The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (15 page)

There was a silence. Then Cicero asked mildly: “Who is she?”

“Clodia.”

“That is what I had guessed. ‘The ox-eyed one’, the sister – and probably more – of the man who had me exiled and had my home torn down. The woman I shamed and excoriated in public in words no Roman lady had ever had applied to her before, when she had young Furius up on the charge of attempting to poison her – and she sat there and gloried in the sensational publicity. My bitterest enemy on earth . . . Why have you come to me, Favilla? What could I do for you where Clodia is concerned? Twenty years ago, perhaps, when she cast those ox-eyes on me and wouldn’t believe they couldn’t move me – No, you should apply to Caesar to help you; he, I believe, is still in her good graces. But not I.”

“Yes, you,” said Favilla earnestly. “Just
because
you hate her and she hates you – because you know her so well, know her weaknesses, her real self behind the beauty and the wit and arrogance and self-will. I don’t ask you to do anything – just to tell me what to do. I must, I must get those jewels back, quietly and without a scandal. And I will not take any means that might expose or imperil Sextus.”

“If you will forgive me for saying so, my dear,” Cicero commented, “your young brother seems to me to be considerable of a fool. I presume he thinks of himself as a second Catullus, and because our Clodia was Catullus’s ‘Lesbia’, she must be his as well. He forgets that she broke the heart of the loveliest lyric poet Rome has ever produced. And Catullus never stole any jewels for her, either.”

“Don’t use that word! My brother isn’t a thief.”

“No? What do you call it? Think of the very least that he could be guilty of, Favilla. Suppose he cajoled the old lady into giving him the jewels; he knew they weren’t hers to give, in right and equity, and he knows now that excitement and remorse killed her afterwards. Or think of what is much more likely – that he found Aufidia dead or dying of a heart attack and then rifled the cabinet. Or – you might as well face it –
that he demanded the jewels from her and she resisted physically – that she died from the effects – or that he smothered her or strangled her –”

“Oh, no, no! That’s impossible! He couldn’t – it isn’t in his nature.”

“Who knows what is in the nature of a youngster crazy with frustrated desire? I don’t even say, as you might expect, that Clodia put him up to it. I doubt if she has the remotest idea where the jewels came from, though she must have a shrewd notion that he stole them from someone – from someone who doesn’t know about it yet or for personal reasons doesn’t wish to claim them. What could a boy like Favillus mean to her? He would be a bore and a pest, and to get rid of him she might very well say, ‘All right, bring me a gift worthy of my favours and we’ll see’, thinking that would be the last of him.”

Cicero sighed, and went on. “Poor lad, if I know my Clodia, he hasn’t even had value received for them. But she would accept them, and wear them openly, just because she loves beautiful jewels, and laugh at him all the time. That woman doesn’t know the meaning of fear – either physical fear or fear of notoriety. Favilla, this is a serious business. I’m speaking to you now, not only as your friend, but as a lawyer. Theft – and perhaps murder – are dreadful crimes, not boyish pranks. You can’t get those jewels back without exposing your brother. You can’t get them back anyway, to my way of thinking. Clodia is neither decent enough to return them voluntarily, nor capable of being scared into returning them under threats of disclosure.”

Favilla’s eyes filled with tears.

“There
must
be a way,” she murmured. “And believe me, I’m not the doting imbecile you take me for. I know Sextus has been very, very wrong. For my husband’s sake as well as for my brother’s, I have to avoid publicity, but once I have
the jewels back I intend to confront Sextus with the whole thing, and to see that he makes what amends he can. Only, I must get them back first, for if I talked to him now he would only protect Clodia instead of listening to me. Surely, Cicero, you who know her so well can tell me some way in which she can be coerced, if she can’t be appealed to and can’t be threatened? Surely there is a weak spot somewhere through which she can be reached?”

“There may be,” said Cicero slowly after a pause. “Yes, there just possibly may be.”

