Ode To A Banker Part 35

'Understandable. Now-you used to like Diomedes once, but your feelings have changed. Do you want to tell us about that?'

'No!' she squeaked indignantly.

'He's very interested in literature, he told me. Did you decide he was only after you because you would inherit the scriptorium?'

'I was never interested in him nor he in me.'

'Well, you certainly don't like him now. You won't speak to him and you want his possessions removed from your house. Did something happen to make you feel so strongly? Did he do something?'

Vibia shook her head in silence.

'I need to know this, Vibia. Why didn't you tell Diomedes about his poor father dying? A harsh person might wonder: Maybe she thought he already knew.' Vibia still stubbornly refused to be drawn. 'Of course, he was being religious all day, wasn't he? Be warned, Vibia - if I could prove Diomedes was not at the Temple when he says, I would look at him very closely as a suspect, and I would look at you as well!'

Under the layers of face decoration, Vibia may have gone pale. She made no further protest; I reckoned she wanted to defend herself, but something held her back.

I walked back across the room, crossing the rug that lay where the body was found. I bent down and replaced the rug to lie the way Diomedes had done. 'Diomedes, I noticed you lay down in an east-west direction. You followed the real line of the body, of course.' I paused for a second theatrically, as if honouring the corpse. 'Anyone would think you knew.'

Diomedes made as if to speak, but his mother gripped him tightly by the arm.

'Now then!' I tackled the authors and Euschemon. 'Chrysippus spent that morning reading new ma.n.u.scripts. My first thought was that he might have been killed by a disgruntled author. Avienus and Turius both needed him alive so he could pay blackmail demands. Were there advantages or disadvantages in his death for the rest of you? What has been the result? Euschemon, have you kept the status quo?'

Euschemon looked reluctant, though he piped up: 'We are, actually, dropping all this group from our list, I am sure they understand. They were Chrysippus' personal clients, a close circle he supported as artistic patron. Once the scriptorium fell into new hands - whether Vibia had sold it or kept it herself - these authors became candidates for dismissal. They are all bright men, Falco,' he commented. 'They would have known the risks.'

'So they owed their patronage and publication to Chrysippus, and they knew they might lose both if he died.' I ran my eyes along the line, 'Except for you, Urba.n.u.s. You were leaving him anyway.'

'And I never came here that day,' he reminded me.

'I believe you. One extra person did visit him in your place,' I said. Then I signalled Pa.s.sus to send in the slave who ran errands.

He marched in confidently, then quailed when he saw how many people were here. I was brisk with him.

'Just one question. The day your master died, you saw a would-be author who was not on the visiting list coming to the house. Will you now point out that man?'

'That's him!' squeaked the slave, his voice breaking. As I expected, he pointed straight at Philomelus.

LVI.

DID YOU come here that day, Philomelus?' The young waiter stood up again. 'Yes, Falco.' He spoke quietly. Though he looked nervous - and behind him his father looked nearly frantic - the young man met my gaze without wavering.

'You saw Chrysippus?'

'Yes.'

'Alone?'

'Yes.'

'Tell us what you talked about.'

'I have written a stow,' Philomelus said this time flus.h.i.+ng shyly. 'I wanted him to publish it. He had seen a copy ages ago, and had not returned the scrolls. I came to beg him to take it for publication - though I had made up my mind to retrieve the scrolls, if he did not want it.'

'What happened that day? Did he agree to buy your work?'

'No.'

'Did he perhaps ask you to pay him a fee to publish it?'

'No.'

'So what happened?'

'Chrysippus was very evasive. Eventually he told me it was just not good enough.'

'Did you get it back?'

Philomelus looked thoroughly downcast. He made a heartbroken gesture. 'No, Falco. Chrysippus confessed that he had lost the scrolls.'

I looked around the library. 'Well, there are certainly a great many doc.u.ments here; he could well have mislaid one. Careless, though. He should have looked for your ma.n.u.script. It was your property - physically and creatively. To you, it represented months of work and all your hopes. How did you react?'

'I was devastated.' Clearly, Philomelus was still deeply affected.

