The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fic - By Mike Ashley Page 0,5

attention to what is. Also,” I added, “we suffer from the disadvantage of noble birth and civilized upbringing.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I’ll tell you when I’ve worked it out.”

*

We snooped round the house for a while, ending up in the upstairs room. Nothing obvious had caught my eye; no bloodstains, or tracks in the dust to show where a body had been dragged. I sat down on an ancient cheese press, while Orestes sat at my feet on a big coil of rope, the image of the great philosopher’s respectful disciple. That made me feel like a complete fraud, of course.

“A grown man,” I said, “walks out of a drinking party—”

“Staggers out of a drinking party.”

“True,” I said. “But he was used to being drunk. And he took the flute-girl. What about her, by the way?”

“What about her?”

“Has she turned up? Or has nobody thought to ask?”

Orestes shrugged. “I expect that if she’d been found they’d have held her for questioning.”

That made me frown. Call me squeamish if you like; I don’t like the notion, enshrined in the law of every Greek city, that a slave’s evidence can only be admissible in a court of law if it’s been extracted under torture. It gave the wretched girl an excellent motive for running away, that was for sure – assuming, that is, that she knew that something bad had happened, and she was likely to be wanted as a witness. “Let’s consider that,” I said. “I’m assuming Hiero’s had soldiers out looking for her.”

Orestes grinned. “Fair enough. I wouldn’t imagine it’d be an easy search. For a start, how would they know who to look for?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Explain,” I said.

“One slave-girl looks pretty much like another.”

“But her owner—” I paused. “Who owns her? Do we know?”

Orestes took another look at his notes. “One Syriscus. Freedman, keeps a stable of cooks and female entertainers, hires them out for parties and functions. Quite a large establishment.”

I nodded. “So it’s not certain that Syriscus himself would recognise her. It’d be an overseer or a manager who’d have regular contact with the stock-in-trade.”

“Presumably.”

“And he,” I went on, “gives a description to the patrol sergeants: so high, dark hair, so on and so forth. Probably a description that’d fit half the young women in Syracuse. So the chances of finding her, if she doesn’t want to be found—”

Orestes nodded. “Pity, that,” he said. “Our only possible witness.”

“And if she had seen anything,” I went on, “and if she managed to get outside the wall – if she had the sense she was born with she’d run and keep on running.” I sighed. “She must’ve got out somehow, or she’d have been found. Now we’ve got two inexplicable escapes instead of one.”

“Unless,” Orestes pointed out reasonably, “they escaped together.”

I shook my head. “A joint venture,” I said. “Co-operation in the achievement of a common purpose. I don’t think so. Naso gets drunk and fancies a quick one with the first girl he can lay his hands on. He carries her outside, they do the deed, and then they put their heads together and figure out a way of scaling the wall and evading the guards, something beyond the wit of us two distinguished scientists. And we’re sober. No, I don’t think so at all.”

Orestes nodded. “So?”

“So,” I concluded, “I don’t think Naso got out; I think he was got out by a person or persons unknown. In which case, the girl was got out too.”

“Because she was a witness?”

I shrugged. “Why not just kill her and leave her lying?” I asked. “Come to that, why disappear Naso, rather than just cut his throat and save the bother of moving the corpse over such a discouragingly formidable series of obstacles? And as for the jar of sprats—” I shook my head. “Words fail me,” I said.

Orestes grinned at me. “I think,” he said, “that Naso climbed out and took the girl with him over the wall. No, listen,” he added, as I started to object. “I can’t tell you how he might have done it, but he was a soldier, maybe he was good at silently climbing walls and evading guards. Maybe he thought it’d be a lark. Anyway, he and the girl sneak out somehow. And once he’s outside, roaming around the city, that’s when he’s killed and stuck in the jar, which happens to be the handiest hiding-place at the time.”

“Motive?”

“How about robbery?” Orestes said hopefully. “Nothing political, just everyday