The Mystery Megapack by Marcia Talley Read Free Book Online Page A

colleagues—attempt to protect themselves?
    But if I were move out of Aper’s house, refusing his hospitality, wouldn’t that bring about a final crisis?
    Arpocras insisted that we must seize the initiative. As always, he was right.
    I consulted with my centurion. Most of the soldiers were quartered elsewhere, their function being to protect my party as we journeyed across the countryside, not against sedition inside a friendly city. But at the same time, if the centurion came daily to confer with me on official business, there was nothing Aper could do. I waved him out of earshot. The emperor’s business is mine and the emperor’s and not his. He could not pretend otherwise.
    Therefore I announced one day that my party and the guards were going outside the city to see the much-discussed, overpriced aqueduct. Licinius Aper offered to accompany me, “for the pleasure of the journey,” he said in that oily, completely unconvincing stage-manner of his. With hopefully more politeness and perhaps better acting skills, I forbade this, out of gracious concern for his health, the heat of the day, the roughness of the roads—and I didn’t mention his girth even once.
    He looked unhappy, but we left, Pudens, Arpocras and myself in our carriage, the soldiers on horseback, some of our secretarial staff following in a cart.
    We went out to the aqueduct, about which I shall report in detail in another letter. It is indeed overpriced and defective. We inspected it thoroughly, deliberately taking our time doing so. Then, late in the afternoon, after a pause for a rest in the shade of some trees, we made our way back.
    Before we reached Claudiopolis, however, a man, who had been waiting by the side of the road, got up and began jogging alongside the carriage. One of the soldiers made to interfere, but I waved him away and Arpocras caught the fellow by the wrist and hauled him aboard.
    The newcomer was a short, wiry Greek, a little younger than Arpocras, though, his hair mostly still dark. If I may trust my instincts, there was something about this man, too, like Licinius Aper when I first met him, that I did not like. If Arpocras was my Greek crow, this fellow was more of a vulture.
    Arpocras introduced him as a certain Theon. My Greek had wandered about the city for some days, mixing in low places, jangling purses of money in exchange for information, and now, as the climax of his efforts, we enjoyed the company of this Theon.
    He was, to be blunt, an informer. When Arpocras dangled a another purse of coins in front of him, he became most loquacious about the sins of Licinius Aper, which he enumerated in more detail than I could remember, although Arpocras was taking notes. But then I bade him get to the point and tell me where the stolen Venus was.
    “In the house of Aper, of course,” he said.
    “But I have been staying in Aper’s house.”
    “He has more than one house, Sir. Surely you knew that? A man as rich as him, you’d expect it.”
    Arpocras nodded. It was so. Unsurprisingly, Licinius Aper had invested much of his wealth in several houses, which he rented out, and a few farms, which he worked profitably, but the place of interest was a villa he had up in the hills, a little beyond the city, to which he normally retired to escape the summer weather. He had only remained in his city house, out of season, because he knew I was coming, and would have to reside in the city to do my work.
    Theon wanted to leave, but I wouldn’t let him. The centurion had his instructions. The informant held onto his bag of money, but otherwise sat in the carriage glumly.
    We returned to the city-house of Licinius Aper, but the horsemen did not dismount, nor did I get out of the carriage. I sent one of the secretaries in to fetch him. When he emerged, I leaned out between the curtains of the carriage—it would not do to let him see our informant—and told him where we were going. I suggested he come with us.
    He pleaded his health, the