Death on Delos

by Gary Corby

  Anaxinos wanted to begin with a lengthy speech, which we cut short. I needed to keep us moving at a brisk pace. I swallowed heavily, and hoped nobody saw me do it. The highest probability was that by the time we were finished, my wife and I would look like the greatest idiots Athens had ever produced. The only way we could avoid that would be to solve the murder even as we explained the facts. We had talked it through while we waited for everyone, and had agreed that the way to proceed was to logically unfold the facts as they had occurred, dissecting each one, and hope that inspiration would strike.

  Diotima stood to speak. She did not have a loud voice, and had to shout to be heard. “I shall begin with something that happened long before the Athenians arrived. Something that is known only to a few, but which you all must learn if there is to be justice.”

  Anaxinos flinched. He knew what was coming.

  Diotima said, “For some time, a number of years, Geros had been stealing from the treasure of the Delian League. He used the money to buy an estate and fine things for himself.”

  This instantly caused angry shouts from the priests. One said, “How could he do these things without us noticing?”

  “Because Geros had a key made up,” Diotima said. “Geros borrowed a key, probably from Karnon, and had the local blacksmith copy it. Your blacksmith here is an old man, flooded with work. He probably didn’t even notice what he was doing.”

  I held up Geros’s copy of the key for all to see. “Do you see this one is different from the official keys in its color and its form?” I said. “The handle is bare metal, with no ivory handle, the material is a darker iron, and if you looked up close, you would see no inscription. This is a mere piece of metal bent to the right shape.”

  People nodded.

  I jumped across to the Porinos Naos and, in full view of the crowd, used that copied key to open the door, as Anaxinos had done before. There were exclamations from the many who had not heard the news of Geros’s extra key. Then I pulled the door shut and returned to Diotima.

  “How could he hide the money?” another man asked.

  “Geros was using a bank in Athens to handle all his transactions.” Diotima produced the sheaf of papyrus that we had removed from the dead man’s office. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that we can easily prove Geros did these things. I must also mention that his bankers are possibly the most dishonest of their dubious kind. They would not hesitate to misappropriate temple funds.”

  That caused Anaxinos to purse his lips in distaste. “Then should they not be prosecuted?”

  I answered that one. “Unfortunately the bankers will claim that they did not know the source of their client’s funds. Nobody could prove otherwise.” I sighed.

  Anaxinos looked askance at the large wad of papyrus in Diotima’s hand. He put up his hand to the angry priests. “I have seen these proofs that the priestess Diotima claims, and unfortunately I find them persuasive. We must accept for the moment that what she says is true. Geros had stolen from the treasures. This does not answer the question of who killed him, nor solve the pollution upon the sacred isle.”

  Diotima nodded. “You are right, High Priest. The killer must still be found.” She took a deep breath. “Now knowing this, I want you to imagine what Geros must have felt when the Athenians arrived.”

  She paused to let them think about that.

  “Geros’s problem was really quite simple,” she went on. “When the Athenians turned up, demanding the Delian League’s money, he must have been terrified. He knew the money would be accounted before it left Delos—Karnon would see to that—and then the theft would be discovered.”

  “But no one would know it was Geros who had stolen the missing money,” Anaxinos objected.

  “People would find out very quickly, High Priest,” Diotima said. “Imagine if Geros had not died, and the theft was discovered. We would have instantly interrogated the guards who stand before the treasury. They would have told us of Geros’s trips into a temple to which he supposedly had no key, and no reason to visit. As it happens, Geros had enlisted two of the guards—he had to, so that they would let him pass—which would have made catching them all so much the simpler.”

  “I can see the logic of this,” Anaxinos conceded.

  “Thus imagine the situation in Geros’s mind. He had committed a larceny so enormous that it was probably the biggest theft ever made in the history of Delos. When Pericles announced that he was taking the treasure, Geros foresaw his own arrest, trial, and certain execution.”

  There were noises from the crowd, ones not quite so hostile as before, that suggested the people saw the logic of this. They could feel themselves in Geros’s position. It probably helped that he had not been well liked.

  Diotima went on, “High Priest, remember when Pericles announced his plan. He almost won you over with his rational argument. I don’t like the idea of moving the treasure any more than you do, but we could both see that Pericles’s idea had some merit.”

  Anaxinos nodded. “That is true.”

  “But Geros was present too,” Diotima said. “He realized straight away that he did not dare let the Athenians take the treasure. He not only objected, but he promoted an argument between you and Pericles.”

  “The anger I felt was real,” Anaxinos said.

  “Yes, sir, but your rational head would have ruled you had not Geros interrupted,” Diotima said.

  “Perhaps.” Anaxinos clearly wasn’t convinced. “Go on with your tale.”

  “Geros immediately agitated the whole island against Athens. That wasn’t difficult, with the way many of the people felt. You yourself the next day made your own feelings about Athens known to us, High Priest.”

  Anaxinos blushed. “That was in drink,” he said.

