This quaint mixture of detail and informed bluff started to have the desired effect. 'How much?' asked Priscillus wearily.
'Oh I'm not looking for a bribe!'
'How much?' he repeated. Evidently he had dealt with coy extortionists before.
I shook my head. 'You can't buy me. Things have gone too far. For one thing, I was pretty upset when you had me knocked about the other day-so anything 1 said to the Hortensius mob while under the stress of injury is your own fault!'
'Cut the pretty talk, Falco,' Priscillus growled, but I could see him wondering what I had said.
I straightened up. 'Here's my theory: Crepito and Felix had discussed with you the possibility of getting rid of Novus if he kicked up rough. He did, so you left him the extra present. When he died, those two went along with it at first.' Priscillus agreed none of this; though he failed to deny it either. 'It came as rather a shock when I pointed out to them that by poisoning the Falernian-which you rushed off without sharing-you must have been hoping to polish off not just Novus, but the entire Hortensius clan.'
He was good. He was so good it was dangerous. 'Why,' Appius Priscillus asked me serenely, 'would Felix and Crepito imagine I wanted to do that?'
I smiled. 'Did you warn them not to take any spice?' He said nothing. That was a mistake; it dropped him into my hands. 'Felix and Crepito are not the brightest boys on the Via Flaminia, but even they finally realised: you wanted a clear field. They only escaped by accident. Novus could never wait; it was just like him to start into the wine on his own. Before he knew Novus was dead, Felix had carried the flask to another room-their Egyptian salon-' I added, for extra conviction. 'He left the spice bowl behind. At first Felix and Crepito thought you had accomplished the Novus killing by some brilliant and undetectable method-'
'But you told them otherwise!' Priscillus threatened coldly.
'That's right,' I said. 'And now Pollia and Atilia also know you tried to poison their husbands. They have sent Felix and Crepito running to the law.'
Priscillus scowled. His narrow, secretive mentality would fight me all the way. 'You're stupid coming here today -I'm going to wipe you out, Falco!'
'No point. This is out of my hands. You'll be convicted by the Hortensii. Their servants saw you hand over the flask. They saw you run back with the spice bowl after quarrelling with Novus. Felix and Crepito may even corroborate that there was a prior conspiracy.'
'They're stupid enough to do that! What are you up to?' Priscillus demanded with contempt in the wheeze.
I let my hands drop. 'I hate the lot of you. I hated Novus; I was a tenant of his. The apartment he leased me was overpriced and undermanned, and today it fell down. Nearly killed my girlfriend; nearly killed me-'
Priscillus had such a spiteful spirit he could understand this kind of anger. 'You're fingering them for it?'
'What else?' I snarled. 'If I could implicate those bastards in the poisoning too I would! And now while they are spilling the dirt to their own pocket magistrate, denouncing you and preening themselves, I've run up here. I wanted to see your face when I told you I've already watched the law officers making enquiries at your house on the Esquiline, and their next stop must be here-' I could tell from his rat's face that Priscillus was already working out that this place was outside the city boundary, so the vigilantes might not arrive immediately.
'Time to move if you want to pack a sponge and a few moneybags!' I insisted. 'Rome's too small to hide in now, Priscillus. Your only hope of survival is to nip off and see the high spots of the Empire for a few years-'
'Get out!' he said. He was too preoccupied with his urgent need for escape even to shout for the Phrygian bodyguards to make their mark on me.
I scowled, as if I didn't like the order. Then I tipped my hat back on its string, flung my cloak around me bitterly, and left.
The grimy brown sedan chair scurried off a few minutes later.
Lying among the garden bushes, I watched some ponderously heavy trunks departing with him, supported on their shoulders by the sweating Phrygians. I could hear Priscillus bawling at them to hurry, as he was carried down the Janiculan towards the Via Aurelia and the Sublician Bridge.
There were more than thirty mileposts between here and the port at Ostia. I hoped he would make those Phrygians run all the way.
Chapter LXI
Easy really.
Just a handful of pathetic suggestions and a few lies. Bullies are so sensitive. You can bamboozle them with any soft tale which threatens their way of life.
What next?
Before I could tackle his rivals, those sly females on the Pincian, frankly I needed a rest. I found it-and possibly more than I bargained for-by taking a quiet stroll along the Transtiberina bank.
I walked north. I had to go north anyway. There was nothing to lose by trekking up past the farthermost spur of the Janiculan, and looking in at the scene of an old crime.
The Circus of Caligula and Nero-as lurid a pair of characters as you could meet at the back of a bathhouse -lies opposite the great right-hand bend of the river which encloses the Plain of Mars. As luck would have it, there were no races that week but there was a small exhibition of caged wild animals, surrounded by the usual nervous schoolboys wondering if they dared throw things, a little girl who wanted to pat a tiger, and a desultory trainer who rushed out from time to time to warn people away from the bars. On show were a hippopotamus, the inevitable elephant, two ostriches, and a Gallic lynx. There were a few bales of wet, dirty straw and a sad smell.
The showfolk owned some canvas booths in the shadow of the starting gates; as I went past to enter the Circus, I overheard a familiar female voice relating some tawdry tale. '... I thought he had just gone for a tinkle with his winkle, but he was hours; anyway I forgot all about him-why bother?-but when I went to feed the python, there he was; he must have stripped for action before he saw the snake -I found him cowering up against the awning, too scared to shout-all knobby knees and his poor little set of equipment dangling there like a three-piece manicure set...'
I pulled back a battered curtain and beamed. 'I shall never be able to look at an earscoop again! Thalia! How's the performing snake business?'
'Falco! You still trying to run away from home to do something adventurous? How did you know it was me?'
'Oh-I think I've met a parrot you must have known at one time ...'
'That terrible bird!' she said.
Her companion - a thin specimen who must be the woman who fed the man who watered the hippopotamus -gave me a prim smile, and slipped out of the booth.
Thalia became more serious. 'You're dressed up like a messenger with bad news for somebody.'
'For villains, I hope. That talk we had the other day helped me a lot. Have you got a moment?'
'Let's get some air,' she suggested, perhaps afraid of being overheard.
She led me outside, and into the Circus. We paused slightly at the starting gates, where once the panther must have made its meal of Severina's husband Fronto. In silence Thalia and I climbed up a few rows and sat on the marble seats.
'I'm developing a theory about Fronto's death. Thalia, you said you never met his wife. So I suppose you wouldn't know whether Severina had a fancy man?'
'Couldn't say. But Fronto thought she did.'
'Did he suspect who?'
'I never heard a name. But Fronto seemed to believe there was someone she had known for a long time who could be hovering offstage.'
'That fits,' I said. 'She's mentioned a fellow slave from her original master's; she wears a ring he gave her. And a doctor who attended another of her husbands told me a "friend" came to comfort her afterwards. But there's no sign of this fellow anywhere now.' In fact when we were getting drunk together she had said he was in the Underworld. 'Tell me, Fronto and Severina were only together a few weeks. She seems to think badly of him. Did he knock her about?'
'Probably.'
'A rough type? All sweetness until they were married, then he cut up sour?'
'You know men!' she grinned. But then she added, 'Fronto didn't like to be made a fool of.'
'And he reckoned Severina had pulled a fast one on him?'