't lie! Somebody doled out a lot of money for you to do them a favour. Now you're going to tell us who paid you the money-and you're going to tell us why!'
'Bloody Cassius Carus paid the money!' my father suddenly shouted out. I knew he was guessing. I also realised he was probably right.
'That true, Orontes?' Orontes groaned in feeble assent. We had found some wine while he was unconscious. Pa nodded to me, and I offered the sculptor the wineskin, pulling it back after Orontes had taken one thirsty swig. 'Now tell us the full story.'
'I can't!' he wailed.
'You can. It's easy.'
'Where's Rubinia?' he tried again. He didn't care much about the girl; he was playing for time.
'Where she can't help you.' Actually we had shut her up somewhere to keep her quiet.
Pa swung closer and grasped the wineskin. 'Maybe he's frightened of the girl. Maybe she'll give him an earful if she finds out he's talked.' He took several deep swigs, then offered me a turn. I shook my head with distaste. 'Wise boy! For the heart of a wine-producing area this is dreadful vinegar. Orontes never drank for the flavour, just the effect.'
Orontes looked at his wineskin yearningly, but Pa held on to the dreadful prize. 'Tell us about the Phidias,' I urged. 'Tell us now-or Pa and I are going to hurt you much more than anyone else who's threatened you before!'
I must have sounded convincing, because to my surprise Orontes then confessed.
'I go to Greece whenever I can, looking out for bargains-' We groaned and sneered at his hybrid statues again, to show what we thought of that. 'Festus had an arrangement with me. I had heard where there might be this Phidias. I thought we could get hold of it. Some run-down temple on an island wanted to have a clear-out; I don't think they really appreciated what they were turfing on to the market. Even so, it wasn't cheap. Festus and some other people managed to put the money together, and he also lined up Carus and Servia as eventual purchasers. When his legion left Alexandria to fight in the Jewish Rebellion, Festus wangled himself a journey to Greece as an escort for some despatches; that was how he came with me to view the Phidias. He liked what he saw and bought it, but there was no time to make other arrangements so it had to go on with him to Tyre. After that he was stuck in Judaea with the army, so I was supposed to supervise bringing it back to Italy.'
'You were to escort it in person?' Pa queried. I guessed that was the usual system he and Festus had imposed to protect an item of large value. Either one of them, or an agent they really trusted, would have stuck with it every mile of its journey.
'That was what I promised Festus. He was sending a whole load of other stuff-nice goods, but minor quality by comparison-in a ship called the Hypericon.'
I poked him with the toe of my boot. The sculptor closed his eyes. 'Since the Hypericon sank while carrying the Phidias, and you're lying here annoying us, the rest is obvious. You broke your promise to Festus, and bunked off elsewhere!'
'That's about right,' he confessed uncertainly.
'I don't believe I'm hearing this! You let a statue worth half a million travel alone?' Pa was incredulous.
'Not exactly-'
'So what exactly?' menaced Pa.
Orontes groaned hopelessly and curled up, hugging his knees as if he was in some terrible pain. A bad conscience hurts some folk that way. 'The ship with the statue sank,' he whispered.
'We know that!' My father lost his temper. He hurled the wineskin at a Coy Nymph; it burst with a horrible squelching sound. Red wine trickled down her scanty drapes like blood. 'The Hypericon -'
'No, Geminus.' Orontes took a deep breath. Then he told us what we had come to find out: 'The Phidias that Festus bought was never on the Hypericon.'
LIII
I ran the fingers of both hands deep into my hair, massaging my scalp. Somehow this shock was not the surprise it ought to have been. Everyone had been telling us the Hypericon was carrying the statue; readjusting to another story took an effort. But some things which had made no sense before might now fall into place.
'Tell us what happened,' I commanded the sculptor wearily.
'There had been some mix-up. Festus and I took the Phidias to Tyre, but the rest of his stuff, things he had fixed up on his own account, had gone to Caesarea. Festus then told me he had to make himself look a bit