Publius Cornelius Dolabella had been Cicero’s son-in-law. Tullia had married him against her father’s advice and wish, and she had remained passionately in love with him, though finally his unfaithfulness, extravagance, and profligacy had forced her to divorce him shortly before the birth of their second son – the child of whose parturition she had died. In spite of this, he and his father-in-law had remained on friendly terms; Dolabella was one of those worthless but utterly charming scamps of whom nobody approves but whom nobody can help liking. Now Cicero wrote, asking him to come to Tusculanum as soon as possible. There was nothing Dolabella would not do to oblige – especially if the obligation gave him no trouble and might afford him a bit of cynical amusement. He moved in Clodia’s circle; he had just returned from Spain with Caesar; no one could be better fitted for the business Cicero had in mind.

The afternoon following Dolabella’s return to Rome from Tusculanum, Clodia, whose beauty seemed timeless and whose daring and flouting of convention only grew with the years, was at home to her acquaintances – which meant practically all Roman upper society with the exception of the women of a few austere and old-fashioned families. Clodia
had never cared for women, anyway. Dolabella was there, the bubbling centre of gayety as usual, under the influence of his hostess’s excellent Falernian wine.

And young Sextus Favillus hovered as near as he could get to his beloved, who paid little attention to him outside of an occasional enigmatic smile. Once in a while, casually, as if by accident, he touched a fold of Clodia’s violet stola, in the new and rather flashy style of coloured garments for ladies. So far as he could be, when he had to share her with so many others, he was content, for once more she wore the most precious of the gems he had given her, the earrings and necklace and arm-band, and when he greeted her she had laid a polished fingernail for a moment on the ruby-and-emerald peacock at her throat, and whispered, “Soon, I promise you.”

Here in the open sunshine, with wine under his tunic and the sound of laughing voices all about him, Sextus could look at those jewels and think only of the woman who wore them. At night, in the rented rooms which were all he could afford since most of his borrowed money had gone in careless living, it was different.

And then, with senses half-dulled by drinking and lack of sleep, he heard Dolabella say: “My dear lady, where
did
you get those ornaments you are wearing?”

Clodia tapped him smartly on the hand.

“What a question!” she exclaimed in that rich, throaty voice of hers. “Do you always make such personal remarks, Dolabella? Where do you think I got them? I bought them, of course. Or perhaps they were a gift.”

“Then, my dear, somebody has taken a gross advantage of you.”

“What do you mean? They aren’t false, are they?” Her voice was suddenly sharp.

“Not so far as I know – I believe they are very valuable. But if
I
recognized them, as I did, so will a lot of other
people. You are too trusting, Clodia my love. Some rascally merchant has taken you in, or one of your acquaintances is trying to play a trick on you. If I hadn’t seen those things today and warned you, you would soon be the laughing-stock of all Rome.”

Sextus, very white, was unable to move. How
could
Dolabella have recognized the gems? They had never been outside of Aufidia’s bedroom for twenty years.

And now everybody was listening. The boy felt himself tremble. In a sudden flash of despair he wished desperately and vainly that time would unroll and obliterate the past six weeks of his life.

“Explain yourself, my friend,” said Clodia coldly.

Dolabella laughed.

“I couldn’t possibly mistake them,” he answered lightly. “I must be growing old; when I was a young man everybody would have known them at sight, and there are plenty of us left who will. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize them yourself. Why, Clodia, those are the famous jewels which Lucius Torrentius Afer, that freedman who grew so enormously rich in slave-trading, bought to adorn his pet monkey! It was the joke of the whole city. When the creature died, he gave the baubles to one of his servants, and the fellow must have sold them to some trader.”

Clodia turned ashen with anger.

“You wretched puppy!” she spat at the miserable Sextus. “So you thought you could make me ridiculous, did you? You dirty, misbegotten ape! How dared you do such a thing to me – how
dared
you?”

Sextus forced his thick tongue to a few stammered words.

“It’s not true!” he whispered. “They aren’t – they came from –”

He fell abruptly silent.

Clodia snatched the band from her arm, the circlet from
her neck, the pearls from her ears, and threw them at the stricken boy’s feet.

“Get out of my house!” she screeched. “Get out of my sight and never come near me again as long as you live!”

White to the lips, Sextus turned awkwardly and fled.