  “Yes, of course, and there’s nothing wrong with hating the greedy, is there?” Diotima assured him. “You have nothing for which you need apologize, High Priest. In fact, from your point of view, anyone who removes treasure from the sacred precinct has committed the most terrible crime.”

  There was general shocked silence at these words, until a priest with a full black beard interjected, “Here now! Are you accusing the High Priest of murder?”

  I wondered if she was too, but Diotima ignored the interruption. “Thus, by evening, Geros was leading a revolt against Athenian arrogance.”

  “We all admired him for taking the moral stand,” the priest with the black beard said.

  “The Athenians admired him too,” I told him. “For the same reason. But he was fooling all of us.”

  They all looked doubtful.

  “The barbeque that ended the protest suited both Pericles and Anaxinos,” Diotima said. “The social mixing restored peace. That is true, is it not, Pericles?” Diotima prodded. “You were happy for good relations to be restored.”

  “Yes, of course,” Pericles said the only thing he could, though I knew quite well Pericles couldn’t have cared less as long as he got his money.

  “It suited you, too, Anaxinos?” Diotima asked.

  Anaxinos nodded. “Conflict is never welcome here. Anything that restored peace had to be good.”

  “It didn’t suit Geros though,” Diotima told them. “He needed conflict. I don’t think at that stage Geros knew what he was going to do next. He only knew that he had to keep the Athenians at bay until he could cover his tracks. Or make a run for it. But I suspect he wanted to make good with the treasury.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Geros’s motives at that point are hidden from us, but what he did is known. He needed to consult with someone. He sent a message back to someone in the village.”

  That was a pure guess on Diotima’s part, and I knew it. But we both knew it was the only way to explain the result that followed.

  “They arranged a clandestine meeting. That immediately suggest
s the two did not dare be seen talking together.”

  “How do you know this?” someone asked.

  I took over. “After the barbeque, Geros departed northwest to the old village. The gate on the path there is the only one on this island that doesn’t squeak, by the way. Someone, presumably Geros, had oiled it. It was the path to where he stored his stolen goods, but that comes later. What he did that night, after the barbeque was over, was to go on his own to the old village. There he met someone. We know this because he was observed all the way there, and at the old village there was someone waving a torch. Obviously, they met.”

  “Who followed him?” a young, scowling priest demanded.

  “I did,” I said. I stared down the questioner, who scowled even harder but said nothing, then I cast my glance across the crowd, daring anyone to ask the next question. To my relief, no one did.

  “Who was this someone whom Geros met?” Diotima asked the rhetorical question. “At this stage we couldn’t tell. But we knew for sure that whoever it was, they had used the emergency eject system to row themselves around the island to the old village.”

  “How do you know that?” Anaxinos asked.

  “Because the keel of the emergency eject rowboat exactly matches the marks on the sand by the old village,” Diotima said.

  “Proves nothing. It could be any fisher boat,” one of the villagers said.

  “No, it couldn’t,” Diotima said. “Philipos, our assistant, measured. The keels of the larger boats used for fishing are all wider and deeper, as anyone would expect.”

  “The other rowboats, then,” the villager said.

  “Are all tied at the docks, in easy view of the agora, where people were walking back and forth all night, because of the barbeque. No, it was the emergency eject, which no one ever looks for except in an emergency. Not that it matters for our investigation, anyway. What is important is that a rowboat, taken from the New Village, was used to row to the Old Village.”

  “How do you know the small boat didn’t come from a larger one offshore?” someone asked.

  “In the middle of the night?” I asked. “There are fifty trireme captains present. Gentlemen,” I called out. “Which of you would willingly sail your boats at night, in shallow water, close to an island?”

  No one stirred. I wasn’t surprised.

  “So you see,” Diotima said, “the rowboat that landed at the Old Village had to have come from somewhere else on the island.”

  Heads nodded. Diotima had logic on her side.

  All this time I had been feverishly watching the faces of the audience, to see if anyone reacted strongly to these revelations. But too many people did. If there was a guilty party, he wasn’t obvious.

  Diotima now came to the first of the questions that could cause us to fall flat on our faces. She took a deep breath, preparing to speak, but then gasped and her left hand went to her stomach. I don’t think anyone else noticed, but she doubled over just a fraction.

  After a moment Diotima said, “Then the next question is, who was in the boat?”

  No one volunteered, which was hardly surprising. Diotima looked at me. I looked at her. There was no choice but to go with our guess.

  “There could only be one answer,” Diotima said with a confidence I knew she didn’t feel. “It had to be someone from the village. Only a villager would think to use that rowboat; of the Athenians the only one who might even know about it is Semnos, and he was at the Athenian camp.”

  The faces in the crowd watched Diotima expectantly. No one objected to her reasoning.

  Diotima spoke on. “But if it was a villager, why didn’t Geros simply speak to him—or her—during the protest? No one would have noticed during the confusion. No reasonable person would leave the sanctuary, where Geros was present, walk to the village, take the rowboat no one is supposed to take, and then row all the way back to where they’d come from.” Diotima shook her head, slowly. “It doesn’t make sense, does it? Therefore the person who rowed from the New Village to the Old Village had to be a local who was not at the protest, and who didn’t want to be seen there. There was only one such person of any importance.”

