When I came back in, I told my father what I had learned from the centurion about the statue of Zeus. 'It makes things neat, anyway. First we have one statue and one ship-now there are two ships and two statues.'
'But it's not quite symmetrical,' Helena commented. 'One of the statues was lost in one of the ships, but the Zeus came ashore with Festus and presumably still exists somewhere.'
'That's good,' I said. 'This one is lost, but we can find it.'
'Are you going to try?'
'Of course.'
'You've had no luck so far!' remarked my father gloomily.
'I wasn't looking until now. I'll find the Zeus-and when I do find it, even if we repay the centurions' syndicate their share of the investment, there's still a chance for the rest of us to get rich. In addition to big brother's agreed percentage of the proceeds, we have four blocks of genuine Parian marble. We can do what Festus must have been planning, and have four copies made.'
'Oh surely you wouldn't sell fakes, Marcus!' Helena felt shocked. (At least I assume she did.) Pa gazed at me with a whimsical expression, waiting for me to answer her.
'Never entered my mind! Good copies can fetch a wonderful price in their own right.' It sounded almost sincere.
Helena smiled. 'Who would make your copies?'
'Orontes-who else? We were clambering all over his stuff at the studio; he has a sure touch with replicas. It's my belief that was all Festus wanted to ask him the night he was looking for the bastard so urgently. Orontes was petrified that Festus wanted a fight with him, when in fact my het-up brother was quite innocent of the Carus fraud, and was just offering Orontes work. Festus had received his military orders. He had to go back to Judaea. It was his last chance to fix the deal.'
'And is Orontes really good?'
Pa and I consulted each other, remembering again what we had seen of his work at Capua. 'Yes; he's good.'
'And after the trick he pulled on Festus, he owes us a free commission or two!'
Helena tried it out: 'So Festus was simply wanting to say to him, 'Come and look at this Phidias Zeus I've just brought home, and make me four more of them':' She jumped in her seat. 'So Marcus, this means the original must have been somewhere it could be viewed! Somewhere Festus could have shown it to the sculptor that very night-somewhere here in Rome!'
She must be right. It was here. It was worth half a million, and as my brother's heir and executor, part of it belonged to me. It was here, and I would find it if it took me twenty years.
'If you can find it,' said Helena quietly, 'I have an idea how you two could get your own back on Cassius Carus and Ummidia Servia.'
Father and I pulled our seats closer, and gazed at her like attentive acolytes at a shrine.
'Tell us, my darling!'
'To make my idea work properly, you will have to pretend you believe they really did lose their money on the Poseidon. That means you will have to put together the half-million sesterces and actually pay over the cash-'
We both groaned. 'Must we?'
'Yes. You have to convince them that they've beaten you. You have to lull them into a false sense of security. Then when they are full of themselves for cheating you, we can make them over-reach and fall for this proposal of mine:'
That was when Helena, my father and I sat together around my table, and hatched the scheme that would give us our revenge. Father and I put forward some refinements, but the basic plan belonged to Helena.
'Isn't she bright?' I asked, hugging her with delight as she explained it.
'She's beautiful,' agreed my pa. 'If we bring this off, maybe you'll use the proceeds to let her live somewhere more appropriate.'
'We have to find the missing statue first.'
We were nearer to that than we thought, though it took a tragedy to bring us near enough.
It was a good afternoon. We were all friends together. We had schemed, and laughed, and congratulated ourselves on how clever we were and how skilfully we were planning to turn the tables on our opponents. I had given in over the wine, which we poured into beakers for toasting each other and our scheme of revenge. With it we ate winter pears, laughing again as the juice ran down our chins and wrists. When Helena took a fruit that was going brown, my father reached for a dinner knife and cut off the bruised portion for her. Watching him hold the fruit in one sturdy hand while he pared off the bad part, stopping the knife-blade against his blunt thumb, a pang of reminiscence took me back a quarter of a century to another table, with a group of small children clamouring to have their father peel their fruit.
I still did not know what we had done to drive him away from us. I would never know. He had never wanted to explain. For me that had always been the worst part. But perhaps he simply could not do it.
Helena touched my cheek, her eyes quiet and understanding.
Pa gave her the pear, cut in slices, popping the first piece into her mouth as if she was a little girl.
'He's a demon with a blade!' I exclaimed. Then we laughed some more, as my father and I recalled how we had rampaged against the painters as the dangerous Didius boys.
It was a good afternoon. But you should never relax. Laughter is the first step on the road to betrayal.
After Father had gone, normality resumed. Life reasserted its usual grim messages.
I was lighting a lamp. I wanted to trim off the burnt wick. I was thinking about nothing as I tried to find the knife I normally used. It was missing.
Pa must have walked off with it.
Then I remembered the knife that had stabbed Censorinus. Suddenly I understood how a knife which had once been my mother's had arrived at the caupona. I knew how my mother, who was so careful, could have lost one of her tools. Why when Petronius Longus had asked her about it, she had chosen to seem so vague-and why when Helena tried to question members of the family, Ma had almost feigned disinterest. I had seen her being vague and unresponsive on the same subject scores of times. Ma knew exactly where that 'lost' knife had gone twenty years ago. Its discovery must have placed her in a terrible dilemma-wanting to protect me, and yet aware that the truth itself would not spare our family. She must have put the knife in my father's lunch-basket, on the day he left home. Either that, or he had simply picked it up for some job or other and carried it away with him the way he had mine today.
My father had been in possession of the murder weapon.
Which meant that the main suspect for killing Censorinus would now appear to be Didius Geminus.
LIX
It was a wild idea. Those are the ones that always seem the most believable once they strike you.
This was one thing I could not say to Helena. Not wanting to let her see my face, I stepped on to the balcony threshold. Ten minutes ago, he had been here, joking with the two of us, more friendly than he and I had ever been. Now I knew this.
He could have lost that knife, or even thrown it away, a long time ago. I did not believe he had. Pa was famous for collecting cutlery. When he lived with us, the decreed system was that every day he was given a knife in his lunch-basket; he usually pinched the daily knife. It was one of the irritating habits by which he made his presence felt. He was always in trouble about it, one of the endless wrangles that colour family life. Sometimes he needed a sharp blade to prod a suspect piece of furniture, testing for worm. Sometimes he had to swipe through the cords tied around a bale of new stock. Sometimes he palmed an apple from a fruit stall in passing, then wanted to cut slices as he walked. We children bought him a fruit-knife for a Saturnalia present once; he just hung it on the wall of his office, and went on exasperating Mother by filching the picnic tools.
He must still do it. I would bet he was driving the redhead to distraction with the same little game-still on
