The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits Read online

  And then, with senses half-dulled by drinking and lack of sleep, he heard Dolabella say: "My dear lady, where did you get those ornaments you are wearing?"

  Clodia tapped him smartly on the hand.

  "What a question!" she exclaimed in that rich, throaty voice of hers. "Do you always make such personal remarks, Dolabella? Where do you think I got them? I bought them, of course. Or perhaps they were a gift."

  "Then, my dear, somebody has taken a gross advantage of you."

  "What do you mean? They aren't false, are they?" Her voice was suddenly sharp.

  "Not so far as I know — I believe they are very valuable. But if I recognized them, as I did, so will a lot of other people. You are too trusting, Clodia my love. Some rascally merchant has taken you in, or one of your acquaintances is trying to play a trick on you. If I hadn't seen those things today and warned you, you would soon be the laughing-stock of all Rome."

  Sextus, very white, was unable to move. How could Dolabella have recognized the gems? They had never been outside of Aufidia's bedroom for twenty years.

  And now everybody was listening. The boy felt himself tremble. In a sudden flash of despair he wished desperately and vainly that time would unroll and obliterate the past six weeks of his life.

  "Explain yourself, my friend," said Clodia coldly.

  Dolabella laughed.

  "I couldn't possibly mistake them," he answered lightly. "I must be growing old; when I was a young man everybody would have known them at sight, and there are plenty of us left who will. I'm surprised you didn't recognize them yourself. Why, Clodia, those are the famous jewels which Lucius Torrentius Afer, that freedman who grew so enormously rich in slave-trading, bought to adorn his pet monkey! It was the joke of the whole city. When the creature died, he gave the baubles to one of his servants, and the fellow must have sold them to some trader."

  Clodia turned ashen with anger.

  "You wretched puppy!" she spat at the miserable Sextus. "So you thought you could make me ridiculous, did you? You dirty, misbegotten ape! How dared you do such a thing to me — how dared you?"

  Sextus forced his thick tongue to a few stammered words. "It's not true!" he whispered. "They aren't — they came from —"

  He fell abruptly silent.

  Clodia snatched the band from her arm, the circlet from her neck, the pearls from her ears, and threw them at the stricken boy's feet.

  "Get out of my house!" she screeched. "Get out of my sight and never come near me again as long as you live!"

  White to the lips, Sextus turned awkwardly and fled.

  With clenched fists, Clodia paraded the atrium, cursing Sextus Favillus in words seldom heard outside the Subura, and not often, even there, on a woman's lips. She was in one of her magnificent rages, usually witnessed only by her unhappy lady's maid. The guests felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. One by one they slipped away without their hostess's even noting their murmured excuses and farewells. Unobtrusively Dolabella stooped and picked up the jewels, and placed them carefully in a fold of his toga.

  That night he sent them by a trusty slave to Tusculanum. Cicero wrapped them in a package of his own to despatch to Favilla. He felt full of amused satisfaction. His sensitive vanity was pleased that even now he was still the clever man of influence to whom those in difficulties turned naturally for aid. Dolabella had written the full details of the scene at Clodia's. Cicero's lips twitched. If only he had someone with whom he could share this delicious gossip! How his darling Tulliola would have delighted in the story! The ready tears blurred his eyes again as he affixed his seal to the parcel.

  Three days later the jewels were back in Aufidia's cabinet, and the cabinet itself was in Favilla's bedroom.

  Sextus had disappeared. For a week nobody saw or had news of him. Then, haggard and sick from days of drinking, he turned up shamefacedly at his sister's house.

  Her heart smote her at his woebegone appearance, but for the boy's own sake she made herself speak sternly.

  "So you have come to me at last, have you?" she said. "And now, little brother, we must have a reckoning."

  She led him to a room where they would be out of sight or hearing of the servants. Sextus threw himself dejectedly onto a couch.

  "I know," he muttered. "You think I'm the world's worst fool, and I suppose I am. I don't know how you managed it, but I'm sure that what happened will be no news to you. Well, if it's any consolation to you, I'm cured — cured of women forever," he proclaimed, with the extravagance of nineteen years. "But the jewels are gone — I don't know what became of them."

