Mary Reed - Three for a Letter

“You didn’t remain with the whale until the performance?”

“No.” Hero’s tone was curt. “There was no reason for me to stand guard. The servants had had strict instructions not to touch it. Then too, once the whale is prepared it doesn’t take an expert to set it in motion.”

“But if something had gone wrong?”

“Naturally I would have been sought out immediately.”

John expressed some surprise that the other had not wished to see his invention’s performance.

Hero laughed. “I was thoroughly sick of seeing it working, we’d tested it so often! To tell the truth, I was happy to have finished my contribution to the festivities.”

“I gather that anyone could have started the whale’s mechanisms?” John asked.

Hero indicated a short metal rod protruding from the side of the whale. “They can only be set in motion by removing this rod, although that wouldn’t be done until Barnabas had climbed into the whale and given a specific signal. However, yes, anyone could start it-provided he were strong enough. Try it yourself.”

John grasped the metal rod with both hands and pulled, feeling it move only grudgingly. “An excellent safety feature, Hero,” he congratulated the man. “But let us consider all possibilities, however unlikely they seem to be. For example, a large number of servants were moving around the hall, many of them carrying heavy platters. If one had accidentally struck the whale with some force, perhaps loosening the rod…?”

“We’d thought of that as well. The whale was taken into the villa just before the banquet and positioned in the small storeroom off the end of the dining room. So it was well out of harm’s way but ready to be wheeled out to the back of the stage just before it was needed.”

“You seem to have considered every eventuality. One final question, then. Can the jaws be operated separately from its other mechanisms?”

“No.” Hero’s dark features furrowed into a scowl. “I rather suspect someone pried them apart with an iron bar. They’d close with tremendous force as soon as the bar was removed, of course. But once again it would require a very powerful man to lever them open when the safety mechanism is set.” Aware of his own muscularity, he met John’s questioning gaze squarely. “A man with two arms.”

“But not necessarily a large man,” John replied.

“You have deduced my thinking exactly, Lord Chamberlain.”

“Do you have any particular reason to suspect Barnabas?”

“The most obvious one. He’s run away, hasn’t he?”

***

“Wherever Barnabas may be, he’s not on my estate. My servants searched all night.” Zeno sounded weary as he led John through the garden. This morning the old man was plumaged like a particularly colorful bird in a fine cotton dalmatic dyed a glaring orange.

He had paused beside one of the shrines scattered around his garden. Placed beside a pine tree, it displayed a sculpture set upon a black marble boulder. John noted with some discomfit that the statue was a depiction of the goddess Cybele, flanked by lions.

“What a dreadful trial these past few months have been.” Zeno sighed. “I knew no good would come of it. ‘You’re all by yourself on that huge estate,’ Theodora informed me. ‘And right by the sea,’ she said. So of course this was a perfect place to send her little hostages for the summer.”

“Her diplomatic guests, you mean,” John replied with a thin smile.

“Oh yes, of course that’s what I really meant! I am just a silly, careless-tongued old man. Certainly not a proper host for royal children.”

“When I spoke to Anatolius before he returned to the city, he mentioned you got along wonderfully with the twins.”

Zeno beamed. “My nephew is too kind, John. If it had been only the children who came to live with me, it would have been different. But my household has had to endure their entire entourage, including their saucy nursemaid and a lugubrious tutor, not to mention those two ladies-in-waiting Theodora foisted upon me as well. With their airs of superiority and the way they order my servants around, you’d think they were waiting to become empresses themselves!”

“Calyce and Livia?”

“You’ve talked to them?”

“Only briefly. The children’s playmate, Poppaea, isn’t Livia her mother? The woman with the round face and sharp tongue? There’s a family resemblance there, in the face at least.”

“Ah, John, what a horror it’s been with all these women constantly under foot. And just between us, the empress has been particularly trying. In fact, she’s visited me more often than her tax collectors this summer. What’s worse, while she’s staying here she treats my estate like her private gardens at the palace, wandering about unattended like some foolish girl. Can you imagine what it’s been like, half-expecting to run straight into the empress every time you walk around a bush?”

“Very distressing, I should think,” John replied.

“And Anatolius hasn’t visited me at all this summer either, apart from accepting my invitation to the banquet. It’s as if he is avoiding me.”

“It’s more likely he was avoiding the empress.”

“Yes, probably. Do you suppose she is still angry over those verses he wrote about her? Still, even though half the palace guard is tramping through my garden, Barnabas is not. There isn’t a stone my servants haven’t turned over looking for him.” He patted the large boulder beside him. “Or at least all the ones that could be turned over.”

“Barnabas may still be hiding nearby,” John observed.

Zeno blinked, as if surprised by the notion. “But why? If he committed this terrible crime, as it seems you suspect, wouldn’t it be natural for him to flee?”

“One of the royal twins is indeed dead, Zeno, but the other is still alive and therefore could be in great danger,” John pointed out.

“Yes, I see your point. Let me assure you that Sunilda is being continually watched and is quite safe from any murderous mime. You can be certain of that.”

John walked on, forcing Zeno to follow. He did not care to remain in the vicinity of the representation of Cybele, whose priests so joyously castrated themselves.

They followed the winding path through banks of shrubbery and emerged into an open space graced by a small fountain before strolling down a track leading through the olive grove beyond.

“Gaius believes the boy’s death was an accident, but Hero appears to think it must have been murder,” John remarked.

“What do you think, John? Could it have been murder? I’ve been berating myself since last night for the boy’s death,” Zeno confessed. “To be honest, this morning I was ready to order all these automatons of mine thrown into the sea. Deadly abominations! Yet if it was a human hand that killed the boy rather than an accident brought about by my vanity, for I wanted to impress the empress, you see, well, that’s a different matter entirely.”

John did not point out that if Hero’s whale were proved to have accidentally caused the youngster’s death, both the Egyptian inventor and his employer would be likely to lose their heads, unless Theodora happened to be feeling less than merciful. In that case, they would suffer a fate far more terrible before death finally ended their agonies.

“On reflection, though,” Zeno continued, “how could it have been an accident? Barnabas and Hero spent hours together. Every time I visited the workshops they were deep in discussion about the whale’s mechanisms, making absolutely certain that nothing could go wrong even though it goes without saying that Hero would have prepared everything meticulously. He is not a man to leave anything to chance.”