Diaulus was nearly in tears. “Oh, why did I open my mouth?”
“Well, you did,” said Martial, “and it’s too late now.”
The casket was sealed with wax. When they finally got the lid off a sweet, sickening effluvium mingled of resin and decay assailed their nostrils. Pliny felt nausea start in his throat. The wrappings were stiff and discolored with a yellowish stain. The body had leaked. “Too little time, too hot—” Diaulus mumbled.
“Cut the wrappings, undertaker,” Pliny ordered with all the authority he could muster. But the little man shrank back. “I’ll lose my position!” Finally, Valens drew his sword, inserted the tip at the crotch and ripped upward, laying open the cocoon of bandages. Here, at last, was the man himself. Turpia Scortilla, who had followed them in, took one look and fainted dead away. Swallowing hard, Pliny peered at Verpa’s naked torso.
“That gash in his side looks fatal enough.”
“That was my incision for removing the organs,” Diaulus explained. “Turn him over and pull the bandages away from his back.”
The back was covered with a dozen or more puckered, livid wounds. “These were the only wounds on him when I got him,” said Diaulus, “and not one deeper than the tip of my little finger.” Ganymede, in an evident frenzy of hate, had rained useless, ill-aimed blows on his victim. “The veins were still full of blood when I opened him up. When a man’s killed by sword or knife the blood runs copiously from him. But cut into a body which has died some hours before, as my profession requires me to do, and you notice that the blood flows sluggishly. No one knows why, sir, but it’s true.”
Pliny shook his head. “If I had seen the body immediately, I could have discarded the idea of a professional killer at once.”
“Now, if you’ll roll him back again,” Diaulus continued, “and expose the throat.” It was purple with bruises.
“What would make a man strangle himself?”
“Nothing in my experience, sir. But that’s not what killed him either, the windpipe wasn’t crushed.”
Meanwhile, Martial’s gaze had wandered lower. “Decent sized mentula on him.”
“Trust you to notice that,” observed Pliny with asperity.
“If you’re referring to the gentleman’s member, I found something rather odd there, too. Not much to look at now,” wrapping his fingers in a napkin, he retracted the foreskin carefully, “but there, you see? When the body was fresh it was tumescent, quite erect. I couldn’t help but notice that swollen lump on the glans.” It still looked for all the world like a nasty bee sting. “I’ve no idea what could have made it, sir. All I do know is that this man was dead before he was murdered, so to speak.”
“Dead of what?” Pliny cried in exasperation.
Diaulus pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. “We don’t know what most people die from, not really, sir. We blame it on the humors, but that’s just a name we give to our ignorance.”
“The quack’s a philosopher, too!” sneered Martial.
Meanwhile, Lucius had been brought into the room. It had taken him only a moment to digest this new development. His lips curved in a cunning smile. “Then I’m guilty of nothing, vice prefect. I can’t have procured the murder of a dead man.”
“Not so fast,” Pliny shot back, “that’s for a magistrate to decide. And when you’re tried you will need a very good lawyer. It so happens that I am a very good lawyer. I suggest you start cooperating with me if you want to avoid that leather sack. Why didn’t you mention the hand on the throat and the, ah, the other detail when I first questioned you?”
Lucius gave his characteristic shrug. “I didn’t mention it because I didn’t know what to make of it. It was no part of my plan. I assumed that idiot Ganymede had given him a bit of fun before killing him. I threw a coverlet over him before anyone else got too close, and sent for Nectanebo, or whatever he calls himself, to get him out of the house as fast as possible. I never had a chance to question Ganymede before the soldiers arrived and locked him up.”
Late in the day, Verpa’s funeral was, at last, allowed to proceed. Diaulus, “Nectanebo” once again, had succeeded in rounding up his crew of hired screamers, and the cortege departed in full cry. Pliny watched them go glumly. What a day it had been; by turns, a farce, an anatomy lesson, and a new mystery. “We have a killer still to find, Martial, and damned little time left.” And the slaves, always guilty until proven innocent, were once again in danger of summary execution. What was he going to do?