  "The jewels, which were the property of my husband's family, are back in my possession," said Favilla severely. "There will be no public scandal about how you got them though I have no doubt everybody in Rome knows by now what occurred at Clodia's house," she added cruelly. "But that doesn't mean that everything is forgiven and forgotten." How was it Cicero had phrased it? "Theft and murder aren't boyish pranks — they are dreadful crimes."

  "Murder!" cried Sextus sharply. "What do you mean? You don't think I killed Aufidia, do you?" To his shame and horror, he burst into tears.

  Favilla let him weep in silence. When he had stifled his sobs at last, she said gently, "Tell me what happened, Sextus."

  "I dropped in to see her, as usual," he answered in a muffled voice, his gaze averted. "And there she was just as you must have found her. The cabinet was open, and the key was on the floor by her hand. She must have tried to reach for the jewels without leaving the bed, and with all her fat the exertion was too much for her heart.

  "For a second I was too shocked to think. Then, of course, I knew I ought to call you at once. But the drawers of the cabinet were open — and I saw the gold and the gems — and I had no money to give Clodia the kind of presents other people gave her — oh, what's the use, Favilla? You know what I did."

  Favilla's voice softened in spite of herself; it was such a relief to know that her worst suspicions had not been true. But she had had a week to prepare for her brother's eventual return, and she must not weaken now.

  "Sextus," she said, "you know as well as I do the kind of people from whom we are descended. Can you imagine our father, or any of our family, stooping to steal a dead woman's jewels, no matter what the provocation? It's no wonder the Republic is in danger, when the sons of its oldest and proudest families can so lower their standards — or the daughters, either, for that matter. Think of Appius Claudius Caecus, for instance, and then think of his descendant Clodia!"

  "Don't, Favilla!" Sextus was abjectly humble now. "I never want to think of her again! Just tell me what I can do to atone for the wrong I did. Do you want me to go away — to Spain, to Asia, anywhere you say? I'm so ashamed that I'd be only too willing to die, if that would do any good."

  "Stop being a child!" his sister snapped. "It's about time you grew up, Sextus. No, I don't want you to die — I want you to live, to live to be of some use to your family and your country."

  "I promise, sister," the boy said earnestly. "Indeed I do. I'm sick of that whole lot. And I'll never look at another woman as long as I live."

  "Oh, what utter nonsense! Of course you will, and I wouldn't think much of you if you didn't. Just so it isn't another like Clodia, that's all I ask. I hope to live to see you married to the right sort of girl and the father of a fine family."

  Sextus shook his head obstinately. Favilla could not repress a smile. But she had one more task to perform.

  "I want to show you something, Sextus," she said in a low voice. "I have used every connection I had to prevent an open scandal — both for Gnaeus's sake, to keep his name from being smirched through me and mine, and for yours, to save you from the disgrace of a public trial. But don't think people haven't suspected that there was something peculiar going on here, what with Aufidia's sudden death, and your carryings-on, and now that affair at Clodia's, with half of Rome as witness. Well, Sextus, yesterday one of the slaves called me and showed me an inscription that som
ebody had scrawled on the wall of our house. I had it removed at once, but I copied it first so that you could see with your own eyes the kind of thing to which you have exposed your sister."

  She went to a chest and drew out a wax tablet. She held it out for Sextus to read what was written on it.

  Clodia, they say, was noted for Devotion to her brother:

  Her case, it seems, has set the style, For here we find another.

  While Manlius hides away in Spain, His lady looks on blandly And showers her brother with the means To play the rich fool grandly.

  And when the husband's money's low, You still can trust the ladies The heirs can ship an aged aunt Quite suddenly to Hades!

  Sextus shook with anger.

  "Oh, vile!" he breathed. "Vile and false! We both know you never gave me a penny. And Aufidia had no money — she was a burden to you, not a prospective benefactress. And then to hint that you had anything to do with her death —!"

  Favilla took the tablet from him.