With clenched fists, Clodia paraded the atrium, cursing Sextus Favillus in words seldom heard outside the Subura, and not often, even there, on a woman’s lips. She was in one of her magnificent rages, usually witnessed only by her unhappy lady’s maid. The guests felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. One by one they slipped away without their hostess’s even noting their murmured excuses and farewells. Unobtrusively Dolabella stooped and picked up the jewels, and placed them carefully in a fold of his toga.

That night he sent them by a trusty slave to Tusculanum. Cicero wrapped them in a package of his own to despatch to Favilla. He felt full of amused satisfaction. His sensitive vanity was pleased that even now he was still the clever man of influence to whom those in difficulties turned naturally for aid. Dolabella had written the full details of the scene at Clodia’s. Cicero’s lips twitched. If only he had someone with whom he could share this delicious gossip! How his darling Tulliola would have delighted in the story! The ready tears blurred his eyes again as he affixed his seal to the parcel.

Three days later the jewels were back in Aufidia’s cabinet, and the cabinet itself was in Favilla’s bedroom.

Sextus had disappeared. For a week nobody saw or had news of him. Then, haggard and sick from days of drinking, he turned up shamefacedly at his sister’s house.

Her heart smote her at his woebegone appearance, but for the boy’s own sake she made herself speak sternly.

“So you have come to me at last, have you?” she said. “And now, little brother, we must have a reckoning.”

She led him to a room where they would be out of sight or
hearing of the servants. Sextus threw himself dejectedly onto a couch.

“I know,” he muttered. “You think I’m the world’s worst fool, and I suppose I am. I don’t know how you managed it, but I’m sure that what happened will be no news to you. Well, if it’s any consolation to you, I’m cured – cured of women forever,” he proclaimed, with the extravagance of nineteen years. “But the jewels are gone – I don’t know what became of them.”

“The jewels, which were the property of my husband’s family, are back in my possession,” said Favilla severely. “There will be no public scandal about how you got them – though I have no doubt everybody in Rome knows by now what occurred at Clodia’s house,” she added cruelly. “But that doesn’t mean that everything is forgiven and forgotten.” How was it Cicero had phrased it? “Theft and murder aren’t boyish pranks – they are dreadful crimes.”

“Murder!” cried Sextus sharply. “What do you mean? You don’t think I
killed
Aufidia, do you?” To his shame and horror, he burst into tears.

Favilla let him weep in silence. When he had stifled his sobs at last, she said gently, “Tell me what happened, Sextus.”

“I dropped in to see her, as usual,” he answered in a muffled voice, his gaze averted. “And there she was just as you must have found her. The cabinet was open, and the key was on the floor by her hand. She must have tried to reach for the jewels without leaving the bed, and with all her fat the exertion was too much for her heart.

“For a second I was too shocked to think. Then, of course, I knew I ought to call you at once. But the drawers of the cabinet were open – and I saw the gold and the gems – and I had no money to give Clodia the kind of presents other people gave her – oh, what’s the use, Favilla? You know what I did.”

Favilla’s voice softened in spite of herself; it was such a relief to know that her worst suspicions had not been true. But she had had a week to prepare for her brother’s eventual return, and she must not weaken now.

“Sextus,” she said, “you know as well as I do the kind of people from whom we are descended. Can you imagine our father, or any of our family, stooping to steal a dead woman’s jewels, no matter what the provocation? It’s no wonder the Republic is in danger, when the sons of its oldest and proudest families can so lower their standards – or the daughters, either, for that matter. Think of Appius Claudius Caecus, for instance, and then think of his descendant Clodia!”

“Don’t, Favilla!” Sextus was abjectly humble now. “I never want to think of her again! Just tell me what I can do to atone for the wrong I did. Do you want me to go away – to Spain, to Asia, anywhere you say? I’m so ashamed that I’d be only too willing to die, if that would do any good.”

“Stop being a child!” his sister snapped. “It’s about time you grew up, Sextus. No, I don’t want you to die – I want you to live, to live to be of some use to your family and your country.”

“I promise, sister,” the boy said earnestly. “Indeed I do. I’m sick of that whole lot. And I’ll never look at another woman as long as I live.”

“Oh, what utter nonsense! Of course you will, and I wouldn’t think much of you if you didn’t. Just so it isn’t another like Clodia, that’s all I ask. I hope to live to see you married to the right sort of girl and the father of a fine family.”