Ode To A Banker Part 8

'Was the scroll-shop closed then?'

'Yes. We always pull the rolling door across and shut light down. The scribes have to concentrate so hard when they are copying, they need a complete full stop. They get their food. Some play dice, or they have a nap in the heat of the day.'

'Is the shutter actually locked in place?'

'Have to do it, or people try to force their way in even though they can see we have packed up for lunch. No consideration-'

'So n.o.body could have come in that way - or gone out?'

He realised I meant the killer. 'No,' he said sombrely.

'Would the shop have closed pretty early?'

'If I know the scribes, and given that I myself was not there, yes.'

'Hmm. So around the time of the death, that exit was blocked off...' If the killer made no attempt to use that route, maybe he knew the scriptorium routine. 'So how did you get indoors when you returned?'

'I banged on the shutter.'

'They unlocked again?'

'Only because it was me. I ducked in, and we jammed it back.'

'And when you arrived, the staff did not seem at all disturbed?'

'No. They were surprised when I asked if they knew what was going on in the street. I had realised the crowd was outside the master's house door -'

'Where's that?'

'Further down. Past the bootmender. You can see the portico.' I squinted round; beyond the scriptorium and another shop entrance, I noted important stonework intruding onto the pavement. 'I was going to go and speak to Chrysippus about it when one of the vigiles burst in, from the house corridor.'

'By that time he was well dead. So all the previous action had been m.u.f.fled? You were out, and the scribes missed everything until after the body's discovery?' Euschemon nodded again, still like a man dreaming. 'It have to check that n.o.body came through the scriptorium after Chrysippus went indoors,' I mused.

'The vigiles asked us that,' Euschemon told me. 'The scribes all said they saw n.o.body.'

'You believe them?'

He nodded. 'They would have been glad to be left in peace.'

'Not happy workers?'

'Ordinary ones.' He realised why I was probing. 'They do the job, but they like it best with no supervisor on their backs. It's natural.'

'True.' I drained my cup. 'Did you go in and see the body?'

He nodded, very slowly. The horror had yet to leave him. Maybe it never would. His life had paused today, at that moment when a keyed-up vigilis rampaged down the corridor and interrupted the quiet lunchbreak. He would probably never entirely recapture the old rhythms of his existence.

He stared at me. 'I had never seen anything like it,' he said. 'I couldn't -' He gave up, waving his hands helplessly, lost for words.

I let him recover for a moment, then tackled him on more general background: 'I have to find out who did it. Give me some help, will you. Start with the business. It's doing well, apparently?'

Euschemon drew back slightly. 'I only deal with the authors and organise the copyists.'

'Man management.' I was being polite, but relentless. 'So did any of the men you managed have anything against our victim?'

'Not the scribes.'

'The authors?'

'Authors are a complaining lot, Falco.'

'Any complaints specifically?' He shrugged, and I answered for myself: 'Poor payment and dismissive critiques!' He pulled a slight face, acknowledging the truth of it.'No grudge important enough to make a creative person kill?'

'Oh, I shouldn't think so. You don't lose your temper just because your writing is poorly received.'Really?

'So how were sales?' I asked lightly.

Euschemon replied in a dry tone, 'As usual: if you listen to people who commission material, they have a lively stable of writers and are expecting shortly to ruin their compet.i.tors. The compet.i.tors, however, will accuse them of teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. If you ask the scroll-shops, life is a long struggle; ma.n.u.scripts are hard to come by at reasonable prices and customers don't want to know. If you look around, people are nonetheless reading - although probably not reading what the critics are praising.'

'So who wins?'

'Don't ask me. I work in a scriptorium - for a pittance.'

'Why do you do it then? Are you a freedman of Chrysippus?'

'Yes, and my patron gives me a lot of responsibility.'

'Job satisfaction is so wonderful! You're very loyal. And trustworthy, and useful - is that all?'

'Love of literature,' he said. I bet. He could just as well have been selling anchovies or cauliflowers.

I changed elbows, giving myself a view up the Clivus Publicius instead of down it. 'So. The scroll business would appear to be doing well. Patronage pays.' Euschemon did not comment. 'I saw the house,' I pointed out. 'Very nice!'

'Taste and quality,' he agreed.

'Not so sure that applies to the wife,' I suggested.

'He thought so.'

'True love?'

'I don't want to gossip. But she would not kill him. I don't believe that.'

'Were they happy? Old man and his darling? Was it solid? Was it real?'

'Real enough,' said Euschemon. 'He left a wife of thirty years for Vibia. The new marriage meant everything to him - and Vibia relished what she had achieved.'

'Define it?'

'A powerful man, with money and social position, who was publicly devoted to her. He took her around and showed her off -'

'And he let her spend? All a woman could desire! So did she have a lover too?' Euschemon pulled a face, revolted by my cynicism. We would see. I smiled wryly. 'So you don't think Vibia had a reason to kill him? Not even for the money?'

