Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

Relief washed over his face like a wave on a beach. “Oh. It’s just about the body, then?” He shook his head ruefully, trying to look concerned. “Poor Aulus Cosconius. I’d done a fair amount of business for him over the years.”

“Was there any dispute over your payment?”

He looked surprised that I should ask. “No. He paid in full for that job months ago. He’d been planning to put up a big tenement in the Subura, but he canceled that a few days ago.”

“Did he say why?”

“No, just that he didn’t want to start anything big with uncertain times ahead. I thought he meant we might have a dictator next year. You never can tell what that might mean.”

“Very true,” I said, my gaze wandering out over one of Rome’s most spectacular views, the eye-stunning expanse of the Circus Maximus stretching out below us. To a native son of Rome, that view is immensely satisfying because it combines three of our passions: races, gambling, and enormous, vulgar buildings. His gaze followed mine.

“Ah, aedile, I take it you’ll be organizing the races next month?”

“To the great distress of my purse, yes.”

“Do you know who’s driving in the first race?”

“Victor for the Reds, Androcles for the Greens, Philip for the Blues, and Paris for the Whites.” I could have reeled off the names of all sixteen horses they would be driving as well. I was good at that sort of thing.

“You Caecilians are Reds, aren’t you?”

“Since Romulus,” I told him, knowing what was coming.

“I support the Blues. Fifty sesterces on Philip in the first race, even money?” He undoubtedly knew the names of all the horses as well.

“The Sparrow has a sore forefoot,” I said, naming the Reds’ near-side trace horse. “Give me three to two.”

“Done!” he grinned. We took out the little tablets half the men in Rome carry around to record bets. With our styli we scratched our names and bets in each other’s tablets. He walked away whistling, and I felt better, too. Victor had assured me personally that the Sparrow’s foot would be fine in plenty of time for the race. I flicked the accumulation of wax from the tip of my stylus, my mind going back to the condition of Cosconius’s body.

I had dismissed Varro as a suspect in the murder. Building contractors as a class are swindlers rather than murderers, and his manner was all wrong. But our little bet had set me on a promising mental trail. My borrowed lictor was sitting on the base of the statue of Proserpina that stood in front of the temple before the restorations commissioned by Macaenas. He looked bored senseless. I summoned him.

“Let’s go to the Forum.” At that he brightened. Everything really interesting was happening in the Forum. In the Forum, lictors were respected as symbols of imperium. With him preceding me, we went down the hill and across the old Cattle Market and along the Tuscan Street to the Forum.

The place was thronged, as usual. It held an aura of barely-contained menace in that unruly year, but people still respected the symbol of the fasces and made way for the lictor. I made a slow circuit of the area, finding out who was there and, more important, who was not. To my great relief, neither Clodius nor Milo was around with their crowds of thugs. Among the candidates for the next year’s offices I saw the young Quintus Cosconius. Unlike the others standing for the tribuneship in their specially whitened togas, he wore a dingy brown toga, and he had not shaved his face nor combed his hair, all in token of mourning.

On the steps of the Basilica Opimia I found Cicero, surrounded as always by clients and friends. Ordinarily I would have waited upon his notice like everyone else, but my office and my lictor allowed me to approach him at once.

“Good morning, aedile,” he saluted, always punctilious in matters of office. He raised an eyebrow at sight of my lictor. “Does your office now carry imperium? I must have dozed off during the last senate meeting.”

“Good morning, Marcus Tullius, and no, I’m just carrying out an investigation for Varus. I would greatly appreciate your advice.”

“Of course.” We made that little halfturn that proclaimed that we were now in private conference, and the others directed their attention elsewhere. “Is it the murder of Aulus Cosconius? Shocking business.”

“Exactly. What were the man’s political leanings, if any?”

“He was a dreadfully old fashioned man, the sort who opposes almost anything unsanctioned by our remote ancestors. Like most of the men involved in city property trade, he supported Crassus. Before he left for Syria, Crassus told them all to fight Pompey’s efforts to become dictator. That’s good advice, even coming from Crassus. I’ve spent months trying to convince the tribunes not to introduce legislation to that effect.”

“What about next year’s tribunes?” I asked.

“Next year’s? I’m having trouble enough with the ones we have now.”