Read Online Ode To A Banker by Lindsey Davis - Free Book Online Page B

just up the street, dressing down the owner of a popina for a food offence. Our lads heard the racket, but did not have the sense to scarper without looking. So we're landed.'

    'No,' I said calmly. 'I'm landed. Still, that should assist your clear-up figures.'

    'You reckon you're the bod for it?' Fusculus chortled genially.
    'A natural.'

    'Right, I'll get the drinks in, ready to celebrate.'

    'You're a hero. So what have you done so far without me?'

    He waved at the scriptorium staff. 'I've been taking statements from this piteous bunch. Everyone who was in the main house when we arrived has been confined to quarters; there's no guarantee we collared them all, though. A couple of our lads have begun working through the house slaves for any information of interest.'

    'What's the set-up domestically? Was he a family man?'
    'That I've yet to find out.'

    I nodded at Euschemon. 'Anything to say for himself?'

    'No.' Fusculus half-turned, letting Euschemon hear him 'Tight as a clam. But he's only had the gentle treatment so far.'

    'Hear that?' I winked at the scriptorium manager, hinting at unspeakable brutality to come. 'Think about it! I'll speak to you later. I shall expect a sensible story. Mean time, stick there, where you're parked.' Euschemon frowned uncertainly I raised my voice: 'Don't budge!'

    Fusculus motioned a ranker to watch Euschemon, while he and I went into the main property to inspect the scene of death.

XI

    A SHORT, DARK, undecorated corridor with a slabbed stone floor led us straight out into the library. Light flooded down from rectangular openings high above. It was very quiet. Exterior noise was muffled by thick stone walls They would baffle interior noise too. A man being attacked here could call for help in vain.

    The plain approach had done nothing to prepare us for the vast scale of this room. Three tiers of slim columns mounted to the ceiling vaults, decorously topped with white capitals in all three classical orders: Ionic, Doric, Corinthian. Between the columns were pigeonholes, sized for complete scroll sets, rising so high that short wooden ladders stood against the walls to aid retrieval of the upper works. The pigeonholes were stuffed full with papyri. For a moment all I could take in were the quantities of scrolls, many of them huge fat things that looked of some age - collections of high-quality literature, without doubt. Unique, perhaps. Occasional busts of Greek playwrights and philosophers gazed down on the scene from niches. Poor replicas that my father would have sneered at. Too many heads of that well-known scribbler, 'Unknown Poet'. It was words that counted here. Words, and whether they were saleable. Who wrote them came a poor second in importance.

    The terrible sight on which the bald reproductions were staring down certainly gave me a chill. Once my eyes fell on the corpse, it was hard to look anywhere else. My companion, who had seen this once, stood quiet and let me take it in.

    'Jupiter,' I remarked quietly. It was hardly adequate.

    'He was face down. We turned him over,' Fusculus said after a while. 'I can put him back as we found him, if you like.'

    'Don't bother for me.'

    We both continued staring. Then Fusculus blew out his cheeks and I murmured, 'Jupiter!' again.

    The open centre of the room was chaos. It should have been an area of peaceful study. A couple of high-backed, armless pedagogues'chairs must have normally served readers. They and their plush seat cushions now lay overturned on the exquisite geometric marble tiles. The floor was black and white. A pattern of great mathematical beauty, radiating outwards in meticulous arcs from a central medallion that I could not see because the body covered it. Ravishing work by a master mosaicist - now spattered with blood and soaked in pools of spilled - no, thrown, poured, deliberately hurled - black ink. Ink and some other substance - thick, brownish and oily, with a strong though rather pleasant