‘Isn’t Lupus back yet?’ cried Flavia.
‘No, not a trace of him,’ frowned Alma.
They were all sitting around the table, just finishing their soup, when Scuto uttered a loud bark, leapt up from under Nubia’s feet and scampered out of the dining room. A few minutes later he trotted back with a tired and hungry Lupus in tow. Flavia quickly drew up another chair and Alma brought the boy a bowl of warm broth, the last of the chicken soup.
The others waited for Lupus to finish before they began their fish and leek pie.
‘We have news for you!’ Flavia said, as Lupus pushed away his empty soup bowl.
Lupus pointed at himself and then back at her, as if to say, And I have news for you, too!
‘Do you remember we told you about the red watchdog we saw at Cordius’s house this morning?’
Lupus nodded and took a bite of fish pie.
‘Well, someone killed him a few hours ago!’ breathed Flavia. ‘And they cut off his head!’
‘Like Bobas. Dog of Jonathan,’ added Nubia.
Lupus choked on his mouthful and had to be pounded on the back by the doctor, who was sitting beside him.
When Lupus had recovered, Mordecai turned to Flavia.
‘You went to Cordius’s house?’
‘Yes, Nubia and I went this morning. We wanted to speak to his freedman Libertus, because he is our only witness. Remember he was standing at the fountain just before we found Bobas’s body?’
‘Yes,’ said Mordecai slowly.
‘Well, while he was at the fountain, Libertus saw a man running away from your house. The man was carrying a bag, and it could have had a head inside.’
‘Like Perseus,’ said Nubia.
Flavia continued, ‘Nubia and I went round to Libertus’s house this morning, and he said that the man in the drawing was the man he saw that day. The running man was Avitus!’
‘Wait.’ Mordecai looked confused. ‘What drawing?’
‘This drawing.’ Flavia showed him the wax tablet, now very smudged but still quite recognisable. ‘Lupus drew it.’
‘You drew this?’ Mordecai asked in amazement, taking the tablet. ‘It’s excellent!’
‘That was the man we saw crying in the graveyard. Lupus knew who he was and drew him,’ explained Flavia.
‘It must have been Avitus who killed the dogs!’ exclaimed Jonathan.
Lupus made a strangled noise and when they looked at him he was violently shaking his head.
‘Let’s see what Lupus has to report,’ said Flavia. ‘You followed Avitus today, didn’t you? We saw your chalk arrow on the tree.’
Lupus nodded. All eyes were on him.
‘How soon after we left you did Avitus come out of his house?’
Lupus held his thumb and forefinger close together.
‘A short time?’
Lupus nodded.
‘And what did he do?’ asked Mordecai, with great interest.
Lupus imitated someone drinking and then becoming drunk. He held up five fingers.
‘He had five beakers of wine?’ asked Flavia.
Lupus shook his head and held up ten fingers.
‘Ten beakers of wine!’ shouted Jonathan.
Lupus nodded emphatically.
‘He had ten beakers of wine?’ said Flavia, amazed. ‘And what’s the five?’
Lupus made his fingers walk around the table: first they walked onto Nubia’s empty plate, then onto Jonathan’s plate, then Flavia’s.
‘Five taverns!’ shouted Jonathan.
Lupus nodded.
‘But ten beakers!’ exclaimed Mordecai. ‘A man wouldn’t be able to walk after drinking that amount.’
Lupus imitated someone throwing up. They all wrinkled their noses and nodded.
‘He could still have killed Ruber the watchdog,’ insisted Jonathan, ‘maybe in a drunken haze.’
Lupus shook his head and drew the side of his hand across his throat. They all stared at him in silence. Then Flavia whispered:
‘He’s dead?’
Lupus nodded.
‘Avitus?’ asked Jonathan.
Lupus nodded again.
‘How?’
Lupus walked his fingers up the wine jug and then made them jump off and splat onto the table.
‘Where?’ asked Mordecai. His voice was grave.
Lupus looked around and then caught sight of the wax tablet. He rubbed out his drawing of Avitus and with the tip of his knife he scratched something into the wax.
Mordecai took it, nodded and showed it to the others.
‘The lighthouse!’ breathed Flavia. She looked at up Lupus, ‘And you saw him jump?’
