All Roads Lead to Murder Read online

  I couldn’t dispute him on that point. Roman law does mandate that, if a master was murdered and the culprit cannot be identified, all of his slaves are to be put to death. The reasoning must have been that one of them did it, or they should have tried harder to protect him. The last such execution took place under Nero. Four hundred slaves were put to death in that case. The people of the city—so many of whom are ex-slaves—rioted in an effort to stop it, but the emperor and the senate were resolved to teach a lesson. Primarily a lesson in their own intransigence and inhumanity.

  “We need not act too hastily,” I said, determined not to let Marcellus grab control of the situation. “We know where Cornutus’ slaves are. They will be kept under watch and interrogated. No one who stayed in this inn last night is to leave Smyrna until this matter is resolved.”

  I hoped they couldn’t see through my bluff. At that moment I didn’t know where Cornutus’ slaves were. And I had no authority to keep anyone from leaving if they chose to do so, not the German merchant who was eying me from one side of the crowd or the Ephesian witch who stood directly in front of me, burning a hole in me with those coal-black eyes.

  “I have urgent business in Rome,” Marcellus protested immediately. “You can’t detain me here against my will.”

  “You seem eager to get away, Quintus Marcellus,” I said in that mockingly polite tone all Roman advocates cultivate. “As eager as . . . well, a criminal in a hurry to leave the scene of his crime.” It was the kind of tactic one sees in Roman courts every day. I hadn’t accused Marcellus of committing a crime. I had merely likened his haste to depart to that of a criminal. But with that damning analogy I had succeeded in planting in the minds of my listeners the assumption that Marcellus—or anyone, for that matter, who wanted to leave—might be guilty of murder. Now no one dared to leave.

  Marcellus saw me constructing the box around him and could do nothing. “That’s preposterous!” he bellowed. “If my honor is going to be impugned behind my back, if that’s your tactic, then I’ll stay and defend myself.” Even as he spoke, he was shifting in his mind for a point of attack, like an advocate in court whose opponent has sprung a surprise on him. Then he stumbled over one.

  “I can’t help but wonder, friend Pliny, if you’re looking for someone to accuse in order to shift attention from yourself. You obviously have more than a passing interest in that little slave girl. You interfered yesterday when Cornutus was about to punish her, quite justifiably, I might add. Your room is directly across from this one, isn’t it? Did you step over here during the night and—?”

  “No one is on trial here, Marcellus.” I cut him off. “No one has been accused of anything. I’m simply trying to gather information so the governor can conduct a proper investigation when he gets here in a few days. Everyone must cooperate.”

  Marcellus turned and faced the crowd, which by now jammed the narrow passageway. He straightened up and put on his best court demeanor, undermined though it was by his appearance. “Friends, we need not wait several days to settle this business. All we have to do is round up Cornutus’ slaves and make them tell us what they know.” He threw his arm out, pointing with his first two fingers, as though directing the crowd to move in that direction. That trick I recognized as one learned from his mentor, the detestable Regulus. I’ve seen him jerk a whole crowd around, like a child pulling toys on a string. Marcellus managed to get only a few heads turned. It’s more effective, I suppose, when a man’s bare arm shoots out from his toga, not a wine-stained tunic. Or when he’s standing on an elevated speaker’s platform. Or when he doesn’t look like a disheveled drunk.

  Marcellus had made a mistake Regulus never would have. He had seriously misjudged his audience. This was not a throng of Roman citizens in the Forum. More than half of the people around him were slaves. The rest were aware that they were outnumbered by the slaves. The tension was building like the heat before a late afternoon thunderstorm.

  I have no idea what might have happened if Luke had not stepped from behind me at that moment. His gray hair and his dignitas drew the crowd’s focus away from Marcellus in a way that my most earnest pleading could not have.

