Before I left them to it, I asked Pastous to tell me what he knew about scrolls being found on rubbish dumps. It was clear the assistant was uneasy. 'I know that it once happened,' he admitted.
'And?'
'It caused much unpleasantness. Theon was informed, and he managed to reclaim all the scrolls. The incident made him extremely angry'
'How had the scrolls got there?'
'Junior staff had selected them for disposal. Unread for a long time, or duplicates. They had been instructed that such scrolls were no longer needed.'
'Not by Theon, I take it! What do you think of the principle, Pastous?'
He stiffened up and sailed into a heartfelt speech. 'It is a subject we discuss regularly. Can old books that have not been looked at for decades, or even centuries, justifiably be thrown out to increase shelf space? Why do you need duplicates? Then there is the question of quality – should works that everyone knows are terrible still be lovingly kept and cared for, or should they be ruthlessly purged?'
'And the Library takes what line?'
'That we keep them.' Pastous was definite. 'Little-read items may still be requested one day. Works that seem bad may be reassessed – or if not, they are still needed to confirm how bad they were.'
'So who ordered the staff to clear the shelves?' asked Aulus.
'A management decision. Or so the juniors thought. Changes are always happening in large organisations. A memo comes around. New instructions appear, often anonymous, almost as if they fell through a window like moonbeams.'
What Pastous said seemed all too familiar.
Aulus had less experience than me of the madness that infects public administration. 'How can such things happen? Surely someone would have double-checked? Theon cannot have allowed such important and controversial instructions to be given to his staff behind his back?'
Four days had passed since Theon died. In an organisation, that counted as eternity. His loyal staff, once completely tight-lipped, were already prepared to criticise him. Pastous himself seemed more confident today, as if his place in the hierarchy had changed. He admitted to Aulus, 'Theon had not been much in evidence. He was going through a bad patch.'
'Illness?'
The assistant gazed at the ground. 'Money worries, it was rumoured.'
'Did he gamble on the horses?'
I had asked this before, when we first met Pastous, and he had avoided the question. This time he was more forthcoming. 'I believe he did. Men came here looking for him. He disappeared for a few days afterwards. But if there was trouble, I assumed he cleared it up, because he was back at his post when a civic-minded member of the public came to report finding the dumped scrolls.'
'So how did Theon tackle that?'
'First priority was to reclaim them. Afterwards, he confirmed that Library policy was to keep all scrolls. And I think – though of course it was done very discreetly – he had a terrific argument with the Director.'
'Had Philetus sent the scrolls to the rubbish dump?' Pastous answered my question only with a weary shrug. Staff had given up any hope of loosening the Director's grip. Philetus was stifling their initiative and their sense of responsibility.
Aulus could always be relied upon to give delicate subjects a big thumping push. 'Was there any crossover between Theon's personal money worries and Library finances? I mean, did he -'
'Certainly not!' cried Pastous. Fortunately, he liked us enough now not to flounce off in horror.
'That would have been a terrible scandal,' I remarked.
I was thinking it was the kind of scandal I had come across too many times – the kind that could have fatal results if it got out of hand.
Leaving Aulus and Pastous to wade through the morass Nibytas had bequeathed to us, I decided to try to tackle Zenon once more about the Museion's accounts.
He was in the observatory on the roof again. He seemed to hide up there as often as possible, tinkering with equipment. Remembering how he went for me last time, I made sure I kept his sky-scrutinising chair between us. He noticed.
'Getting anywhere, Falco?'
I sighed dramatically. 'In my dark moments, my enquiries here seem particularly futile. Did Theon kill himself or was he killed? Did Nibytas die of old age? Did young Heras die by accident and if not, who killed him, was he the real target or did they intend to murder someone else? Are any of these deaths linked, and do they have any connection to how the Museion and the Great Library are run? Does it matter? Do I care? Would I ever let a child of mine come here to study in this crazy home of warped minds, with its once-fine reputation apparently now hanging in tatters due to incompetence and maladministration on a monumental scale?'