Lupus nodded gravely.
‘Then that means Avitus couldn’t have killed Ruber,’ said Flavia slowly. ‘He hasn’t been near our street all afternoon. But if he didn’t do it, who did?’
Everyone was too tired to think clearly. Flavia and Jonathan were yawning over their dessert of apples stewed in honey and pepper. Nubia had actually fallen asleep in her chair.
‘Come, Jonathan,’ said Mordecai. ‘We must go home to bed now. Lupus, will you be our guest again tonight?’
In reply, Lupus looked at Flavia, raised his eyebrows and pointed down.
‘You’d like to spend the night here?’ asked Flavia. ‘Of course! Alma, may Lupus spend the night here?’
Alma was clearing away the dinner plates.
‘Of course, dear. He can sleep in Aristo’s bedroom.’
‘Very well,’ said Mordecai. ‘We will say goodnight. Peace be with you.’
‘I’ll just fetch your house key,’ said Alma and disappeared into the study.
After Jonathan and his father had left, Caudex bolted the door after them. A yawning Nubia had already disappeared into the garden with Scuto, so Flavia showed Lupus to the spare room.
‘Here’s a clay lamp for you,’ she said, ‘I always keep one lit in my room. There’s a copper beaker of cold water on that shelf and a chamber-pot under the bed, in case you can’t be bothered to go downstairs to the latrine in the middle of the night.’
Although Flavia was utterly exhausted, she couldn’t sleep. The house was quiet and dark. Everyone had gone to bed. Lupus had begun snoring even before she was out of the bedroom. Nubia was snuggled up with Scuto under the fig tree in the garden. Alma and Caudex were sleeping in their rooms off the atrium. Outside, in the graveyard, the tree-frogs had taken over from the cicadas and were croaking slowly and rhythmically, as if urging her to sleep.
The rising moon shone through the lattice screen of her window and made silver diamonds on her bedroom wall. There was even a sea breeze drifting in from the south to soothe her. It smelled of pine and salt water, and made her think of the ocean.
She thought of her father, somewhere far out on the inky waves, perhaps pacing the deck and gazing at the same moon that shone through her window. She offered up a prayer to Neptune, god of the sea.
Then she turned her thoughts to the events of the past days. Had it only been two?
Poor Avitus was dead now, unable to live with his grief, and it was suddenly clear to her that he had never killed the dogs. He hadn’t even been able to hit Scuto with a pine cone. How could he have coolly killed and beheaded Bobas?
But that brought her back to the puzzle that was keeping her awake. If Avitus hadn’t killed Bobas and Ruber, who had? And who had taken the mastiffs head away from the graveyard?
Outside in the necropolis she heard an owl hooting. People said owls were bad luck, but her father always called her his ‘little owl’ and so she liked them. Besides, the owl was the bird of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.
Wisdom made her think of Aristo, the young Greek who had been her tutor for the past two years. She tried to think in the way he had taught her: using both logic and imagination.
‘If Avitus didn’t kill the dogs, then who did?’ she thought. ‘We first thought Avitus killed them because he hated all dogs. But if someone else killed the dogs, they p
robably had another reason. Why would someone want to kill dogs?’
At that moment Scuto began barking downstairs, and as his barks set off all the other dogs in the neighbourhood, Flavia suddenly had the answer. She sat up in her bed.
‘Of course!’ she breathed. ‘That’s why!’
But just then she heard Nubia scream.
‘Thief!’ said Nubia, as Flavia hurried down the stairs, carefully holding her lamp. ‘Thief!’ she repeated, and pointed to the storeroom. Flavia saw what had alarmed her: there was a sliver of light all around the edge of the storeroom door.
Scuto was wagging his tail and sniffing at the door. He barked again cheerfully.
Caudex ambled into the garden, carrying a torch and looking no more sleepy than he did the rest of the time.
‘Caudex!’ cried Flavia. ‘There’s a thief in the storeroom!’
‘Nothing in there worth taking,’ mumbled the slave. ‘Just grain and wine and some bits of old furniture . . .’
‘Person go in there!’ said Nubia.
‘And I can see a light!’ insisted Flavia.
Caudex squinted at the door, and scratched his head.