  “My friends,” he said, “there is no need for us to turn on one another, to let ourselves be worked into a frenzy by irresponsible words.” That made Marcellus fume. “A horrible crime has been committed. Whoever committed it must be found and brought to justice. The victim was a Roman citizen, but there are no Roman magistrates here at present. If we do anything amiss, even in a sincere effort to find the culprit, we can be held responsible when the governor arrives.” Heads nodded in agreement. “Gaius Pliny has shown remarkable initiative and good judgment in the way he has handled things so far. I intend to follow his leadership in this matter, and I urge you to put your trust in him.”

  Marcellus wasn’t ready to concede. “He has no authority here.”

  “Neither do you,” a voice from my left said. I turned to see Tiberius Saturninus glowering at Marcellus.

  “It’s not a question of authority,” Luke said. “It’s confidence that is at issue. I am a Roman citizen and a doctor. I place my confidence in Pliny.”

  He placed his hand on my shoulder. The sight of a senior man demonstrating his trust in one so young broke the tension. A murmur ran through the crowd, and heads nodded. I felt as if I was in the midst of an election campaign. I sensed it was time for me to say something, to acknowledge the anointing that Luke had just laid on me.

  “We are in a difficult position, my friends,” I began, hating the meaningless use of that last word. But it’s how crowds expect to be addressed. “As Luke has rightly said, we will be held accountable for whatever we do between now and the governor’s arrival. If you’ll cooperate with me, I will make every effort to see that things are in good order. I do need to insist that no one leave Smyrna. If you must leave the inn, leave word of where you’re going and why. I will be talking to various ones of you, asking questions about your activities last night. My friend Tacitus will be keeping records of this investigation, to turn over to the governor.

  “While I appreciate the kind words which Luke has spoken on my behalf, I also want to assure you that I have some experience in these matters. Last year I served on the Board of Ten Judges in Rome, and I have been an advocate before the courts. I’ll apply what I’ve learned to my investigation of this foul crime. None of us is safe until we find the killer.”

  That last line popped out of my mouth at the same time it popped into my head. Hearing it, I wondered if it were true. Was this crime directed specifically against Cornutus? Or would his killer strike again? I had no way of knowing, but perhaps suggesting the latter possibility would serve to frighten everyone into cooperation. My statement was true, none the less. Even if the killer didn’t attack anyone else, none of us would be safe from suspicion in this murder until he was caught.

  “Everyone please go about your business now,” I said. “Stay close to the inn and be ready to talk with me at some point during the day.”

  The crowd began to disperse. Marcellus waved disgustedly and stomped off to his room. Luke and I breathed simultaneous sighs of relief and turned back to Cornutus’ room. I tried to take one last gulp of good air before entering the death chamber, but poor Cornutus’ stench was beginning to penetrate the door.

  We found Tacitus standing on the chair with his head out the window. The retching sounds spared us the necessity of asking what he was doing. We were going to have to finish our examination of Cornutus’ body quickly and proceed with the funeral preparations.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Luke asked as Tacitus resumed his seat.

  “I think so,” Tacitus replied. “I couldn’t find the chamberpot.”

  “You’re not the first today to have that problem,” Luke assured him with a pat on the shoulder. “Now, where were we?”

  “While you two were out there,” Tacitus said, “I couldn’t help but contemplate our mutilated friend there. An
d a question occurred to me. Considering how he was ripped open, wouldn’t you expect a lot more blood to be splattered around the room? In the fights in the arena, when someone gets cut in the chest or stomach, the blood just spurts out.”

  “That’s true,” Luke said. “You’re keen to notice.”

  I was more than a little miffed to have my thunder stolen. “That’s the other thing that I was going to say before Marcellus started that ruckus. From the way the blood has settled in the body, from the degree of stiffness of the limbs, and from the lack of blood splattered around the room, I believe Cornutus died early in the night. He had already been dead for several hours when someone cut out his heart, sometime in the early morning.”

  III

  A STUNNED SILENCE FOLLOWED my pronouncement. No one moved until Luke stood beside the bed again, running his eyes over Cornutus’ butchered body.

  “You say he died. Do you mean of some natural cause? Or perhaps from too much wine?”