'Angry?'

'Yes,' admitted the youth honestly.

'Did you threaten him?'

He hesitated. 'Yes.'

'With what?' Philomelus did not answer. 'Violence?' I asked sharply.

'No, I never thought of that,' Philomelus sighed, conceding ruefully that he lacked both aggression and physique. 'I told him that I would tell my father what had happened, and our family would never do business with him again. Oh, I know it sounds feeble!' he quavered. 'I was in anguish. But it was all I could think of to say.'

Pisarchus stood up and put a heavy arm around his shoulders. The threat about withdrawing their business would have been carried out - though I was not sure Chrysippus would have cared.

'Then what?' I asked.

'I went back to the popina,' Philomelus replied. 'Then I was sent home early because the vigiles had complained about the hotpots; we partly closed down until they tired of checking us.'

'You did not come back here?'

'No. I went straight to my lodgings, faced up to what had happened, and started to write out the whole story again.'

'Very professional!' I applauded. Now I turned nasty: 'Quite coolheaded too - if you had battered Chrysippus to a pulp before you left this library!'

Philomelus wanted to protest, but I stopped him defending himself. 'Don't despair,' I told him in a charitable tone. 'Your ma.n.u.script may not have disappeared.' I signalled Aelia.n.u.s to send in Pa.s.sus, and I myself brought forward Helena Justina. Fusculus by prior arrangement went out to take up Pa.s.sus' post with the witnesses. As he walked by, I muttered in his ear a reminder about a search Petronius had ordered.

I resumed the debate.

'Ma.n.u.scripts are important in this case. My a.s.sociates have been cataloguing the scrolls that were found here after Chrysippus died. Pa.s.sus, you first. Will you tell us about the majority - the scrolls with t.i.tle pages - please?'

Pa.s.sus reiterated what he had told me: that apparently Chrysippus had been making marketing decisions, mainly in the negative. Pa.s.sus gave the report competently, though was more nervous in front of the large audience than I had expected. I indicated that he could sit with Petronius.

Now it was Helena's turn. Unafraid of the crowd, she waited quietly for me to give the lead. She looked neat in blue, not extravagantly dressed or bejewelled. Her hair was turned up in a simpler style than usual, while unlike Lysa and Vibia who were bareanned and brazen, she had sleeves to the elbow and kept a modest stole over one shoulder. She could have been my correspondence secretary, but for her refined voice and confidence.

'Helena Justina, I asked you to read an adventure tale.' I nodded to the seats behind us, where the scrolls were lying. Philomelus looked as though he wanted to rush over there and search for his beloved ma.n.u.script. 'Can we have your comments, please?'

I had not rehea.r.s.ed her in detail, but Helena knew I wanted her to talk first about the one we thought was called Zisimilla and Magarone, the awful yarn she could not bear to finish. Now I knew Philomelus had been told his story was not good enough to publish, I thought perhaps he had written this. Mind you, it presumed that in turning him down, Chrysippus had had enough critical judgement to recognise a dud. Turius had libelled the arts patron as a know-nothing. None of the others, including his scriptorium manager Euschemon, had ever suggested that Turius libelled him.

'I hope it is in order for me to speak,' demurred Helena.

'You are in the presence of some excellent businesswomen,' I joked, indicating Lysa and Vibia.

Helena would have been debarred from giving evidence in a law court, but this was in essence a private gathering. Behind us, the vigiles representatives were looking glum about her coming here, but it was my show, so they said nothing. Petronius Longus would divorce a wife who thought she could do this. (Helena would contend that his old-fas.h.i.+oned moral att.i.tude might explain why Arria Silvia was divorcing him.) 'Just speak at me, if the situation worries you,' I offered. It was unnecessary. Helena smiled, looked around the room, and firmly addressed everyone.

'Pa.s.sus and I were asked to examine various scrolls which had lost their t.i.tle pages during the struggle when Chrysippus was killed. We managed to reconstruct the sets. One ma.n.u.script was an author's copy of a very long adventure in the style of a Greek novel. The subject matter was poorly developed, and the author had overreached himself.'

