Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

“Beauty, honesty, and charm are indeed his virtues, as is great intelligence and talent. But these do not constitute the whole of human nature for any man.”

“Well, I persist in believing in Sophocles’ innocence. But I am happy to have your open and inquiring mind to which I can trust this matter. Go out, Kleides, to where Nicias’ body lies and put that mind to work.”

I made my way out of the skene, went down the steps of the stone retaining wall, across the drainage channel, and behind the theatre to the rocky foundation of the Acropolis. As I approached, one of the magistrates tossed his head, indicating something behind him. I noticed that his olive complexion looked particularly green. I walked behind the greenish magistrate and looked down. I may have turned a little green myself. I swallowed, willing the barley porridge I’d eaten this morning to stay down where it belonged.

I turned back to the magistrates and told them to return inside and have Pericles send the Scythian police back to collect the body.

The magistrates left with, I thought, a look of gratitude on their faces.

I took a moment or two to make sure that the porridge remained below, then turned back to Nicias’ body. He’d been stabbed. In the bowels. The blood had flowed freely and caked in dark brown streaks down to his knees. His eyes were open and his features distorted into a grimace.

He had met a painful and violent end.

I swallowed again and knelt for a better look at the wound. It was too large to have been made with a knife. Someone had thrust a sword into him.

I rose and looked around. But there were no footprints. The terrain here was too rocky to have taken any.

I looked at Nicias again and noted that a gold ring still encircled a finger on his left hand. No thief had done the deed. I hadn’t thought so anyway. A thief would have struck from the back. A clean blow to the head. This crime spoke of rage.

I directed the Scythians to wrap the body and take it to the prison house near the South Stoa until Pericles could send someone to notify the dead man’s relatives.

I left the area, circling round to the hill of the Pnyx. No one would be at our assembly site. The democracy had no meetings set for today. The festival was not officially over until the end of the day. Most Athenians would be celebrating in the agora, at local taverns, or at their own homes. I would be left alone to think.

Like Pericles, I did not wish to think Sophocles guilty of homicide. But like Socrates, I knew that human nature was possessed complete by all men, with all its virtues and evils. I knew, too, that popular opinion that good resided in the fair and evil in the ugly, was wrong. The surface did not necessarily reflect the interior.

Thus I steeled myself for questioning Sophocles. I would have to reveal honestly to Pericles whether his answers tended to his guilt or innocence.

I returned to the theatre, and in inquiring of those who remained milling about, discovered that Sophocles had declared his intention of returning to his home to prepare for an evening’s celebration to which I was, of course, invited.

I dug in the hem of my cloak and found an obol to pay a disheveled water boy to go to Sophocles’ home and request that he meet me back at the theatre on an urgent matter.

I returned to the skene, not wanting to leave the place where I believed a key piece of evidence might still lay.

I looked around for the sword upon which Ajax, in the person of Tidius, had fallen. It was, I suspected, the sword that had killed Nicias. It would have hung upon the wooden wall of the skene, where the props were kept for ease of access during performances. It could conveniently and easily have served another function: murder.

I didn’t see the sword. The murderer would have taken it away, stained with blood as it no doubt was.

I thought of all who had a grievance against Nicias and would have easy access: Sophocles, of course; Phidias; Tidias; anyone else who had business at the theatre, including Euripides and Ion of Chios; all the other actors and members of the choruses. For that matter, I thought, if the skene had not been padlocked, anyone offended by Nicias could have entered to take and return the sword. I found myself relieved and glad to have suspects other than Sophocles. This, for a Sophist, would not do. I had to bring my emotions into check.

I heard the wooden door open and turned to see Sophocles outlined against the bright air outside.

He blinked. “Kleides?” he said, glancing round.

I stepped away from the wall where I had just tried to open a firmly latched chest. “I’m over here, Sophocles. Thank you for coming so promptly.”

“The messenger boy said it was urgent.”

“Indeed, it is. Have you not wondered where Nicias was for the ceremonies this morning?”

“I did, Kleides. I fear he may be gravely offended by his second place, though surely all recognize that Tidius deserved the first prize.” Sophocles moved into the skene, still blinking to adjust his eyes. “Have you news of him?”