Gary Corby - Death Ex Machina

“What happened?”

“Sophocles wouldn’t have it. He already had Phellis earmarked for second actor. I didn’t dare insist too strongly. As it was, Sophocles looked at me a little oddly when I pressed the case for Romanos. It’s not normal, you see, for an actor to take an active interest in casting a rival.”

“How did Romanos take that news?”

“He was angry. I pointed out that I had done everything he had asked. I could not be blamed for failure. He threatened me with exposure anyway.”

“That’s why you pressed again, after Phellis was injured,” Diotima said.

“Yes. Romanos gave me a look, as you carried away Phellis. I knew what he expected of me.” Lakon knocked back the last of his third cup of wine. The slave who stood behind him filled the cup for the fourth time. At the rate he was going, Lakon would be drunk before the interview ended.

I said, “Did Romanos tell you in advance that he wanted you to recommend him that second time?”

“I resent that!” Lakon said at once in instant and unmistakable anger. He sat up straighter. “I had no knowledge that Phellis would fall. I had nothing to do with it. What’s more, I don’t think Romanos did either.”

“Oh?”

“If I had any evidence that Romanos arranged that accident, don’t you think I would have exposed him at once? It would have solved all my problems.”

It would indeed. It occurred to me though, by the same logic, that Lakon had the perfect reason to kill Romanos.

“Besides which,” Lakon added, almost as an afterthought, “I would never hurt a fellow actor.”

“What did Romanos have over you?”

“My dear fellow, you hardly expect me to tell you that. We all have peccadilloes in our past.”

“Your peccadillo is one we’ll be hearing about.”

“No you won’t.” He said it with surprising firmness. “Even if it means my death, you’ll not hear it from my lips.”

I could hear the genuine emotion in his voice, and this time, for a change, I had a feeling that Lakon wasn’t acting.

“The hold Romanos had over you was that strong?” I said.

“It was,” he said sadly. “Believe me or not, as you will. If you wish, I will swear by Zeus, by Athena, and by Dionysos whom I hold dear that I did not kill Romanos.”

There was nothing more we could do. No threat would cajole Lakon into revealing his secret. Lakon himself shut the door behind us as we departed.

“What do you think?” I asked Diotima as we walked.

“I think we need that secret,” Diotima said. “What sort of secret would a man be willing to die to protect?” she pondered.

“The sort of crime that merits death, would be my first guess,” I said.

“Then how come no one noticed it?” she said.

I had no answer to that.

“Maybe it was an unhappy love affair? Maybe he was torn apart from his true love, and they decided that if they couldn’t live together than they would die together. But then at the last moment, after she’d taken poison-”

I laughed. “What sort of idiots kill themselves merely because they can’t get married? Any couple with half a brain would simply run away.”

“We didn’t,” she pointed out.

“We were ready to!” I said.

Diotima had to concede that was true. When we had first met, during a moment of crisis, I had asked Diotima if she would run away with me, and she had said yes. Luckily circumstances had saved us the trip.

I said, “Anyway, that doesn’t explain his reticence now.”

“All right then, maybe he accidentally killed his own father?”

“I doubt it.”

“In that case he avenged himself against his father’s murderer, who as it turned out was his mother and her lover. He slaughtered them with an axe.”

“You’ve been watching too many tragedies.”

“Well so have you.”

Try as we might, we couldn’t think of a circumstance that would cause a man to be ready to face death today for something that had patently occurred many years before.

“Maybe he’s merely sensitive about something embarrassing?” Diotima suggested at last.

“Lakon doesn’t strike me as the sensitive sort,” I said.

“I’m not so sure, Nico,” said my wife. “That shallow actor’s manner he puts on might be to cover a delicate and insecure nature.”

I snorted amusement. “Yeah, right.”

“All right then,” she said crossly. “I’m the one coming up with all the ideas. Why don’t you think of something?”

“I already have.”

As we’d walked I’d led Diotima in a direction she didn’t normally like to go.

“What are we doing here ?” she said in distaste.

“Borrowing a boat.”

I knocked on the door of Pericles’s home.

Pericles and Diotima had never been friends. There was enough history among the three of us to explain the antipathy, but after three years it showed no signs of abating. I thought it odd because Diotima and Pericles were beyond doubt the two smartest people I knew.

Pericles frowned when he saw Diotima, but was too polite to throw out a lady. Instead we sat in his courtyard and discussed the case. I told him what we had learned. I finished with, “And so, Pericles, I want to borrow a boat.”

“Why?” asked Pericles.

“Why?” asked Diotima, at exactly the same time.

The two of them looked at each other, startled.

I said, “Because as far as we know, Lakon has led a blameless life, if you don’t count the possibility that he killed Romanos. If there was any stain on him during his time as an actor then Sophocles wouldn’t have had him in the play.”

“Certainly not,” Pericles said. “Sophocles is a solid citizen. What’s your point?”

“That any dark secret Lakon carries is probably a family secret,” I said. “Something beyond Athens.”

“That’s really quite clever,” Diotima murmured.

“It was Diotima’s list of great tragedies that made me think of it,” I said modestly.

“I see,” Pericles said. “What is his family’s deme?”

“Rhamnus. It’s about as far away as you can get and still be within Attica.”

Attica was the region of Hellas controlled by Athens. It was a big area. Pericles saw my point. Now I showed him the solution.

“As it happens, Rhamnus is on the coast. That’s why I want the boat.”

“How fast a boat do you want?” he asked.

“How quickly do you want the case solved?” I countered. “If we have to go overland you can add at least three days for travel alone. Maybe four if there are brigands.”

Pericles said nothing.

“Give me Salaminia ,” I said simply.

It was a measure of how far I had come that I dared ask for the fastest warship in the world. Salaminia had once carried me to distant Ionia on an urgent mission, and got me there on a single overnight stop. I knew her qualities. She could certainly get me to Rhamnus and back in a day, if we found what we were looking for quickly. Two days at the outside.

It was also a measure of how far I’d come that Pericles merely grunted.

He held out his hand and a slave instantly filled it with an ostrakon-a broken pottery shard. Pericles sent so many messages every day that he had a slave dedicated to doing nothing but collecting broken pottery.

“Take this message to her captain,” he said, scratching words into the ostrakon. “I assume you leave at first light tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Salaminia was ready on a moment’s notice, but there was nothing to be gained by departing for Rhamnus at once. The ship would only have to lie overnight in a port along the way.

Pericles handed me the order that gave me control of Salaminia. “This had better be worth it.”