He looked even more shocked. 'Oh no! That's horrible, Falco.'

'Pretty common too,' I disillusioned him.

'I don't want to discuss this.'

'Then tell me about the first wife, and the darling son.'

'Lysa,' he began carefully, 'is a tough woman.'

'The wife of thirty years? They tend to be. She kept Chrysippus in order - until Vibia snaked into his life?'

'Lysa had helped him build his business empire.'

'Aha!'

'And is, of course, the mother of his son,' Euschemon said.

'Vengeful?'

'She opposed the divorce, I heard.'

'But she had no choice. In Rome divorce is a fact, the moment one party withdraws from a marriage. So, she was cruelly abandoned after devoting her life to Chrysippus' interests. That would have enraged her. Was Lysa sufficiently vengeful to kill him?'

'She had a lot to say when the split happened. But I believe she had accepted the situation,' protested Euschemon. Even he could hear it sounded feeble, obviously.

'What about Diomedes? Bit of a mother's boy?'

'A decent young man.'

'Wet, you mean?'

'You're a brute, Falco.'

'Proud of it. So we have an enraged witch, now past her prime, pus.h.i.+ng a beloved only offspring who is something of a weed, while the ageing tyrant moves on elsewhere, and the new young princess simpers... Like a Greek tragedy. And I do believe there is a chorus of cultivated poets, as in all the best Athenian plays - I need the names of the authors who enjoyed Chrysippus' patronage, please.'

Euschemon blenched. 'Are our authors suspects?' He seemed almost protective - but then they were an investment.

'Suspected of bad verse, probably. But that's not a civil crime. Names?'

'There is a small group we support, authors drawn from across the literary range. Avienus, the respected historian; Constrictus, an epic poet - rather dull perhaps; Turius, who is trying to write a Utopia, though I believe he's unwell - at least, he thinks he is; then there's Urba.n.u.s Trypho, the playwright-'

I stopped him. 'I've heard of Urba.n.u.s!'

'He is very successful. A Briton, if you can believe that. Not half as provincial as people suppose. Extremely successful,' Euschemon commented, a touch sadly. 'To be honest, Chrysippus had slightly underestimated his appeal. We ought to have imposed a much more rigorous royalty structure there.'

'Tragic for you! But Urba.n.u.s is laughing all the way to his Forum bank. If he receives his deserts from the ticket office, he'll be content - and this rare human condition may put him in the clear for the killing. Have you mentioned everyone?'

'Almost. We also have the famous Pacuvius - Scrutator, the satirist. Something of a handful, but immensely clever - as he is all too aware. Scrutator is a pen name.'

'Pseudonym for what?'

's.h.i.+tbag,' said Euschemon with rare but intense bile. His loathing was so deeply ingrained he had no need to dwell on it, but reverted to an equable mood immediately afterwards.

'He's your favourite!' I commented lightly. I could pursue the reason discreetly later. 'Are all these writers employed on the same terms that Chrysippus offered me?'

Euschemon coloured up slightly. 'Well, no, Falco. These are our regulars, the mainstay of our moderns list -'

'You do pay them?' He did not reply, sensitive perhaps to my own - different - position regarding the poems the scriptorium had tried to commission. 'But do you pay them enough?'

'We pay them the going rate,' said Euschemon defensively.

'How much is that?'

'Confidential.'

'How wise. You don't want writers comparing. It could lead to them noticing discrepancies. And that might lead to jealousy.' jealousy being the oldest and most frequent motive for murder.

The list sounded familiar. I took out Pa.s.sus' written round-up of today's visitors to Chrysippus. 'Well, well. All the men you have named saw your master this morning! What can you tell me about that?' Euschemon looked s.h.i.+fty. 'Don't mess me about,' I warned.

'We were reviewing our future publication lists.'

'It was planned? They had appointments?'

'Informally. Chrysippus did business in the Greek way - a casual meeting, a friendly chat about family matters, politics, the social news. Then he would come to the matter in hand, almost as an afterthought. People would have known he wanted to see them, and they would have dropped in at the house.'

'So which of them likes nettle flan?'

'What?'

'Nothing. Any of these fellows have a black mark by their names?' Euschemon looked puzzled. 'Which of them, had you decided, was about to he dropped from your catalogue?'

'None.'

'No problems at all with them?'

'Oh, with authors there will always be problems! They will be only too happy to grumble. You ask them, Falco. One or two needed encouragement, let's say. Chrysippus will have handled it tactfully.'

'Do as I tell you, or the bread supply is cut off?'

'Please don't be crude.'

'This may seem cruder: could a disgruntled author have shoved a scroll rod up his patron's nose?'

Euschemon went rigid. 'I prefer to believe we are patrons to men of refinement.'