Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

I talked with the old woman for a few moments, then hurried after the widow. I hoped for a chance to speak with her, but the bodyguard made it quite plain that I should keep my distance. I fell back and followed them in secret, observing her purchases as she did her shopping in the meat market.

At last I broke away and headed for the house on the Palatine.

Lucius and Cornelia hurried to the atrium even before the slave announced my arrival. Their faces were drawn with sleeplessness and worry.

“The lemur appeared again last night,” said Lucius.

“The thing was in my bedchamber.” Cornelia’s face was pale. “I woke to see it standing beside the door. It must have been the smell that woke me — a horrible, fetid stench! I tried to rise and couldn’t. I wanted to cry out, but my throat was frozen — the thing cast a spell on me. It said the words again: Now You. Then it disappeared into the hallway.”

“Did you pursue it?”

She looked at me as if I were mad.

“But I saw the thing,” offered Lucius. “I was in the bedchamber down the hall. I heard footsteps, and called out, thinking it might be Cornelia. There was no answer and the footsteps grew hurried. I leaped from my couch and stepped into the hall...”

“And you saw it?”

“Only for an instant. I called out. The thing paused and turned, then disappeared into the shadows. I would have followed it — really, Gordianus, I swear I would have — but at that instant Cornelia cried out for me. I turned and hurried to her room.”

“So the thing fled, and no one pursued it.” I stifled a curse.

“I’m afraid so,” said Lucius, wincing. “But when the thing turned and looked at me in the hallway, a bit of moonlight fell on its face.”

“You had a good look at it, then?”

“Yes. Gordianus, I didn’t know Furius well, but I had some dealings with him before his death, enough to recognize him across a street or in the Forum. And this creature — despite its broken teeth and the tumors on its flesh — this fiend most certainly bore the face of Furius!”

Cornelia suddenly gasped and began to stagger. Lucius held her up and called for help. Some of the household women gathered and escorted her to her bedchamber.

“Titus was just the same before his fall,” sighed Lucius, shaking his head. “He began to faint and suffer fits, would suddenly lose his breath and be unable to catch another. They say such afflictions are frequently caused by spiteful lemures.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “Or by a guilty conscience. I wonder if the lemur left any other manifestations behind? Show me where you saw the thing.”

Lucius led me down the hallway. “There,” he said, pointing to a spot a few paces beyond the door to his room. “At night a bit of light falls just there; everything beyond is dark.”

I walked to the place and looked about, then sniffed the air. Lucius sniffed as well. “The smell of putrefaction,” he murmured. “The lemur has left its fetid odor behind.”

“A bad smell, to be sure,” I said, “but not the odor of a corpse. Look here! A footprint!”

Just below us, two faint brown stains in the shape of sandals had been left on the tiled floor. In the bright morning light other marks of the same color were visible extending in both directions. Those toward Cornelia’s bedchamber, where many other feet had traversed, quickly became confused and unreadable. Those leading away showed only the imprint of the forefeet of a pair of sandals, with no heel marks.

“The thing came to a halt here, just as you said. Then it began to run, leaving only these abbreviated impressions. Why should a lemur run on tiptoes, I wonder? And what is this stain left by the footsteps?”

I knelt down and peered closely. Lucius, shedding his patrician dignity, got down on his hands and knees beside me. He wrinkled his nose. “The smell of putrefaction!” he said again.

“Not putrefaction,” I countered. “Common excrement. Come, let’s see where the footprints lead.”

We followed them down the hallway and around a corner, where the footprints ended before a closed door.

“Does this lead outside?” I asked.

“Why, no,” said Lucius, suddenly a patrician again and making an uncomfortable face. “That door opens into the indoor toilet.”

“How interesting.” I opened it and stepped inside. As I would have expected in a household run by a woman like Cornelia, the fixtures were luxurious and the place was quite spotless, except for some telltale footprints on the limestone floor. There were windows set high in the wall, covered by iron bars. A marble seat surmounted the hole. Peering within, I studied the lead piping of the drain.

“Straight down the slope of the Palatine Hill and into the Cloaca Maxima, and thence into the Tiber,” commented Lucius. Patricians may be prudish about bodily functions, but of Roman plumbing they are justifiably proud.

“Not nearly large enough for a man to pass through,” I said.

“What an awful idea!”

“Even so...” I called for a slave, who managed to find a chisel for me.