  “The only time I’ve known wine to kill someone,” I replied, “was when something was added to it.”

  Tacitus clutched at his throat. “You mean he was poisoned?”

  “Are you afraid you drank from the same amphora?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Luke said. “If you had, you’d be dead by now. I don’t know any poison that acts that slowly.” He turned to me. “Poison? Can you be serious?”

  “It’s the only logical explanation I can see. He didn’t struggle and he didn’t bleed when his heart was cut out, so he must have already been dead for several hours. Forgive me, doctor, for presuming to instruct you . . .”

  “No, it’s all right,” Luke said. “Your powers of observation are quite keen. You’re causing me to look more closely. There are no marks about his neck to indicate that he was strangled.”

  “What if somebody suffocated him?” Tacitus asked. “That wouldn’t leave any marks, would it?”

  “No,” Luke said, “it wouldn’t. But it would be very difficult to suffocate a man this large without leaving some sign of a struggle.”

  “With all other options eliminated,” I said, “what else could it be but poison?”

  Luke stepped closer to the body and ran his eyes over it slowly, like a man inspecting a potential slave for flaws. “I don’t see any obvious signs of a poison,” he finally said. “Many of them leave discolorations around the mouth or eyes, or mottled skin, or some such external marks. Others cause convulsions or loosen the bowels. There’s no evidence of any of these things. Of course, it could be one I’m not familiar with.”

  I wished I had my uncle’s notebooks with me. Medicinal and poisonous plants were a prime interest of his.

  “One thing troubles me about your theory,” Luke said. “If Cornutus was poisoned early in the evening and then cut open later, does that mean we have two killers to deal with?”

  “It could. Or it could mean that someone wanted to cut out Cornutus’ heart but wanted to disable him before doing it. I don’t think somebody came in here intending to kill him, then decided, on impulse, to cut out his heart.”

  “Someone intent on murder would want to finish the deed quickly and be gone,” Tacitus said.

  “I think you’re right. Whoever mutilated him had it in mind before he or she entered the room.”

  “‘Or she’?” Luke shook his head vigorously. “Surely no woman would be capable of such a deed.”

  “Doctor, from even my limited experience,” I said, thinking of the slave woman and her murdered husband on my uncle’s estate, “I must conclude that women can conceive and carry out any crime a man is capable of, allowing for differences of physical strength. A woman might even be more likely in this case. Lacking physical strength, she might have wanted to disable Cornutus before the attack. Perhaps the dose of whatever drug he was given was too strong.”

  “But why, in the name of all the gods,” Tacitus said, “would someone want to cut a man’s heart out?”

  “I don’t think we can ask why until we know who, can we?” Luke said.

  “No, Tacitus is right,” I said. “Discovering why something was done is often an important key to learning who did it. Some kind of obscene ritual would be my first guess. People do all sorts of bizarre things under the mask of religion. Remember the Christians whom Nero condemned after the great fire in Rome twenty years ago?”

  “Exactly,” Tacitus said. “Stories I heard in Syria say that they eat flesh and drink blood.”

  “There is no basis in truth for such slanders,” Luke said quietly but quickly.

  Tacitus eyed him suspiciously. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I am . . . acquainted with members of the group,” Luke said. “There is no cannibalism involved in their mysteries, I assure you.” He dismissed the subject by turning his attention back to Cornutus’ body.

  “That was just an example. Perhaps a bad one,” I conceded. “I have no direct knowledge of them. My point is that people do strange things in the name of their gods. Priests of Cybele emasculate themselves. Those women from Ephesus may practice some kind of witchcraft which requires the use of a heart.”

  Luke scrunched up his face in disgust. “Necromancy. Blood for the spirits. It’s revolting.” He glanced nervously at Cornutus’ body. “But this is a most peculiar way to kill someone, even for a witch.

  “Oxen being led to a public sacrifice,” I pointed out, “are sometimes fed drugs to calm them in front of the large crowds. Perhaps someone gave Cornutus a drug, planning to ‘sacrifice’ him later.”