‘All right,’ he said with a shrug, and moved towards the door. The flames of his torch threw flickering bars of shadow from the columns onto the wall. Flavia and Nubia clung to each other as Caudex cautiously opened the door, and Scuto wagged his tail.
‘What’s all this noise?’ Alma padded in, carrying a clay lamp. She was barefoot and had tied her hair up with a scarf. The lamp, lighting her face eerily from below, made her look like a stranger.
‘There’s a thief in the storeroom!’ said Flavia, ‘and I’m sure it’s the person who killed the dogs.’
Suddenly, from the storeroom came two yells, one high and one low. Scuto, standing just outside the doorway, began to bark again.
‘Got him!’ they heard Caudex grunt, and then in a slightly muffled voice. ‘Got your thief.’
He emerged from the storeroom. In one hand he held the flaming torch, and in the other he carried a squirming boy.
‘Lupus!’ exclaimed Flavia and Nubia together.
Lupus was struggling in Caudex’s grip and incoherent sounds were coming out of his mouth. The words were garbled, but the sense of them was clear: Put me down, you big oaf!
‘Caudex! Put him down!’ cried Flavia. ‘Lupus isn’t a thief!’
Lupus’s eyes blazed green in the torchlight, but Caudex did not put him down. Instead, he set the torch into one of the brackets on the wall. Then he took Lupus in both hands, held him upside down by the ankles, and gave him a good shake. Flavia and Nubia squealed and covered their eyes: Lupus’s tunic had flopped down and he was wearing nothing underneath.
Then they heard the jingle of coins on marble and they opened their eyes in astonishment.
When Caudex had finished shaking Lupus down, he set the boy on his feet. Lupus stood hanging his head in shame: there on the walkway bordering the garden lay a dozen gold coins, glowing and winking in the flickering torchlight.
They all stared at Lupus in dismay. The coins on the marble pathway and his miserable expression confirmed his guilt.
‘Lupus!’ whispered Flavia after a moment. ‘Where did you find that gold? Was it in the storeroom?’
Lupus nodded.
‘Then you were stealing from us. We trusted you and opened our home to you and . . . THAT’S IT!’
They all stared at her, even Lupus raised his head.
‘I think I’ve solved the crime!’ cried Flavia.
She turned to Lupus.
‘Lupus, you’ve got to help us. Where did you find that gold and how did you know it was here? We never keep that much gold in the house.’
Lupus glared at her. He was deeply ashamed and embarrassed.
‘Please, Lupus! Everything makes sense now. We’ll forget that you tried to steal the money, if only you’ll help us!’
Lupus gestured sullenly for them to follow him. Caudex took the torch from the wall. The girls and Alma took their lamps, and they all followed Lupus back into the storeroom.
The boy led them to three large amphoras near the darkest corner. The jars were half-buried to keep them standing upright and looked just like all the others, except that they were set a little apart. One of them was closed but not sealed. Flavia went to this amphora and removed the lid.
Everyone gasped. This big jar did not contain grain or wine or olive oil like the rest. It was filled nearly to the brim with gold coins.
‘Why, it’s enough to buy our house a dozen times over,’ breathed Flavia, dipping her hand in and letting the heavy coins sift through her fingers. ‘And look! This seal isn’t ours.’ She picked up a blue wax seal about the size of a coin which had fallen to the storeroom floor. She held it up to her lamp and examined it. ‘It’s not the twins. It’s a dolphin!’
‘That’ll be the seal of Cordius, your father’s partner,’ said Alma. ‘Perhaps he didn’t have enough room for all his treasure and asked Captain Geminus to store some of it.’
‘Alma, I think you’re right!’ said Flavia. ‘This treasure certainly isn’t ours, and the seal is probably Cordius’s. But if none of us knew it was here, how on earth did Lupus know?’
She turned to the boy, who was still hanging his head.
‘Lupus,’ she said softly, ‘did someone tell you about the treasure?’
Lupus hesitated and then waggled his head, neither nodding or shaking it, but something in between.
‘Someone sort of told you about it?’ she offered.
He nodded.
‘Who?’
Lupus hesitated, then imitated someone drinking.
‘Avitus?’
Lupus shook his head and sighed.
‘I know! Someone you saw at one of the taverns!’
Lupus nodded.