Zenon looked slightly taken aback. 'What maladministration have you found?'
I let him wonder. 'Tell me the truth, Zenon. The figures are a mess, aren't they? I am not blaming you – I imagine that however hard you struggle to impose sound business practice and prudence, still others – we know who – constantly thwart you.' He was letting me talk, so I pressed on. 'I haven't seen your accounts, but I hear that at the Library things have got so bad, even penny-pinching measures like clearing out old scrolls have been attempted. Somebody is desperate.'
'I wouldn't say that, Falco.'
'If funds are tight, you need a concerted effort to economise. This can't be co-ordinated properly during a full-blown disagreement about holdings policy. What? – The Director sneaks in behind Theon's back to clear out old scrolls he reckons are not worth keeping. Theon violently disagrees. The spectre of the Librarian on hands and knees in a rubbish dump, retrieving his stock then wheeling it back here through the filthy streets in handcarts, is quite unedifying.'
'There is no financial crisis calling for the Director's measures,' Zenon protested.
'It was all pointless, anyway,' I growled. 'Savings would have been minimal. Tossing out a few scrolls and closing a few cupboards would never achieve much. Staff still have to be paid for. You still have to maintain your building – not cheap when it is a famous monument, constructed on a fabulous scale, with four-hundred-year-old irreplaceable antique fittings. All that happened was that the staff ended up depressed, feeling that they work for a declining organisation that has lost its prestige and energy.'
'Calm down,' said Zenon. 'All that was just Philetus trying to upset Theon.'
'Why?'
'Because Theon refused to be pushed around by a fool.'
'He objected to short-sighted policy?'
'He objected to the whole current regime. What can we do? Do you have the power to overturn it?' asked Zenon, clearly without much faith in me.
'Depends on the root cause. One man's ineptitude can always be altered – by removing the man.'
'Not if he is in a post for life.'
'Don't give up. Under Vespasian, incompetents who thought they were fireproof have nevertheless found themselves uplifted to occupy absolutely meaningless positions where they can do no harm.'
'It will never happen here.' Under the current Director's stifling rule, Zenon, like Theon before him, had become a black defeatist. 'In Alexandria we have our own ways.'
'Oh that old excuse!''We are special. Everything here is different!'''
'The Museion is in decline. Fewer true intellectuals come to Alexandria than in its heyday. Little new scholarship occurs. But Philetus represents the future.'
I kept trying. 'Look – ever heard of Antonius Primus? When Vespasian was aiming to become Emperor, Primus was his right-hand man. While Vespasian himself remained safely here in Alexandria, it was Primus who brought the Eastern legions through the Balkans to Italy and defeated their rival, Vitellius. He could have argued he took all the risks and did all the work so he deserved huge recognition. But Primus had no judgement, success went wildly to his head and he was driven by misplaced ambition – any of that sound familiar? He became a liability. It was dealt with. It was – I can tell you, Zenon – dealt with extremely quietly. Who has ever heard of him since?
He just disappeared from the scene.'
'That will never happen here.'
'Well not if you all keep caving in!' Zenon's defeatism was making me depressed too. 'I suppose Theon was pretty demoralised by those attempts to get rid of unwanted scrolls?'
'Theon was upset, certainly.'
'You and Theon were on friendly terms, you said. So what do you know about his personal gambling debts?'
'Nothing. Well, he sorted it all out.'
'He paid off the men who were hounding him?'
'I never heard it got that bad…' Zenon was oblivious to gossip -or that was what he wanted me to think. 'He had a temporary cash problem – could happen to anyone.'
'Did you ask Theon how he solved it?'
'No. People keep their debts to themselves.'
'Not necessarily – not if they are friends with the man who controls the Museion's enormous budget!'
'I resent your insinuation, Falco.'
He would resent my next question even more, because by now I had lost my temper. 'So is the Museion bankrupt – or merely run by a bunch of monkeys?'