Philomelus was hanging his head gloomily 'I would like to stress,' Helena said, sending him a kind glance, 'these are personal opinions - though I'm afraid Pa.s.sus and I were in frill agreement.'

'Was the quality up to publication standard?'

'I would say no, Marcus Didius.'

'Close?'

'Nowhere near.'

'Helena Justina is being polite,' muttered Pa.s.sus from the vigiles row. 'It absolutely stank.'

'Thanks, Pa.s.sus; I know you are a connoisseur.' He looked pleased with himself 'Helena Justina, was there anything else you should tell us about this particular ma.n.u.script?'

'Yes. This may be important. There were extra scrolls, written in another hand and a different style. Someone had clearly attempted revisions.'

'Trying to improve the original draft?'

'Trying,' said Helena, in her restrained way.

'Succeeding?'

'I fear not.'

I sensed a mood change among the authors' seats. I turned to them.

'Any of you know about this ghostwriting?' n.o.body answered. 'They may call it editing,' Helena suggested. I knew her dry tone; she was being very rude. People sn.i.g.g.e.red.

'I would like to know who did this trial revision,' I fretted.

'From the style,' said Helena crisply, 'I would think it was Pacuvius.'

'h.e.l.lo! Going into prose, Scrutator?' We gave the big man a chance to reply but he shrugged and looked indifferent. 'What made you think of him?' I asked Helena. 'You are familiar with his work, no doubt. Did it have meticulous social satire, topicality, biting shafts of wit, and eloquent poetry?'

'No,' she said. 'Well, since n.o.body owns up to the revisions, I can be frank. The new version was long-winded, mediocre, and ham-fisted. The characters were lifeless, the narrative was tedious, the attempts at humour were misplaced and the total effect was even more muddled than the first draft.'

'Oh, steady on!' Pacuvius roared, stung at last into admitting he had been involved. 'You can't blame me - I was sculpting a middenheap of c.r.a.p!'

The ensuing hubbub stilled somewhat eventually. To mollify him I a.s.sured him that Helena had only been trying to inspire his admission. Helena remained demure. Pacuvius probably realised her ferocious critique was real. I asked him to explain his role.

'Look, it's no real secret,' he bl.u.s.tered. 'Chrysippus used me sometimes to tidy up ragged work by amateurs. This, for some reason, was a project he was keen on at one time. I told him all along it was hopeless. He showed it to some of the others and they refused to touch the thing.' The others were grinning, all relieved they had no responsibility. 'The plot was shapeless, it lacked a decent premise anyway. Helena Justina is fairly astute about the faults.'

Pacuvius was patronising, but Helena let it pa.s.s.

'Are ma.n.u.scripts frequently rewritten in detail, prior to formal copying?' I queried, looking shocked.

Most of the authors laughed. Euschemon coughed helplessly. After a moment, he explained. 'There are works, Falco, sometimes by very famous people, which have been through numerous redrafts. Some, in their published form, are almost entirely by somebody else.'

'Jupiter! Do you approve?'

'Personally, no.'

'And your late master?'

'Chrysippus took the line that if the finished set was readable and saleable, what did it matter who actually wrote the words?'

'What do you think, Euschemon?'

'Since enhancing his reputation is one reason for an author to publish, I regard major reworking by others as hypocrisy.'

'Did you and Chrysippus have disagreements?'

'Not violent ones.' Euschernon smiled, aware of my reasoning.

'There are more sinister crimes,' I decided, though I did agree with him. The public might feel cheated, if they knew.'

'Misled they may be sometimes,' Euschemon said. But we can't accuse the disappointed reading public of killing a publisher for it.'

I felt the joke was out of place. 'While you're helping me, Euschemon, can you tell me - does a copying house receive large quant.i.ties of unpublishable work?'

Euschemon threw up his hands. 'Cartloads. We could build a new Alp for Hannibal from our slush pile - complete with several model elephants.'

'Your "slush pile" is mainly rejects - how do the authors generally take it?'

'They either slink off silently - or they protest at enormous length.'