'So where is this uncle?'
'Who knows? He won't be on site!' A true professional.
'What's your uncle's name?'
'Lobullus.'
No one I was after, then.
I led the way indoors, heading a convoy that consisted of myself, Alexas, a couple of whey-faced lads carrying a pallet to remove the body, and the two workmen, both suddenly nosier about the corpse than they had professed to be about Maia.
'And where were you last night, Alexas?'
'It's on my tablet.'
'Tell me anyway.'
'I went into Noviomagus to see my uncle.'
'Will he vouch for you?'
'Of course he will.'
I never like family alibis.
The vaulted rooms were colder than last night. Even with the furnace out of action, it takes a while for the fabric of a bath house to cool. A slight clamminess was creeping through the steaming suite. We reached the final chamber. The dead Pomponius was still lying as I left him, as far as I could tell. If anyone had been in here and tampered with the body, I would never prove it. |
Initially, there was no reason to think anyone had done that.
Everything looked the same. After my companions finished exclaiming over the way the architect had been mutilated, they hoisted his corpse onto the pallet. I adjusted the small towel to cover his privates. Then I heard a rattle and something fell on the floor.
'Oh look!' cried Tiberius helpfully.
'Something was caught up in the poor fellow's towel,' added Septimus, bending to capture the object and hand it obsequiously to me. Everyone else watched my reaction. A cynical informer might have thought it was a planted clue.
It was an artist's paintbrush. Tightly bound pigs' bristles with carefully shaped tips for delicate work. Traces of azure on the short handle: was that blue frit? There were letters handily scratched there too. 'll'.
Comment from me was unavoidable. 'Well, that's a curious hieroglyphic.'
'Would it be the owner's initials?' enquired Tiberius with almost intellectual interest.
'Hey,' murmured Septimus, suddenly shocked. 'You don't think one of the site painters was responsible for the murder, Falco?'
I had to hide a smile. 'I don't know what to think.' But somebody was trying very hard to tell me.
'An architect wouldn't bring a paintbrush when he came for a bathe, would he?' Tiberius asked Septimus.
'That painter in charge is called Blandus,' his mate answered. 'So he's not LL.'
'You know, I believe it must be his assistant,' I broke in. Septimus, Tiberius and even Alexas, whose role in this fiasco seemed the most subdued, all looked at each other and nodded, impressed by my deductive powers.
I held the brush in the palm of my hand, looking from the silent Alexas to his uncle's two workmen. 'Congratulations, Septimus. This seems to be an important clue and you just helped me work out what it means.'
I could see what it really meant. Someone was being framed.
I seized the towel and shook it out, in case any other offerings had been deposited. Negative. I replaced the linen rectangle neatly over the dead architect's loins. I signalled to the bearers to carry off the body.
'So! It looks like that young painting assistant has killed Pomponius. There's only one way to be sure. I'll ask him to be a good boy and own up.'
XXXIX
it was natural to retrace my steps down the corridor, via my own quarters. I needed to calm down. I found Helena, and told her what had happened.
'That paintbrush had arrived there since last night. Opening the baths so anybody could get in was deliberate, not just negligence by workmen. I've spent a morning allowing myself to be detained and delayed by Alexas and I think by Strephon earlier. Half the project team must have been rushing about behind my back.'
'To cause confusion? As a set-up it's not very subtle, Marcus. If the young painter is innocent-'
'His innocence is not the point,' I said.
Helena pursed her lips, her great eyes dark with concern. 'Why do you think he has been set up as the culprit? He has offended someone?'
'Well, he drinks, flirts, gets into scrapes and hits people.' Mind you, Justinus still liked him, despite being punched. 'Then, too, I have seen his work. He is a strikingly good artist.'
'Jealousy?'
'Could be.'
'It sounds as if half the project team conspired to lay this false clue,' Helena said angrily. 'So did the project team or some of them- kill Pomponius?'
'I'm not ready to decide.' My mood cleared slightly. 'But one thing's for sure, the project team really hates the new project manager.'
Helena knew at once what I had decreed at that morning's meeting. 'I see! You want your own chance to be dogmatic and overbearing?'
I grinned. 'And I'm ignorant of professional practice too, as was pointed out. I'm perfect for the job. With these talents, I could have been an architect!'
I had a quick word with Maia. She had little to add. Whoever she heard at the baths that morning had walked past the cold room briskly, then returned to the exit soon afterwards. That fitted. They must have gone into the hot rooms, dumped the brush and done a flit.
Now Maia had reflected on how she would have felt if she stumbled on the dead man. She confessed that she regularly lurked in the bath house alone, at hours when she hoped no one else would be around. She had gone there last night, for instance, she told me guiltily.
'This was after I left for Novio?'
'After dinner.'
'Stupid! Maia Favonia, your mother brought you up to know that bathing on a full stomach can give you a seizure.'
'It can give you a lot of thinking time too,' Maia growled. I preferred not to know what she was thinking about. Exploring the dark elements of my sister's soul would have to wait.
'Strangers might assume you are making assignations.'
'I don't give a damn what anyone thinks.'
'You never did! So you were at the crime scene last night, Maia. Tell me about that. Tell me every little detail.'
Maia was now prepared to help. 'I knew someone had gone through ahead of me. When I arrived there were clothes in two of the bunkers.'
'Two?'
'I can count, Marcus.'
'You can be rude too! Describe this clothing.'
Maia had worked for a tailor in her youth. 'Bright stuff in one- expensive cloth, untidily crammed in. Unusual; jacquard cloth, maybe with silk in the weft. In another row of bunkers, there was a plain white tunic- wool, a common weave folded neatly, with a man's belt on top.'
'Was the expensive material dyed brown and turquoise?' She nodded. 'Pomponius. So who was the other man? Could it have been Cyprianus, who discovered the corpse? Was your visit just before I came home from
