The Mystery Megapack by Marcia Talley Read Free Book Online

obvious ,” he sputtered, wringing his meaty hands as he left.
    Perhaps he was trying to distract me from my more expected duties, for he and his colleagues could not have been comfortable about what I was doing. As more and more of the town records were brought to me, it was clear that temples and bridges and the new theatre cost three times what they should have, that some projects accounted for had not even been built. When I went out one afternoon to see the famous theatre, I concluded that it would never be completed, because the ground had not been surveyed, some of the walls were already sinking into soft earth, and the whole place was likely to collapse before it was opened. I also found evidence that persons convicted of serious crimes had managed to have their sentences erased, or even transferred to others, for the payment of a suitable bribe. In short, my host and all his colleagues were clearly, as the popular expression has it, lining their togas with municipal gold. There were going to be some prosecutions here, quite aside from the matter of the dead priestesses and the missing goddess.
    As for that, Pudens quickly came to the conclusion that the goddess had not, precisely, walked —whether or not she actually had legs was not the point.
    He spoke in a whisper, lest some of our host’s servants might be eavesdropping. We were having this conversation in the central courtyard of the house, where a chair and table had been set up for me in the garden, so I could work comfortably by daylight.
    “I think friend Licinius Aper stole the goddess himself.”
    “But how?”
    “Those muscular slaves of his.”
    “Just four of them?” said Arpocras. “Even for them, that’s a heavy statue.”
    “Maybe they come in matched sets. If he has three quartets, they could have done it.”
    “They could have just wheeled her off in her car,” I suggested.
    “I looked into that, Sir,” said Arpocras. “The car is in its shed behind the temple. It is not missing.”
    “But why would he do it?” I asked. “Why would he ruin his own city—and his own income?”
    “Isn’t that obvious?” said Pudens. “So he could blame it on the men of the rival city, Juliopolis. He’d like nothing more than you to march in there with a legion, knock the place down, and crucify the entire population, starting with this—this—”
    “Clodius Carus,” said Arpocras.
    “Yes. His enemy. It all makes sense. The structure of the explanation is complete and perfectly logical.”
    “Now all you have to account for is the supernatural manifestations, the noises, the miraculous light,” said Arpocras, “not to mention the murdered priestesses. The town is quite full of stories, if you care to go out and hear them.”
    “I could hardly—”
    Indeed he could hardly mix inconspicuously with the local populace, a large, tall, pale Roman. But Arpocras, a Greek, could.
    “Nevertheless I can explain those things,” said Pudens.
    “Do so.”
    “Aper’s henchmen killed the priestesses—bludgeoned them—then carried off the statue, perhaps in an ordinary wagon filled with straw. Well after the deed was done, but before it was discovered, some of them set the oil and incense on fire, then rushed out into the city to spread the alarm. Rumor and panic took care of the rest.”
    Arpocras looked up at him and smiled. “Very good. I see I have been able to teach you some of my methods,” he said. “Logical, yes. Complete, yes, as far as it goes. But is it everything? Maybe it requires a few flourishes and decorations in the Oriental fashion.”
    * * * *
    It was Arpocras who provided most of the final flourishes. But not all of them.
    It was he, too, who suggested, more by subtle hints than by stating it outright, that I might be in actual danger, since no one knew what a man like Licinius Aper might do if sufficiently desperate. If I found sufficient evidence to convict him of a crime, what further crime might he—or some of his