I waited, trying to gauge the scene. I sensed a slight atmosphere; nothing to do with Malabar perfumery. Her ladyship took herself off to another chair some distance apart, extracting herself from our business affairs like a well-bred young woman. (This was nonsense; Helena Justina interfered in everything if she could.)
'Matters to discuss?' Marcellus prompted me. I apologized for not visiting him in formal dress and offered my condolence on the death of his adopted heir. He was up to it; his face showed no alteration that I could detect.
Next I stated in the same neutral voice how I had been appointed an imperial executor for the Pertinax estate. 'Insult piled on injury, sir! First some negligent jailor finds your son strangled; then the five fellow senators who had pounded their intaglio rings on his will as witnesses are bumped aside by Vespasian's agents taking over as executors-a fine waste of sealing wax and three-stranded legal thread!'
The Consul's expression remained inscrutable. He made no attempt to disown Pertinax: 'Did you know my son?' Interesting question: could mean anything.
'I had met him,' I confirmed carefully. It seemed easiest not to mention that the testy young bastard once had me badly beaten up. 'This is a courtesy visit, sir; a vessel called the Circe is being returned to you. She is docked on the Sarnus at Pompeii, ready to be claimed.'
An ocean-going merchant-ship: a life-saver to a poorer man. To a multimillionaire like Marcellus, simply a fleet vessel his chief accountant sometimes reminded him he owned. Yet he burst out at once, 'I thought you people were impounding her at Ostia!'
I felt a flutter at his intimate knowledge of the Pertinax estate. Sometimes in my business the simplest conversation can give a useful hint (though an excitable type can easily miscalculate and convince himself of a hint that was never there…)
As he noticed me speculating I reassured him quietly, 'I had her sailed down here for you.'
'I see! Shall I need repossession documents?'
'If you let me have writing equipment, sir, I'll give you a certificate.' He nodded, and a secretary brought papyrus and ink.
I used my own reed pen. His people were shifting in surprise that a scruff like me could write. It was a good moment. Even Helena was glinting at their mistake.
I signed my name with a flourish, then smudged my signet ring onto a wax blob which the secretary grudgingly dripped for me. (The smudge made no difference; my signet in those days was so worn all anyone could make out was a wobbly one-legged character with only half a head.)
'What else, Falco?'
'I am trying to contact one of your son's household who is owed a personal legacy. It's a freedman who originated on his natural father's estate-fellow called Barnabas. Can you help?'
'Barnabas…' he quavered weakly.
'Oh, you know Barnabas!' Helena Justina encouraged from across the room.
I paused, looking thoughtful, while I tucked away my pen in a fold of my pouch. 'I understand Atius Pertinax and his freedman were extremely close. It was Barnabas who claimed your son's body and arranged his funeral. So are you saying,' I asked, remaining non-committal, 'that afterwards he has never been in touch?'
'He was nothing to do with us,' Marcellus insisted coldly. I knew the rules: consuls are like Chaldaeans who read your horoscope and very pretty girls; they never lie. 'As you say, he came from Calabria; I suggest you enquire there!' I had intended to ask about the missing yachtsman Crispus; something made me hold back. 'Nothing else, Falco?'
I shook my head without arguing.