  "It's not worth getting too upset about," she said calmly. "From the allusion to Gnaeus, I take it that one of our political enemies is just being nasty."

  "Give it to me, Favilla," exclaimed Sextus, reaching for the tablet. "I'm going to find out who wrote this outrageous thing and when I do, I'm going to thrash him roundly."

  "You're going to do no such thing. I copied this for you to see, and now I'm going to destroy it. We've had enough gossip around here, and right now life is disturbed enough as it is. I only hoped that if you realized what you had let me in for, you would strengthen your resolve to make up for it by being a different person."

  "Oh, I will, Favilla — believe me, I will! This clinches it I'll never forget that disgusting libel. You, who've been more like my mother than my sister! Listen, Favilla, come with me to the atrium, and I'll swear on the images of our ancestors that to the day I die I'll never again do anything to make you ashamed of me!"

  "Idiot!" laughed Favilla, tears in her eyes. "They're Gnaeus's ancestral images there, not ours. Ours, as you very well know, are in safekeeping till you have a wife and home of your own. And I don't want you to swear; I have faith in your bare word. Wait a minute till I wipe off this tablet, and then I'll have them bring in some wine to drink to your new life and in memory of poor Aufidia, good old soul!"

  Her heart was light as she seized the stylus and scraped the tablet clean. The slanderous verses had accomplished their purpose.

  Yet she could not help a faint auctorial pang. Those verses had never been written on the wall of Gnaeus Manlius's or any other house. It had taken her many laborious hours, while she planned that interview with her brother, to compose them herself.

  The Will by John Maddox Roberts

  Though set just two years after the previous story, Roman life has changed forever, with the murder of Julius Caesar. Trying to survive through these turbulent years is Decius Metellus, a Roman administrator and lawyer, who features in the SPQR series by John Maddox Roberts. Starting with SPQR (1990), the series has now reached eleven volumes, though only the first seven have appeared in English, the latest being The Tribune's Curse (2003).

  We're trying to find his father's will," the big, soldierly-looking fellow informed me. The odd youth seated next to him just looked at me with a wide-eyed, reptilian stare. I detested him without even knowing who he was.

  "I see, and who might this father be?"

  "Caesar," said the big man. A closer look told me he was little older than the other. His size and his tough looks made him seem the elder.

  I contributed to the silence that followed. This was not the sort of thing one expected to hear on an otherwise unexceptionable morning in Rome. Now I gave the wide-eyed boy a closer look. He was scrawny, with a big head on a thin neck and a shock of unruly, light-coloured hair. I couldn't see much family resemblance. He had the beginnings of a straggly beard and wore a dark, dingy toga, both tokens of mourning. A lot of Romans were wearing mourning at that time.

  "Then you would be young Octavius?" I said.

  "I am Caius Julius Caesar," he said stiffly, then added, "Octavianus." He gestured to the larger man. "And this is Marcus Agrippa. I am Caesar's son and I have come to Rome to receive my legacy."

  "Good luck," I told him. "I hear that Antonius has pretty well laid hands on all of Caesar's property and he's not a man to provoke. I'd advise you to go back to Athens or wherever you were and write him a nice letter. He might let you have some of the land and Caesar's library. Antonius doesn't have much use for books."

  "It was Appolonia," Agrippa growled. "It's in Illyria."

  Of course I knew where Appolonia was. I'd been there. I also knew that young Octavian had been sent there. There was just something about the boy that made me want to needle him. A character failing of mine, I suppose, but nothing that happened later caused me to alter my first impression.

  "I am Caesar's heir and I've come to claim what it mine by right!" The way he said this was profoundly unsettling. In spite of myself, I was reminded of our recently deceased Dictator.

  "You were Caesar's friend," Agrippa said. "You are married to his niece. You should want to see his will carried out."

