The River God's Vengeance(46)

“Here, look at this,” Justus said. He was squatting by the end of one of the shattered timbers. The ragged end still displayed three parallel furrows. “It was bored through here. That’s why it snapped at this point. That insula didn’t just collapse, Aedile, it was brought down on purpose.”

Hermes had his knife out in one hand, brushing with his other hand at the surface of a timber where he had spotted a circular depression. He stuck the tip of his knife into the edge of the depression and, slowly, carefully, pried upward. A long, whitish cylinder appeared and a moment later Hermes had a six-inch candle impaled triumphantly on his blade. Its base had been rubbed with soot or some other dark substance to blend with the wood.

“Remember all those candles we found fioating in the water down in that basement?” Hermes said.

“Justus,” I said, “you are the expert on wood. What does this tell you about the man who did it?”

“Aside from that he was a cold-blooded murderer, you mean? Well, he didn’t know much about timber or about building. This was done pretty haphazardly, drilling holes here and there. If he’d known anything about construction, where the main stress points are and so forth, he could have brought the place down with no more than a dozen holes drilled close together at the right points on the right timbers, three or four holes per timber.”

“Could he have escaped in time?” I asked.

“Most likely. Heavy timbers like this make a good deal of noise just before they go. If he’d known what to listen for, and had a good way out prepared, he might have had a few seconds to get clear. The way this looks,” he waved a hand over the ruined wood, “it gave way all at once, in six or seven places, just dumped the whole insula into the basement.”

“Justus,” I said, “I want you to hide these timbers. Cover them with trash or something. I am going to want to use them as evidence in court.”

A look of alarm crossed his face.

“Don’t worry, you have nothing to fear. It is clear to me that you are guilty of no wrongdoing.”

“To be honest, sir, it’s not you or the courts that worry me.”

“I intend to arrest Marcus Caninus immediately,” I assured him, “for tampering with my evidence if nothing else.”

“I’ll do as you order, Aedile.”

Something occurred to me. “Was Justus your slave name?”

“Yes, sir. I was manumitted along with fifty others to celebrate the birth of my master’s first grandson.”

“And you didn’t take your former master’s name?” I asked, that being the usual custom.

“Well, sir, I did, but I never use it. I suppose it’s the name that’ll go on my tombstone; but Justus isn’t a foreign name, and I’ve been used to using it all my life. Besides,” he lowered his head sheepishly, “I’m just a working man, doing the same work I did when I was a slave. I’d feel foolish going around calling myself Marcus Valerius Messala Niger.”

I left the salvage yard with much to think about.





8


NEAR THE GATE WE STOPPED AT a little tavern. The sun was well up, and I needed a pause to think. Also, it was time for a drink and something to eat. Who knew when I’d get a chance again? We found a table against a wall of white stucco beneath an arbor that was all but bare so early in the year. Light fell through the arbor in lozenge-shaped patches, making the table, the fioor, and ourselves look like pictures in mosaic. I ordered the wine to be very lightly watered, and we used it to wash down oil-dipped bread and olives for a while.

Hermes spoke first. “It was the big slave, wasn’t it?”

“Had to be,” I concurred. “That’s why he was dressed, and it’s why he was trapped there standing. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. It was pretty far-fetched to think he dropped there, landed on his feet, and got pinned there that way. He drilled one hole too many, and the building came down too fast.”

“Why did he do it?” Hermes wondered. “Just to kill the master and mistress? I can understand why he’d want to. You saw how they treated their slaves. But why kill more than two hundred people just to get rid of them?”

“I suspect he did kill them, personally,” I said. “He could have broken their necks easily, then gone down to the basement to bore those last few holes, figuring to disguise the murder as an accident. But he didn’t step lively enough.”

Hermes shook his head. “It still doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. Revenge was a good enough motivation for the slave, but it doesn’t explain how everyone else has been acting since the disaster. He may have had a personal justification for ridding the world of those two, but someone must have put him up to the final deed.”