Three Hands In The Fountain

`Fleas might drop off before they bite,' scoffed Sergius. He decided to shout in for Scythax to supply a professional opinion.

Scythax, the troop's doctor, was a dour Oriental freedman his hair lay in a perfectly straight line on his eyebrows as if he had trimmed it himself using a cupping vessel on his head as a straight-edge. The previous years his brother had been murdered, since when he had become even more taciturn. When he did speak his manner was suspicious and his tone depressing. That didn't rule out medical jokes.' 'I can't do anything for this patient.'

`Oh, give it a try, Hippocrates! He might be very rich. They're always desperate to go on for ever, and they pay well for a hint of extra, life.'

`You're a clown,' Falco.'

`Well, we didn't expect you to sew these back on.'

`Who lost them?'

`We don't know.'

`What can you tell us about them?' asked Petro.

Sergius expounded his theory that the hands had come from different people -. Scythax said nothing for long enough to cast doubt on the idea, but then confirmed it. He was a true medical man; he knew just how to aggravate people with his superior scientific air.

`Are they male' corpses?' Petro muttered.

`Could be.' The doctor was as definite as the route through a marsh in a thick mist.; `Probably not. Too small. More likely women, children, or slaves.'

`What about how they came to be separated from their arms.?' I enquired. `Could they have been dug up from a grave by dogs or foxes?' Before it was made illegal to bury bodies within the city boundary, there had been a graveyard on the Esquiline Hill. The area still gave out a stink. It had been turned into gardens, but I would not fancy double digging an asparagus patch there.

Scythax peered at the hands again, unwilling to touch them. Sergius picked one up fearlessly and held it so the doctor could inspect the wrist. Scythax jumped backwards. He pursed his lips fastidiously and said: `I can't see any, identifiable animal teeth-marks. It looks to me as if the wristbone has been severed with a blade.'

`That's murder, then!' crowed' Sergius. He brought the hand right up in front of his face and peered at it, like someone inspecting a small turtle.

`What kind of blade?' demanded Petro of Scythax. `I have no idea.'

`Was it a neat job?'

`The hand is too decomposed to tell.'

`Look at the other one too,' I commanded. Sergius dropped the first and eagerly offered the second relic to Scythax, who went even paler as, its thumb finally dropped off.

`Impossible to say what happened.'

`There's about the same amount of wrist attached.'

`That's true, Falco. There is some arm bone. This is not a natural separation at the joint, such as might occur through decay.'

Sergius laid the second hand back on the bench again, carefully aligning the loose thumb in what he deemed to be its natural position.

`Thanks, Scythax,' said Petro gloomily.

`Don't mention it,' muttered the doctor. `If you find any more pieces of these people, consult another physician if you please.' He glared at Sergius: `And you – wash your hands!' Not much point, if all the available water, came from contaminated aqueducts.

`Take a headache powder and have a lie down for a while,' Sergius advised humorously as the doctor fled. Scythax was notorious for his reluctance to prescribe this remedy to people who needed it; his normal routine was to tell badly wounded vigiles to get straight back on duty and take plenty of exercise. He was a hard man, with the living. Apparently we had found his weakness with our sad sections of the dead.

Ours too, in fact.

THIRTEEN

By next day it was clear that the water board's public slaves had been talking among themselves. They had devised a competition to see who could produce the most revolting `evidence' and persuade us to let them hand it over. They trotted up Fountain Court looking meek and innocent, and furtively carrying parcels. They were bastards. Their offerings were useless. They smelt too. Sometimes we could tell what the ghastly item was; mostly we preferred not to know. We had to go along with the joke in case one day they brought us something real.

`Well, you asked for it,' Helena said.

`No, my darling. Lucius Petronius Longus, my wonderful new partner, was the idiot who made the request.'

`And how are you getting on with Petro?' she asked me demurely.

`You know I've just answered that.'

Once the public slaves inveigled their foremen into joining the game, Petro and I locked up the office and withdrew to my new apartment. Helena saw her chance. In two ticks she had dressed up in a smart red gown, glass beads chinking in her earlobes, and was tying on a sunhat. She was off to visit a school for orphans of which she was the patron. I made her take Nux for protection; Julia would take care of me.

The baby caused some friction.

`I don't believe you're allowing this!' Petronius growled. `I tend not to use the word "allow" in connection with Helena.'