Robert Howard - ROBERT E. HOWARD Ultimate Collection – 300+ Cult Classics

Wait!' interposed Demetrio. 'Call your dogs off, Dionus. I'm not convinced that he is the murderer. You fool,' he added in a whisper, 'wait until we can summon more men, or trick him into laying down his sword.' Demetrio did not wish to forgo the advantage of his civilized mind by allowing matters to change to a physical basis, where the wild beast ferocity of the barbarian might even balance the odds against him.

'Very well,' grunted Dionus grudgingly. 'Fall back, men, but keep an eye on him.'

'Give me your sword,' said Demetrio.

'Take it if you can,' snarled Conan. Demetrio shrugged his shoulders.

'Very well. But don't try to escape. Four men with crossbows watch the house on the outside. We always throw a cordon about a house before we enter it.'

The barbarian lowered his blade, though he only slightly relaxed the tense watchfulness of his attitude. Demetrio turned again to the corpse.

'Strangled,' he muttered. 'Why strangle him when a sword-stroke is so much quicker and surer? These Cimmerians are a bloody race, born with a sword in their hand, as it were; I never heard of them killing a man in this manner.'

'Perhaps to divert suspicion,' muttered Dionus.

'Possibly.' He felt the body with experienced hands. 'Dead possibly half an hour,' he muttered. 'If Conan tells the truth about when he entered the Temple he would hardly have had time to commit the murder before Arus entered. But he may be lying—he might have broken in earlier.'

'I climbed the wall after Arus made the last round,' Conan growled.

'So you say.' Demetrio brooded for a space over the dead man's throat, which had been literally crushed to a pulp of purplish flesh. The head sagged awry on splintered vertebrae. Demetrio shook his head in doubt.

'Why should a murderer use a pliant cable apparently thicker than a man's arm?' he muttered. 'And what terrible constriction was applied to so crush the man's heavy neck.'

He rose and walked to the nearest door opening into the corridor.

'Here is a bust knocked from a stand near the door,' he said, 'and here the polished floor is scratched and the hangings in the doorway are pulled awry as if a clutching hand had grasped them—perhaps for support. Kallian Publico must have been attacked in that room. Perhaps he broke away from the assailant, or dragged the fellow with him as he fled. Anyway, he ran staggeringly out into the corridor where the murderer must have followed and finished him.'

'And if this heathen isn't the murderer, where is he?' demanded the prefect.

'I haven't exonerated the Cimmerian yet,' snapped the Inquisitor. 'But we'll investigate that room and—' He halted and wheeled, listening. From the street had sounded a sudden rattle of chariot wheels, which approached rapidly, then ceased abruptly.

'Dionus!' snapped the Inquisitor. 'Send two men to find that chariot. Bring the driver here.'

'From the sound,' said Arus, who was familiar with all the noises of the street, 'I'd say it stopped in front of Promero's house, just on the other side of the silk-merchant's shop.'

'Who is Promero?' asked Demetrio.

'Kallian Publico's chief clerk.'

'Bring him here with the chariot driver,' snapped Demetrio. 'We'll wait until they come before we examine that room.'

Two guardsmen clomped away. Demetrio still studied the body; Dionus, Arus and the remaining policemen watched Conan, who stood, sword in hand, like a bronze figure of brooding menace. Presently sandalled feet re-echoed outside, and the two guardsmen entered with a strongly built, dark-skinned man in the helmet and tunic of a charioteer, with a whip in his hand; and a small, timid-looking individual, typical of that class which, risen from the ranks of artisans, supplies right-hand men for wealthy merchants and traders.

This one recoiled with a cry from the sprawling bulk on the floor.

'Oh, I knew evil would come of this!'

'You are Promero, the clerk, I suppose. And you?'

'Enaro, Kallian Publico's charioteer.'

'You do not seem overly moved at the sight of his corpse,' observed Demetrio.

'Why should I be moved?' the dark eyes flashed. 'Someone has only done what I dared not, but longed to do.'

'So!' murmured the Inquisitor. 'Are you a free man?'

Enaro's eyes were bitter as he drew aside his tunic, showing the brand of the debtor-slave on his shoulder.

'Did you know your master was coming here tonight?'

'No. I brought the chariot to the Temple this evening for him as usual. He entered it and I drove toward his villa. But before we came to the Palian Way, he ordered me to turn and drive him back. He seemed much agitated in his mind.'

'And did you drive him back to the Temple?'

'No. He bade me stop at Promero's house. There he dismissed me, ordering me to return there for him shortly after midnight.'

'What time was this?'

'Shortly after dusk. The streets were almost deserted.'

'What did you do then?'

'I returned to the slave quarters where I remained until it was time to return to Promero's house. I drove straight there, and your men seized me as I talked with Promero in his door.'

'You have no idea why Kallian went to Promero's house?'

'He didn't speak of his business to his slaves.'

Demetrio turned to Promero. 'What do you know about this?'

'Nothing.' The clerk's teeth chattered as he spoke.

'Did Kallian Publico come to your house as the charioteer says?'

'Yes.' 'How long did he stay?'

'Only a few minutes. Then he left.'

'Did he come from your house to the Temple?'

'I don't know!' The clerk's voice was shrill with taut nerves.

'Why did he come to your house?'

'To—to talk matters of business with me.'

'You're lying,' snapped Demetrio. Why did he come to your house?'

'I don't know! I don't know anything!' Promero was growing hysterical. 'I had nothing to do with it—'

'Make him talk, Dionus,' snapped Demetrio, and Dionus grunted and nodded to one of his men who, grinning savagely, moved toward the two captives.

'Do you know who I am?' he growled, thrusting his head forward and staring domineeringly at his shrinking prey.

'You're Posthumo,' answered the charioteer sullenly. 'You gouged out a girl's eye in the Court of Justice because she wouldn't give you information incriminating her lover.'

'I always get what I go after!' bellowed the guardsman, the veins in his thick neck swelling, and his face growing purple, as he seized the wretched clerk by the collar of his tunic, twisting it so the man was half strangled.

'Speak up, you rat!' he growled. 'Answer the Inquisitor.' 'Oh Mitra, mercy!' screamed the wretch. 'I swear that—'

Posthumo slapped him terrifically first on one side of the face and then on the other, and continued the interrogation by flinging him to the floor and kicking him with vicious accuracy.

'Mercy!' moaned the victim. 'I'll tell—I'll tell anything—'

'Then get up, you cur!' roared Posthumo, swelling with self-importance. 'Don't lie there whining.'

Dionus cast a quick glance at Conan to see if he were properly impressed.

'You see what happens to those who cross the police,' he said.

The Cimmerian spat with a sneer of cruel contempt for the moaning clerk.

'He's a weakling and a fool,' he growled. 'Let one of you touch me and I'll spill his guts on the floor.'

'Are you ready to talk?' asked Demetrio tiredly. He found these scenes wearingly monotonous.

'All I know,' sobbed the clerk, dragging himself to his feet and whimpering like a beaten dog in his pain, 'is that Kallian came to my house shortly after I arrived—I left the Temple at the same time he did—and sent his chariot away. He threatened me with discharge if I ever spoke of it. I am a poor man, without friends or favor. Without my position with him, I would starve.'