Gary Corby - Death Ex Machina

“I see.”

The Polemarch said, “I must warn you that it’s very hard to obtain justice for a metic. Juries are not generally sympathetic.”

I said, “Do you know who was the patron of a man named Romanos?”

The Polemarch asked, “Why do you care about this Romanos?”

“Because he’s the dead man.”

“That sounds like a good reason. Everything you want to know will be in the records.” To my blank look he added, “We record the patron of every metic. If the metic does anything wrong, it will reflect on the patron.”

“I see.”

The Polemarch banged on his desk, which wobbled under the pounding despite its sturdiness. The Polemarch was a strong man. The door behind me opened. An assistant poked his head in.

“Yes sir?”

“A metic named Romanos,” the Polemarch said. “Who’s his patron?”

“It’ll be in the records,” the assistant said promptly.

“Yes, that’s why I’m asking you,” said the Polemarch. “Is there anything else?” the Polemarch asked me.

“No sir. Thank you for your time.”

“Then go with Andros here. He’ll give you everything we have on this Romanos.”

Andros was a short, wiry man who liked to talk. He led me out of the building, out of the agora, and down the road. He talked every step of the way, about his job (tiring), about the price of poultry (too high), about the weather (too hot), about his children (unruly). It was a relief when we finally came to a nondescript building, a small warehouse on the main road in the unfashionable southern deme of Coele.

“This is where we keep the records,” Andros said.

A slave stood guard outside, but otherwise there was nothing to indicate this was a government building.

“I’ve lived all my life in Athens,” I said. “But I never knew this place was here.”

“No reason why you should,” Andros replied. “It’s just a storehouse. The only people who come here are assistants to the Polemarch.”

“Do the other archons have a store like this?”

“I suppose,” Andros shrugged.

The slave opened the door for us.

The building was dark within. As my eyes adjusted I saw the reason why. Every wall had been covered in shelves of thin pinewood. The shelves covered every window. Upon them were heaped scrolls, some in cases, some lying loose, but most in pottery jars that lay sideways to offer the scrolls within. The horizontal shelving visibly strained under the weight.

I took one step inside, and almost fell over. My foot had kicked something.

There were more jars on the dirt floor. These were upright, but for the ones that had been knocked over. Like the scroll jars on the shelves, there poked out of them more papyrus than I’d ever seen in my life. To get from one end of the room to the other would be like climbing over a field of rocks.

There was a distinct musky odor. One that I knew all too well. A cowardly part of my anatomy shrank inward at the memory.

Something scuttled out of the jar I’d knocked over. More than one something. In the dark of the floor I couldn’t see what it was.

Andros said, “Don’t mind them. That’s just the mice.”

“Terrific.”

“They seem to eat the old paper.”

But for the scrolls, the jars, the shelves, and the mice, the room was empty. No one worked here. In the close, dusty air that made me want to sneeze, the lack of light, and the mice, I wouldn’t want to work in here either. I’d be happy to get my scroll and get out.

“Thanks, Andros,” I said. “Which jar has the Romanos scroll?”

“How should I know?” he said.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I have no idea,” he said cheerily. “We just dump all the paper in here.”

“There must be some sort of order to all this, mustn’t there?”

“No.”

“Then how does anybody ever find what they’re looking for?

“You weren’t listening, Nicolaos. Nobody ever reads these records. We just keep them.”

“The Polemarch said the records were consulted, whenever a metic committed a crime.”

Andros laughed. “That’s what every new Polemarch thinks. The elected officials only hold the office for a year. Either they don’t stay long enough to learn the truth, or they get disillusioned. The ones who learn the truth don’t admit in public that the system’s broken. If they did, they’d have to do something about it.”

“Then why keep the records?”

“In case someone needs to read one.”

“But you just said no one ever reads them.”

“Well, there’s you,” he said, reasonably enough.

I looked at the row upon row of scroll jars and the teeming piles of paper. I would have to read everything until I found the one page I wanted.

“This is going to take some time,” I said. I mentally added days to the time it would take me to solve this case. Many days, unless I was lucky.

“I’ll leave you to it then. Careful you don’t drop that torch. We don’t want a fire in here.” Andros turned to go, then stopped and said, “I’ll tell the slave out front to let you in whenever you want.”

Andros left.

I stood there a long time, wondering how I was going to trawl through this disaster area and at the same time conduct an investigation. Then, in a flash of inspiration, the solution came to me. It was a brilliant solution.

I found him still at the theater. He must have remained there the whole time. He seemed to be playing with sticks that he’d balanced over a stone. He looked up as I approached.

“Look at this, Nico. I think I’ve worked out how the machine lifts a man. It’s all to do with how long the lever is on each side. You see here? When one side’s longer than the other-”

“Socrates, I’ve got a job for you,” I interrupted.

“What job?” he asked suspiciously.

“You like to read, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Then you’re going to love this.”

I left Socrates inside the records warehouse, volubly protesting, but with firm instructions not to come out until he had everything he could find on Romanos. I promised to send a slave with food and spare torches.

When I emerged from the records room for the second time, I blinked and stared at the sun. It was past time to see Pericles. Where I expected to have the skin torn off me.

I lost track of time while Pericles flailed me with his words. He could be cutting even on a good day, but now he was at his brutal worst. I had no choice but to stand there and take it.

Pericles paced back and forth in angry strides across the ground of his private courtyard in his private home. His anger was such that even his own slaves quailed in the shadows. He waved his arms as he described my numerous defects.

He ended with, “You idiot, Nico. I send you to quell one simple ghost, a job anyone could do, and we end up with a crippled actor and a dead one.” He stopped his pacing to glare at me. “Are you the most incompetent private agent in Athens?”

“I’m the only private agent in Athens,” I pointed out.

“Yes, well. Point made.” Pericles resumed pacing.

I said, “I’ll add, Pericles, that you commissioned me because you said I was the best man for the job.”

“Apparently I was wrong,” Pericles said, still pacing. But that statement brought him up short. He considered his own words, then said, in a tone of surprise, “But wait, I’m almost never wrong.”

I stood silent while Pericles considered this paradox he had suddenly discovered.

A large group arrived while Pericles stood in agitated thought. The new arrivals were the senior men involved in the Great Dionysia that was due to start next day: the archons who ran the city, plus all the producers and the writers and the protagonists of each of the plays.