  "I would very much like to see the provisions of Caesar's will carried out," I told them. "He left me a generous bequest. But what I really, truly want above all is not to be murdered like he was. Being murdered is a messy business and it can ruin a perfectly good toga. Defying Antonius is a good way to get murdered. He's a nice enough fellow, don't get me wrong. I've always gotten on well with him and I've helped him out of a few scrapes. But he is an Antonius and the Antonii are a family of hereditary criminals. He likes to keep what he's seized and he's surrounded by friends who love to put obstacles out of his path."

  Agrippa snorted. "In Greece we were told that Metellus was a man who could get things done, that he's a man who doesn't frighten easily." I was getting to be known by a single name in those days, mainly because the prominent men of my family had been killed or exiled in the last round of civil wars. They had backed Pompey and that was the sort of mistake you didn't make twice. I was about the only prominent Caecilius Metellus left in Rome, and trying to keep my head down.

  "Listen," I said. "I was there when Caesar's will was read at the house of Calpurnius Piso. Believe me, it was almost worth not getting my bequest just to see the look on Antonius's face when he learned that the vast bulk of the estate was going to you," I nodded at Octavian, "and your little brother. And of course there were the 300 sesterces per citizen and the great gardens, which he left to the public: Antonius didn't dare interfere with those. He does love being the darling of the people." I could see the boy's jaw clench at mention of the gardens and the money. Clearly he thought it should all be his, no matter what his adoptive father had wished.

  I was getting tired of this. "Rome has always been a hazardous place," I told them. "Right now it is a very deadly place, especially for men of ambition. Soon, I fear, we shall see the old days of Marius and Sulla again: proscription lists and paid informers and blood in the streets. Only this time there will be no men of the stature of those two, just a pack of second-raters tearing at Rome and at each other like dogs fighting over a carcass. At least Marius whipped the barbarians and Sulla gave us a fine constitution. The current lot will ruin the empire through pure incompetence."

  "None of that matters," Octavian said.

  "What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.

  "All the property, the money, even the provinces they are so busy apportioning to themselves. Caesar's strength wasn't in his wealth but in his soldiers. The one who commands their loyalty will be the new master of Rome." Agrippa cut an impatient look at him, obviously wishing he'd keep his mouth shut. But, for some reason, the boy was the dominant of the two.

  For my own part, I just gaped. We seldom encounter such presumption in one so young. Clodius at his worst wasn't a match for this one. "I don't think we need —" I was cut short by the timely arrival of my wife, Julia
.

  "Caius!" she cried delightedly, clapping her hands. She rushed to embrace the little lout. "And you must be Marcus Agrippa. Why, you've both grown so much since I last saw you!" As if that were some sort of accomplishment.

  "How wonderful to see you, cousin!" said the boy, and to my amazement his face lit up with unfeigned pleasure. Well, Julia could charm a Parthian off his horse. "We've been speaking with this — with your distinguished husband, who seems to have been out of Rome on my previous visits." This was not quite the case. I'd just never bothered to go to any of his appearances and Caesar had packed him off to Illyria when things got lively at home.

  "We think your husband could help us with a difficulty we have," Agrippa added.

  "And I am sure he will be most happy to render you every assistance," said my ever-helpful wife. I tried to signal her, but as usual she ignored me. "What is the problem?"

  "It's Antonius," Octavian said. "He's confiscated Caesar's will and all his other papers. The provisions of the will are public knowledge but that isn't worth much without the original document. Besides, I believe that in his other writings, my father makes it known that I am to succeed to his other offices and powers."

  I couldn't help wincing every time he referred to Caesar as his father. I had had a decidedly mixed experience with that strange and difficult person, but he was the one truly great man I had ever known; as close to being a demigod as a mortal ever gets. To hear this little wretch claim paternity of such a father was ludicrous. And among Caesar's many offices was that of Dictator. Surely he wasn't claiming that, too?

  "Intolerable!" cried Julia. "Antonius is such an odious man! I never understood Caesar's regard for him, except as a soldier. He should have taken action against the assassins and other conspirators instantly. Instead, he has made peace with them. It is a dishonour and a disgrace!" I had explained to her the many very good reasons why Antonius had been unable to do so, but she refused to accept them. Julia had a blind spot where her beloved uncle was concerned.