  Diotima looked straight at Karnon.

  There was a long, long pause, during which Karnon was silent. But the accountant knew a correct calculation when he heard it. He said in a defiant tone, “All right, I admit it. I was the one who met Geros.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Would you like to tell us why?” Diotima asked in such a way that she made it seem as if she already knew the answer. Diotima and I had a good guess, but only Karnon could confirm it.

  Then Karnon did something that surprised me. He beat his right hand against his bald head, the way a man might when he admits to doing something stupid.

  “Very well, I will tell you everything. Geros was blackmailing me.”

  The crowd exclaimed at this.

  “And the reason?” Diotima asked coolly. She had her hands placed over her stomach. It was a natural posture, but I knew she was pressing in, and that she was in some pain.

  “I don’t know how, but Geros had discovered that I was dipping into the Delian funds,” Karnon said.

  The way he phrased it, it took a moment for everyone to realize what he meant. When they did, there was uproar.

  I said loudly, over the hubbub, so that it was clear to everyone present, “Thus you see, there were two thieves, acting independently, both stealing from the treasure of the Delian League; and one was blackmailing the other.”

  Anaxinos said, in a choked voice, “But . . . Geros, my second in command, and Karnon, the most trusted accountant in all of Hellas? They were both thieves?”

  “I’m afraid so, High Priest,” I said.

  The respected leader of Delos was in deep distress. Someone brought a stool, and Anaxinos sat down heavily.

  Karnon knew he was in trouble. He shouted, “Hear me out!”

  He had to wait, but when the crowd quieted, he went on.

  “I wasn’t actually doing any harm. You have to understand that. The money I was taking was money I had made on top of the funds.”

  Karnon turned to Diotima and me. “Remember I told you that I used investments to increase the League funds?”

  Diotima said, “You did. You said you invested much of the League funds, and returned the profits to the Treasury.”

  “Well, I channeled away some of that extra profit before it ever reached the coffers,” Karnon said. Then he held out his hands in supplication to Pericles, the most senior League member present. “I would never have stolen the real funds.”

  That was a fine line, and I had a feeling the combined leaders of the Delian League were not going to appreciate it. Karnon looked from one to the other of us wildly and pleaded for understanding. “Geros found me out. I don’t know how. He threatened to tell everyone what I had done. He also threatened to tell my wife back in Athens about Marika and the boys, or at least, he tried. My wife would divorce me and then I’d be left with nothing, no way to support Marika. When I realized what he was getting at, I confess I was a willing accomplice, to help him hide his own thefts.”

  “You knew that Geros was stealing funds?” Pericles said to Karnon. “But it was you who announced that the treasury had been robbed. With your own thefts to hide, why didn’t you keep quiet?”

  “I can answer that.” Diotima smiled. She enjoyed any opportunity to outsmart Pericles. “It’s simple. From Karnon’s point of view, Geros’s death was a gift from the Gods. With Geros dead, Karnon could announce the entire theft, and then let us decide that the whole crime was the work of the priest. Do you see? Karnon would still have the money he had misappropriated, and yet be completely in the clear.”

  Karnon looked like he was about to cry, but he nodded. “The Athenian priestess speaks correctly. When I ordered my slaves to
start the accounting, I knew what they would find. I expected all the missing money would be put down to Geros. Then when the money moved to Athens I would cease my own thefts and be completely safe.”

  Anaxinos said, “But why, Karnon? Why did you destroy your integrity?”

  Karnon turned to the High Priest. “For my family, of course! I needed that money so I could free myself from my wife’s family and leave with the woman I truly love, Marika, and my sons.” Karnon sobbed.

  “Then this means Karnon killed Geros,” Pericles said.

  “I admit I stole profits,” Karnon said as he wept. “But I did not kill the priest.”

  The other priests shook their fists. One of them shouted, “Bring a rope!” Another shouted, “A likely story!”

  “A likely story, indeed,” Diotima said, holding up her hand for attention. “Karnon could not have killed Geros.”

  “What!” all the priests exclaimed as one. Most of them looked upset.

  I had to admire what Diotima was doing. From this point on I knew she was making the deductions as she went.

  Diotima said, “It’s true. The rowboat was gone from the Old Village by the time of the murder. The evidence of Philipos proves it. He reported that he saw the light. Then he saw Nico and Geros talk. But after they parted, Philipos returned to the camp down the waterline, and he never mentioned seeing the boat. It must have already gone. Which, by the way, is consistent with Nico’s catching Geros as he was returning from the conference with Karnon.”

  “How do you know Karnon didn’t return later to kill Geros?” someone asked.

  “Because there is only one keel track at the beach,” I said at once.

  “There are ways around that,” Pericles said.

  “Complex ways, that require the man in the rowboat to know that two random Athenian operatives are going to creep through the graveyard and see his light,” Diotima said. “Because it’s certain that he didn’t see us. If he had, Karnon would have fled the island.”