  “Oxen are also whacked over the head with a big hammer,” Tacitus reminded us. “Does Cornutus have any dents in that thick skull of his?”

  Though intended as a morbid witticism, his comment prompted Luke and me to realize that we had not considered that question when we examined Cornutus’ body. We went over the poor man again but found no injuries to his head or indications of blows elsewhere.

  “I’m going to be sick again,” Tacitus suddenly said as we turned Cornutus’ corpse back over, forcing some rather noxious odors out of it. “Where’s the damn chamberpot?”

  He hung his head out the window again.

  The question of that vanishing chamberpot perplexed me almost as much as the identity of Cornutus’ killer. It must have been on Luke’s mind, too.

  “Are we certain it was in here last night?” he asked as Tacitus resumed his seat and hung his head between his knees.

  “All the rooms had them when Androcles was showing us the place yesterday afternoon,” I said. “They were sitting under the chairs, in plain view.”

  “Could Cornutus have used it earlier in the evening and sent a slave out to empty and clean it?”

  I mulled that over for a moment. “That’s certainly possible, but you’ve seen how harshly he treated his slaves. I think the slave would have gotten the chamberpot back immediately, or faced a beating. It certainly would have been returned before the master came up to bed.”

  A knock on the door interrupted any further deliberations. My slave opened the door a crack but didn’t even stick his head in this time. The stench was getting that bad.

  “My lord, Nicomedes, boularch of Smyrna, has arrived.”

  “All right. Have him wait downstairs. I’ll be there in a moment.” I realized I was beginning to sound like royalty receiving a visiting ambassador. Mustn’t get too imperial—too arrogant—in my treatment of the local magistrate.

  “Tacitus, make a note about that missing chamberpot. Then you and I should go talk with the boularch. Doctor, why don’t you go over the body one more time, just to make sure we haven’t missed anything?”

  “All right. And I’ll tuck him back together and sew him up while I’m at it.”

  Tacitus bolted for the door.

  “Good idea. Then we can have his slaves begin the funeral preparations. Would you mind supervising them and watching how they react?”

  Luke nodded. “And I’ll ask about the chamberpot.”

 
; * * * *

  Tacitus was leaning against the wall outside his own room, taking large gulps of fresh air, like a man who has emerged from the water after nearly drowning. My own stomach wasn’t as settled as I was pretending, but I was enjoying a few minutes of being a better man than he.

  “I think we’d better put on our togas before this interview,” I said.

  “Why be so formal? This isn’t Rome.”

  “But we are Romans. And we need to remind these people of that fact.”

  “I’m not going to put mine on,” he insisted. “The damn woolly things itch so in this warm weather.”

  “Well, give me a hand with mine. I guess the stripe on your tunic will have to suffice to impress the provincials.”

  I would have preferred to bathe before putting on the toga. Made of wool, it did feel particularly heavy on a day like this. No more awkward, ill-fitting garment could have been devised by the human mind, I think. What could have possessed our ancestors to envelop themselves in a large piece of wool, folding and draping it over and around themselves several times, the way a child dresses up a pet animal in play? Perhaps it’s true that they designed the cumbersome thing to hinder hasty action on the part of the wearer. One must have assistance to don it properly, and once imprisoned in it, merely raising one’s arm while keeping the rest in place takes practice. Still, there is something unspeakably grand about the sight of several hundred senators arrayed in their striped togas, or candidates campaigning for office in their specially whitened ones. They become the embodiment of Rome’s majesty.

  But when trying to get into the garment, they look more like clowns. Normally I would have asked one of my slaves to assist me, but the only ones readily available were standing guard at Cornutus’ door and that seemed the more important duty at the moment. Tacitus and I fumbled with the thing until I felt presentable.

  “You certainly got stuck with a small room,” Tacitus said as I stepped on his foot while turning myself and adjusting a fold. “I thought you were going to be in the room Cornutus is in.”