'Get off my roof, Falco.'
This time, the astronomer was so sad at heart he did not even try to manhandle me. But I knew it was time to leave.
'How do you feel about being on the list for Theon's job?' I called back at him, when I was at the head of the stairs.
'Vulnerable!' Zenon retorted with feeling. When I cocked my head in enquiry, even this buttoned-up near-mute lost his laconic style: 'The rumour machine in the refectory says what happened at the zoo two nights ago was a bungled attempt to reduce the number of candidates! Of course,' he added bitterly, 'there are people here who would maintain that murdering academics is ethically more acceptable than getting rid of scrolls! The written word must be preserved at all costs. Mere scholars, however, are untidy and expendable.'
'So the Library appointment led to Sobek being on the loose?' I scoffed. 'No, I see that as a messier-than-usual end to a love triangle. Besides, I hope any expensively educated scholar intent on murder would do it in an elegant manner – some allusion to classical literature – and an apt Greek quotation pinned to the corpse.'
'There is no scholar at the Museion,' complained Zenon, 'who could bring off a murder. Most need a scale diagram and instructions in three languages even to lace their shoes.'
I gazed at him, both of us silently acknowledging how practical he was. He could certainly have worked out how to sneak away some goat's meat and lure Sobek from his pit. Moreover, unlike the unworldly men he was deriding, Zenon had no qualms about violence. I skipped down the stairs before he could make another of his attempts to throw me headlong from his sanctuary.
XXXIX
I went to see Thalia. As I was setting off for her tent, I noticed the Director leaving the Library. He was in the company of a man I recognised: the same man who had come to see my uncle and whom I also had spotted yesterday, walking through one of the colonnades here.
Philetus and the businessman had definitely been together, though they immediately parted company. I nearly followed the trader, but I had yet to discover enough about him to feel ready. So I went after Philetus.
He bustled along like a worried rabbit and had reached his office when I caught up. I tapped his shoulder to hold him up, in the classic Forum manner. I went straight to the point: 'Philetus! Don't I know that man I just saw you with?'
He looked annoyed. 'It's Diogenes, a scroll collector. He makes a menace of himself, trying to sell us works we don't want or need. Poor Theon was always trying to get rid of him.'
'Diogenes,' I repeated, chewing it over slowly, the way people memorise names. The Director was now trying to shake me off, determined not to let me indoors with him. We stood on the steps of his building like a couple of pigeons having a stand-off over a scatter of stale crumbs. He was just puffing up his feathers to look big. I was manoeuvring to get at the barley cake. 'I wanted to ask you about scrolls.' I made my voice casual. 'Explain about the time poor Theon discovered all those Library scrolls on the midden-heap. Somebody told me you had ordered it.'
'Just a minor housekeeping exercise,' Philetus sniffed. 'Theon was not there and his staff went to extremes.' Trust Philetus to coerce juniors and then blame them. The weakest kind of management. 'When Theon found out and he outlined his reasons for keeping the documents, naturally I bowed to his expertise.'
'What were you trying to do – save money?'
Philetus looked abstracted. He was behaving like a man who had realised he might have left a lit oil lamp in an unattended room. I smiled at him reassuringly. That really scared him.
'So! That was Diogenes…' I murmured, as if it was highly significant. Then I could not bear Philetus and his vacillations any longer so I let the bastard go.
Thalia was with Philadelphion, the Zoo Keeper, though he left as I was approaching. They had been hanging over a fence and looking at a group of three young lions, just bigger than cubs, the long-bodied male starting to show a ridge of rough fur where his mane was coming, the two females having rumbustuous play-fights.
I said I hoped I had not driven Philadelphion away.
'No, he had to get on, Falco. Things to do and he's short-handed. Chaereas and Chaeteas have gone to their grandfathers funeral.'
'So people still use that tired excuse for a free day off?'
'Well, it's better than ''got a stomach upset'', even if you can only use it twice.'
'Informers don't have that luxury – nor you, nor anybody self-employed.'
