Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

“If those bags inside are correctly labeled,” said Gallonius, “we’re looking at over seven thousand denarii.”

Ruso whistled softly. “The missing money.”

“So he did have it!” exclaimed Albanus. “Well done, sir!”

“He didn’t find it,” pointed out the doctor. “I did.”

Ruso tightened the drawstring on the bag. “Who opened it?”

The doctor said, “It was already open.”

Gallonius said, “The doctor was just explaining his findings. Perhaps you’d like to finish?”

“Certainly,” agreed the doctor, addressing the magistrate and pointedly ignoring Ruso. “As I said, my patient had become more and more anxious over the business of the stolen money. I had already prescribed treatment for a range of symptoms and yesterday I found the investigator here harassing him, pretending a knowledge of medicine and insisting he was not ill at all. Afterward my patient begged me for some potion to allow him to sleep. I left him with a harmless amount of poppy juice. Later that night it seems he closed the shutters and lit the brazier that the investigator admits was already in the room. Then he took the medicine and deliberately lay down to die.”

“Tragic,” declared Gallonius, looking down at the figure on the bed. “Thank you, Doctor. The investigator and I will carry on from here.” He glanced at Ruso. “A word in private, if you will.”

The doctor snapped his case shut. Albanus shot an anxious glance at Ruso, who murmured, “It’ll be all right. I’ll be down in a moment.”

After a confusion of footsteps had retreated down the stairs, Gallonius said, “Well, at least we’ve found the money, Investigator. It’s very embarrassing to find it was our own quaestor. As I’ve already said, I’m sorry we had to trouble the procurator’s office.”

“You think Nico stole it?”

Gallonius glanced around the room. “A man living in these shabby lodgings, handling large sums of money every day… when Nico realised Asper and his brother had left with no guards, the temptation was too much. He must have paid some ruffians to attack them on the road, stolen the money, and hidden it in his room. Then after you began to close in on him, he realized there was no escape.” He glanced from brazier to window. “There was nobody climbing in with lit coals, Investigator. This was a suicide.”

It was all more or less plausible, but none of it fit either with Ruso’s impression of Nico or with what he had said yesterday.

“Nico was in a position of trust,” Gallonius continued. “He couldn’t live with the shame of having betrayed his people. He left the money where it could be found and did the honorable thing.”

Ruso said, “I want that coin tested by the money changer.”

Gallonius frowned. “It’s already been tested: You can see the tags.”

“Even so.”

“I’ll call the guards and have it taken over.”

“No,” said Ruso. “We both need to keep it in sight until Satto gets it.”

Gallonius raised his eyebrows.

“This way,” said Ruso, not wanting to raise the subject of forgery, “nobody can tamper with it.”

“Very well.” Gallonius grunted as he pushed the heavy bag of coins across the floor with his foot. “While it’s being checked, I’ll call an emergency meeting of the Council and announce the news. I’m sure they will want to thank you for your efforts. And Caratius certainly should.”

“I still haven’t finished.”

“But what is there left to do? You helped us flush out the real thief and we have our money back.”

“Somebody tried to murder me.”

“Obviously some madman who feels he has a grudge. Our men will look into it. But for your own safety, you and your wife should go straight back to Londinium as soon as you’ve reported to the Council.”

“But…”

Gallonius took him by the arm. “I insist, Investigator. You’ve done an excellent job for us, we have our money back, and we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

"Sir, ” whispered Albanus as they followed Gallonius and his entourage of slaves and guards along the street toward the Forum, “if that man killed himself, I’m the emperor Augustus.”

Ruso glanced around to make sure Gavo was still following at a distance where their conversation would be covered by the bustle in the street. “I don’t trust any of these people,” he said. “I’ve just been given another order to shut up and go away, and I want Tilla safely out of here. Would you go to the mansio and make sure she’s ready to leave?”

“What about the other women, sir?”

“You can’t go around defending every woman you meet, Albanus.” Before the clerk could object he said, “Slow down and let the guards catch up.”

As Gavo drew closer Ruso turned and explained that Albanus was going somewhere else and would not need protection.

Moments later Ruso watched the guards mark his clerk’s departure down a crowded street. Even though he knew that nobody would murder either of them in the middle of town in daylight, the loss of his only ally made Ruso feel curiously vulnerable.

As they entered the Great Hall, Ruso was conscious of the babble of noise fading away. People turned to watch as magistrate and investigator made their way first down into the strong room, and then across the hall to Satto’s office carrying yet more bags of cash. Ruso was briefly grateful for the protection of his guards. Anyone bold enough to approach was blocked by a large man in chain mail. Anyone daring to call out a question-“Have you found our money?” or, “Is it true about the quaestor, sir?”-was fended off by Gallonius’s “We’ll be making an announcement later.”

Satto looked up in horror as several guards marched into his office, turned his own men out, and announced to the annoyed patrons in the queue that the money changer was closed until further notice. He was even more outraged by the demand that he perform an instant examination of numerous bags of coins, most still sealed and some old and faintly damp, that already bore his own tag. “Whose idea is this?”

“The investigator’s,” said Gallonius.

“What for?”

“We’ll be making an announcement later,” Ruso told him. “Make sure you keep the two sets of bags separate, will you? Otherwise you’ll wreck the system.”

While Satto got to work, Gallonius went off to organize his emergency Council meeting. Ruso unlocked Asper’s office. He sat in the chair that Julius Asper would have sat in, leaned his elbows on the desk where Julius Asper would have leaned them, and wondered if this was how Julius Asper had felt when he realized what was going on.

When the knock on the door finally came, he was tempted not to respond. To spin out these last few moments of peace for as long as possible. Then the rapping grew louder and he heard Dias announce, “Visitor for you, sir,” and in response to his, “Who is it?” one of the last voices he had expected to hear replied, “It’s me, Ruso. Can somebody tell me what on earth is going on?”

Ruso almost fell over the desk in his hurry to open the door. “Valens! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Frankly,” said Valens, seating himself on Asper’s desk as Ruso shut the door behind him, “I have no idea. There’s nothing wrong with Marcus. Did Tilla put you up to this?”

“Up to what?”

“Writing to say my son was ill. I’ve just ridden up here like the wind only to find that nobody’s expecting me, the place is in chaos, half the staff are in tears, and my wife’s too busy fussing about Tilla to bother thanking me. So the guard fellow with the dangly bits in his hair brought me over to ask you what the hell’s going on.”