The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

No doubt (this appalling man went on) the Syracusan delegates had read King Hiero’s so-called report; in which case, they must recall that the upper room of the house was some ten feet from a substantial fig tree, whose branches overhung the outer wall. What the report neglected to mention was the presence in the loft of a number of highly significant artefacts, amongst which: a cheese press of considerable weight — the long, stout handles used to turn the screw of the said press during the whey reduction process; a coil of strong, fine rope. These apparently mundane objects, he thundered, were all that were needed to construct a rudimentary but effective crane, by the use of which the assassin shifted Naso’s lifeless corpse through the open door of the upper room and into the branches of the tree. Thereafter, it was an easy matter for the assassin — previously trained as an acrobatic dancer — to leave the house, enter the courtyard, and, using the rope or a section thereof, lower Naso’s body over the wall, at a distance there from enabling her to escape detection. Continuing, she dropped from the tree to the ground and dragged the body over a paved pathway on which she knew no trace would be left, to some point nearby, where accomplices awaited her with a cart or some similar vehicle. Said accomplices proceeded to dispose of the body by breaking into the nearest warehouse and placing it in a large storage jar, possibly with the intention of returning later and recovering it for more permanent disposal. If that was their intention, presumably they were frustrated in it by the search of the neighbourhood insisted on by the Roman delegation.

And then the obnoxious Scaurus turned round and pointed straight at me, and went on: “You may feel, fellow delegates, that such an operation, such a feat of engineering, would be difficult to achieve. The Syracusans would, no doubt, like you to believe that it would be impossible. No doubt. I believe that the very complexity — I might say the implausibility of the scheme — was a fundamental part of its design. The Syracusans want you to believe that there was no way the body, once dead, could have been removed from that place; therefore, they argue, Naso must have left the house alive, in the manner they describe in the report. But, as we have seen, their explanation is not only highly unlikely, in the light of what we know of Caecilius Naso’s exemplary character, but actually impossible, because of his war wound. We have, of course, the evidence of the assassin herself, obtained and confirmed under torture before a magistrate. But even without her evidence, the matter speaks for itself. Having disproved the purportedly straightforward version offered by the Syracusans, we have no alternative but to conclude that Naso was dead when he left the house; in which case, it is an unavoidable conclusion that some form of mechanical artifice was used to remove him, and that artifice was constructed from the materials later found in the upper room. And if anybody wishes to argue that those materials were inadequate for the purpose, I say this: to any ordinary man — perhaps. To a trained engineer, even — quite possibly. But King Hiero of Syracuse has in his service the greatest living expert, fellow delegates, the world’s foremost authority on the use and application of levers and mechanical advantage; I refer, of course, to the universally acclaimed inventor Archimedes, son of Phidias, who is sitting before me as I speak; the man who once boasted, as I’m sure I need not remind you, ‘Give me a firm place to stand, and I can move the Earth’. Fellow delegates — ”

I’m afraid I missed the rest of the speech. Two of Hiero’s men took me politely by the elbows and walked me out of the room, before I could say anything.

* * *

On my way home, Orestes and I stopped off at Stratocles’ warehouse. It was a huge place, and the nearest uninhabited building to Agathocles’ house. Inside, there were more jars than I’ve ever seen in my life. There were sealed jars, rows and rows of them, ready to be loaded and shipped. There were empty jars, sent back to be washed out and refilled. There were damaged jars waiting to be hauled off and dumped in the bay, and two long lines of half-filled jars, containing the preservative oil but as yet no sprats, standing by to be stoppered and sealed with pitch.

I stood next to one of these — it was about two fingers’ width taller than me — and tried to imagine lifting a dead body high enough to drop inside it. It’d take several men.

“Come on,” Orestes said sadly. “This part of the evidence isn’t in dispute.”

“I guess not,” I said. “I’d still like to know why sprats, though.”

“Excuse me?”

“The body was bound to turn up sooner or later,” I said. “When the jar was opened. I grant you, it was sheer chance that it ended up in Rome. Even so — ”