'No, it's funny how your stomach goes back to normal very quickly when you don't have any choice.'
'Talking of upsets, are you fit, Thalia?' I asked affectionately. 'You seemed a bit off-colour yesterday morning.'
'Nothing wrong with me.'
'Sure? Not that I would blame you after Sobek's escapade -'
'Leave it, Falco!'
'Fine.'
I changed the subject and reconfirmed with Thalia her impression of the zoo's financial health. She reckoned they had plenty of money. They could purchase any animals they wanted; there was no pressure over fodder and accommodation bills; the staff seemed happy, which meant there were enough of them and they were well treated.
'Sounds satisfactory… Are you buying those lions?'
'I think so.'
'They are beautiful. You're bringing them to Rome?'
'A lot of beautiful animals will be having a very short visit to Rome, Falco. When the new amphitheatre opens, thousands will be slaughtered. Why should I lose out? If I don't take these three, someone else will – or, since the zoo cannot keep too many full-size lions, they will end up in one of the arenas in Cyrenaica or Tripolitania. Don't weep for them, Falco. They were doomed from the day they were captured as cubs.'
I was musing aloud: 'Could the zoo be involved with some scam – procuring wild beasts for arenas?'
'No. Stop fantasising,' Thalia told me frankly. 'There is no scam. Traders and hunters acquire rare beasts down south and in the interior. They show good specimens to the zoo first. That's what they have always done, since the pharaohs. If the zoo turns them down, the hunters move on to sell elsewhere.'
'And your three lions?'
'Were kept here as a public attraction while they were cute cubs. Now they are a handful and Philadelphion is glad I'll take them.'
'I'd better go and find him,' I said, concluding our conversation. 'I have to ask the silver-haired charmer whether one of his colleagues might want to kill him.'
'Scram then,' rasped Thalia.
'I don't suppose you know anything about the Zoo Keeper's love life?'
'Wouldn't tell you, even if I did!' replied Thalia, laughing coarsely.
Well, that sounded more like her old self.
XL
I tracked down Philadelphion. 'I won't keep you long. I hear your men are at a funeral…' He gave it a nod, but made no other comment. 'What are they – brothers?'
'Cousins. What do you
want, Falco?' He was terse. Perhaps he felt harassed, having to slop out enclosures and heave around feed buckets. When I found him, he had his sleeves rolled up to the armpits, straw in his hair and was doling out fruit to the baby elephant.
I asked if it was true that he had quarrelled with Roxana the day Heras died. Philadelphion denied it. I said there was supposed to be a feud between him and the lawyer Nicanor, with Nicanor making threats to steal Philadelphion's mistress. 'Roxana herself told me. And I know he is determined to defeat you in the race to become Librarian – using any unfair means.'
'You think that pumped-up dandy let out my crocodile? Sobek would have crunched him up on the enclosure ramp.'
'That then raises this question, Philadelphion: did you suspect Roxana might be meeting a rival at the zoo – so did you let Sobek out?' Philadelphion guffawed but I kept at it: 'You would know how to do it. Did you think Roxana was meeting Nicanor, and was he supposed to die?'
'Falco, what kind of world do you live in?'
'Sadly, one where it is necessary for me to insist you tell me where you were the night young Heras was killed.'
'I told you before. Working in my office.'
'Yes, that's what you said.' I toughened up. 'Now let's have the truth.' I was sick of being treated like a dunce. I was sick of traipsing to and fro across this magnificent complex just so one arrogant scholar after another could think he was bamboozling me. 'I've heard false alibis before. Stop prevaricating. A thirty-foot crocodile escaped and savagely killed an innocent young boy. Heras was flirting with your lady love – who had lured him here to annoy you. What do you and Roxana want – the army to arrest you both for perverting the course of justice?
Either you cough up what really happened or you'll be in custody within the hour. Your affair will be exposed and it will finish your chances of becoming Librarian. The Director will be absolutely thrilled to drop you.'
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