‘Who? Who was it?’
Lupus shrugged.
‘Lupus, I think I know who it was but I want to be sure . . .’
Abruptly, Nubia slipped out of the storeroom and reappeared a few moments later with a wax tablet.
‘Nubia, you’re brilliant!’ cried Flavia. ‘Lupus, can you draw what he looked like?’
Lupus shrugged again.
‘Just do the best you can,’ she pleaded. ‘Please . . .’
Lupus slowly took the tablet and stylus from Nubia. He squatted on the sandy floor of the storeroom and started to draw. Everyone moved their torches closer, so that he could see as clearly as possible. Lupus stopped, scratched his head thoughtfully, rubbed out the lower half and started again.
Finally he finished and held the tablet out to Flavia. She took it with a trembling hand and looked at the face he had drawn.
‘I knew it!’ she breathed. ‘It had to be him. I should have guessed before.’
She had solved the mystery, but nothing could be done about it until morning. Flavia crawled back into bed and was sure she would lie awake all night going over the clues in her mind.
But she was wrong. She fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, and soon she began to dream.
She dreamt about Avita Procula.
In the dream, the little girl was being chased by wild dogs. Suddenly a huge magpie flew down and carried Avita up into the air. Avita was laughing and waving at Flavia who stood on the ground. As Flavia watched the girl disappear into the heavens, she realised the dogs were now coming towards her. She turned and ran, but although her heart was pounding she ran slowly, as if she were moving through sticky honey.
In her dream she heard the dogs’ barking grow closer and imagined she felt their hot breath on her legs. She had dreamt this dream before and she knew she always woke just as the animals leapt for her with open jaws. But this time something was different. Without turning around, she realised that there was now only one dog pursuing her: one dog with three horrible heads. Cerberus, the hound from hell. In her dream she heard someone screaming again and again, and the screaming didn’t stop.
F
lavia woke up sweating. Her heart was pounding and her whole body trembling. She was groggy and confused and wondered how she could be awake when she still heard screaming.
It was an awful scream, a woman’s hysterical expression of pure horror. Strangely, it sounded like Alma.
Flavia swung her feet out of bed, but she was clumsy and half-asleep, and she banged her toe on the bedside table. Automatically, she took up her clay lamp before she stumbled out onto the balcony.
The moon was almost directly overhead. It poured a wash of eerie light onto the garden below, making the shadows inky black. By the stars in the sky and the damp in the air, Flavia knew it was the middle of the night.
She stood hesitating, and while she stood, she heard a man’s cry, short and involuntary. Caudex? Although she was trembling, she made her way carefully downstairs and crossed the garden by the moonlit path. The pebbles hurt her bare feet but she didn’t want the dangerous black shadows behind the columns to touch her.
‘Nubia?’ she whispered. ‘Alma?’
Up ahead a flickering light moved and the scent of a pitch pine torch reached her nose. Another moan echoed from the atrium. The corridor looked like a gaping throat ready to swallow her with shadows, so she ran down it as fast as she could. A wave of relief swept over her as she saw four familiar figures and one dog silhouetted by the orange light of a torch.
They were standing at the open front door and when they heard her feet pattering on the marble floor of the atrium they all turned to look at her.
In each of their faces was reflected a different kind of horror. Even Scuto was whimpering. They were so stunned that none of them made a move to stop Flavia from looking at the thing in the street. She passed between Nubia, who was trembling, and Lupus, who crouched like an animal about to flee. Flavia stopped in the doorway.
There in the moon-washed street stood a trident, the kind fishermen use to catch fish. Its base was wedged tight between paving stones and its three prongs pointed up towards the cold stars. On each of the three points was planted a severed dog’s head. One was white, one black, and one red. Each pair of milky, blind eyes was staring directly at Flavia.
She heard a scream and realised it was coming from her own throat. A wave of black nausea washed over her as the unseeing eyes of the hounds impaled on the trident stared into hers. The dogs’ heads filled her vision and became the three heads of the undead creature who guarded the underworld. The blood pounded in her ears like rhythmic thunder as the heads of Cerberus receded until they were three points at the end of a long tunnel. Finally, even the three pin-sized heads were snuffed out and she was sucked down after them into the darkness.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 11