At my gesture the attendant threw back the shroud, revealing a lean, bearded man of perhaps fifty. Someone had thoughtfully arranged his features into an expression of serenity. Somewhat less serene was the wound in his abdomen, just below the sternum. He had been knifed.
“Any idea when this happened?” I asked.
“Probably the night before last,” said the duumvir. “A man with business to transact went to the Syrian’s offices and found him dead on the floor yesterday morning and reported it to the town watch, who sent a runner to inform me. When I remembered he was a defendant in a case coming up before you, I sent a messenger to inform you.”
“Very thoughtful of you. I think we’ve learned all we are going to here. If you could lead us to his offices now I would be obliged.”
As we made our way through the streets, I beckoned Hermes to my side. “Did that knifework look familiar to you?”
“Just like the girl at the temple,” he said. “But it’s a pretty common way to dispatch someone with a knife.”
“If it was in Rome,” I said, “I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Although seeing two people in a quiet place like this, both killed identically, that makes me suspicious.”
“A man like that Syrian,” Hermes mused, “a professional criminal from the sound of it, used to dealing with thieves and worse—”
“What are you thinking?”
“To use a knife like that you have to get close. The man showed no signs of defending himself. Maybe the killer was someone he knew and trusted.”
“It’s likely. Of course, accomplices can always hold a man’s arms while you stab him. Let’s see what his office looks like.”
The late Syrian’s office occupied two rooms of no great size on the lower floor of a two-story building, flanked by a tavern and a wool merchant’s shop. Inside, the main room contained a long table, a few chairs, a small desk topped by a tall, honeycomb scroll holder. Along one wall were some circular leather cases with wooden lids and these held yet more scrolls.
There was also a large bloodstain on the floor. Bloodstains are rather commonplace so I paid it little attention; the flies were giving it attention enough. The back room had obviously been the man’s living quarters. It contained a bed, a low table with a basin and a large pitcher and a fairly clean towel. A niche in one wall held an image of some eastern god flanked by a pair of lamps. Before the image was a clay dish that held the ashes of some cheap incense There was a small wooden chest at the foot of the bed. I opened it and found a couple of tunics, an old belt, a pointed cap, and a striped woolen cloak. That was all. Obviously the man had done nothing in this room except sleep in it.
Back in the main room, we set to work. “Let’s go over these papers,” I said. “We’re looking for names of contacts, lists of goods that may have been illegally acquired, letters, anything that might give us an idea of who would have wanted him dead.”
“A fence?” said one of my men. “Who wouldn’t want him dead?” This got a good laugh, even from Belasus. I stepped outside with the duumvir and we sat on a bench next to a fountain where water spouted from the carved face of Silenus into a basin carved in the shape of a seashell. We bought cups of wine from a passing vendor and settled down to talk. Naturally, the talk was about politics. I had other things to discuss with him but the proprieties had to be observed, and when two Italian politicians talked, the principal subject was always foremost.
“Well, Praetor,” he said, “where’s your money? Caesar, Pompey, the Senate? Some up-and-comer I’ve never heard about?” As if we were discussing Green against Blue at the Circus.
“Caesar,” I told him bluntly. “Pompey’s through. The Senate will go with the winner except for a few die-hard Pompey adherents who will probably end up in exile. Last time there was civil strife, this town backed the Samnite League against Sulla. Don’t make the same sort of mistake again.”
He stared at me, astonished. “Well, that’s blunt enough. I thought your family backed Pompey these days. Then again, you’re married to Caesar’s niece, aren’t you?”
“My family and my wife’s have nothing to do with it,” I assured him. “I know both men, I know their armies, I know the Senate. Caesar’s the man, count on it.”
“Very well then. But what’s going to happen when Caesar’s top dog on the pile, eh?” He had a self-made provincial’s directness that I liked.
“I wish I knew that. It would make all the difference. Best would be if Caesar would reorder the Senate and the law courts, which are in need of reordering, set the calendar to rights, which is his job anyway as Pontifex Maximus, review the constitution, make adjustments where they’re needed, and then step down, the way Sulla did. Only I hope he can do it without killing as many people as Sulla did. I know he wants to go to war against Parthia. Crassus was his friend and he wants to avenge him, get the Roman prisoners of Carrhae back, and retake the eagles Crassus lost. And, of course, add to his own laurels. If he’ll just settle affairs at Rome to his liking and run off to his next war, Italy will have gotten off lightly.”