Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 4. Whole No. 245, April 1964

The Roman Kid by Paul Gallico

A tour de force that should become (if it already hasn’t) a contemporary classic... Paul Gallico has “confessed” that it never dawned on him that in “The Roman Kid” had written a deductive detective story!

“Bon giorno,” said Tommy Thompson. “Ubi est the—” he paused and then concluded that he had made sufficient concession to what he thought was the Italian language, and finished, “Could a guy take a gander at the Tertullian Fragment?”

The girl at the desk of the Antiquity Room of the Museo Romano flinched a little and then cocked her bright head to one side and repeated slowly, with a reflective pause after each word, “Could — a — guy — take — a — gander — guy — take — gander. Gander is the male of goose.”

She stopped and looked at Tommy with the corners of her mouth drawn down and a sort of despair in her eyes.

Tommy suddenly realized that she had a face of infinite humor, and that the humor somehow managed to disguise its beauty, or rather made you less conscious of it. Unlike the Italian women to whom he had already grown accustomed during his short sojourn in Rome, she had masses of soft hair, the color of early morning sunlight, large light-blue eyes, and a small nose. But Tommy felt that here was a person with whom one instinctively wanted to laugh. So he laughed.

“Excuse it, please,” he said. “Maybe I ought to talk English. My Italian is terrible. I wanted to get a squint at that fragment of manuscript by the first Roman boxing writer. I read a piece about it in the Paris Herald. They’re supposed just to have dug it up and it’s the only existing description of an early boxing match. Some Greek fed a Roman plenty of left hands and stopped him...”

The girl shook her head and said plaintively, “Why did they not teach to me the right kind of English?” Her mouth was thin, wide, mobile, and slightly pathetic. She was tiny and dressed in a long, blue smock. “I have taken very high marks in English, but it is the wrong kind. You are an American. Are you an archeologist?”

“Who, me? Jiminy, no.” Tommy grinned again. He was a pleasant-looking man in his late twenties with a broad, wide-open face and a strange two-inch patch of gray that ran through his dark hair from front to back. “I’m a sports writer. You know — boxing, baseball, and stuff. I do a column on the Blade in New York. But I’m a sucker for this ancient history. I’m supposed to be digging up a team of Italian amateur boxers to take back to fight our Golden Glovers, but I’ve been spending most of my time trying to find out what sports were like in ancient Rome. Very tough. If they had any columnists in those days, they buried ’em deep.”

The girl gazed at him, her face alive with intense interest. Finally she said flatly, “Americans are wonderful people. Come. I show you.” She led him down an aisle between massive bronzes and pieces of ancient frescoes to a small alcove where there was a little pedestal holding up a flat glass frame. Under the glass was a small triangle of stained brown manuscript that looked like a piece of old rag. It was six inches across the top and about four down one side. Tommy could discern faintly the black brush characters on it.

“That,” said the girl, “is the Tertullian Fragment.”

Tommy stared at it and then said, “Oh, oh! I knew there’d be a catch to it. It’s in Latin, isn’t it?”

The thing Tommy liked about the girl was that she didn’t crack. An American girl would have said, “What did you expect it would be in, eight point Bodoni, with subheads?”

Instead she said gently, “I will translate it for you.” She leaned over the case, her eyes shining with interest and concentration, and read slowly in her fine, precise English with the slight accent that Tommy had not yet placed:

The girl stopped and looked up. “It ends there,” she said.

“Gee,” said Tommy. “The little guy just stepped around and popped him. A sort of a Fancy Dan. I’ll bet it was a lousy fight. I never saw one of those that wasn’t. Maybe it was a splash. Titus sends his bum into the tank and then coppers on the bets. There was a dame angle in those days too, eh? Gosh, you know, you’re wonderful. You translated that at sight.”

“Perhaps,” said the girl, “you will return the compliment and translate for me too.”

“I apologize,” said Tommy. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Whenever I start to talk fight, I fall into that jargon. They were funny guys, those old reporters. They didn’t care a hang about the sports and never wrote about them unless there was some political angle to it — like this guy Tertullus. I guess when your space was limited and there weren’t any printing presses, you had to stick to things that were important. Nobody seems to know much about what a show was really like at the Colosseum because nobody ever wrote about them. I guess they just stuck up a copy of the results and the box score somewhere in the Forum and let it go at that.”

A tall, stoop-shouldered man came through a door that opened from a small office at the rear of the little alcove, and spoke to the girl in German. He was gray-haired, gray-faced, and weary-looking. He wore a gold pince-nez attached to a black ribbon. The girl answered him and then turned to Tommy. “This is my father, Professor Lisschauer, the curator of the museum. Papachen, this is an American gentleman who is interested in the sports of antiquity.”

Tommy shook hands. “Thompson is my name, sir. The Blade, New York. Sports writer. Your daughter was kind enough to translate the fragment for me.”

The old man had a pronounced accent. He said, “Ja, ja. Leni haff just tolt me. You do not read Greek and Latin?”

Tommy shook his head. “I... I’m afraid what little education I have, I got the hard way. I mean I had to go to work when I was a kid.”

The old man looked at him puzzled and then glanced sharply at his daughter.

“Then how can you be a student of antiquitation? It iss impossible.”

Tommy felt uncomfortable. There was a detachment about the professor that shut him out completely. He did not want to be shut out. He tried to explain.

“I... I’m trying to get the feel of things. I mean the people of those days and what they were like. Behind all these inscriptions and statuary and stuff, there were people — you know, human beings. They couldn’t have been such a lot different from us. That fighter, for instance, I saw in one of those wall paintings in Tarquinia, squared off with his thumb stuck out ready for a left lead to the eyeball. You could just see him getting ready to say, ‘Excuse me, pal,’ and then cross the right while the other guy is still blinking. He must have been the Gentleman Jones of Etruria. Gentleman Jones is a light-heavy we have around New York. Polite, smooth, and very sporting in the ring, but he loves to stick that thumb in the other guy’s eye. What I mean is maybe those old-time fighters were just like that.”

Professor Lisschauer looked baffled; shook his head, and said, “The reading of the ancients requires years of study.” He sighed. “And then sometimes it iss nod enough. You are wasting your time. You will excoose me please.”

He turned and shambled away. His daughter watched him go. On her face was pain and concern.

“Gee,” said Tommy, “did I say something? I guess I’m just a dumb cluck. I didn’t mean—”

The girl shook her head. There was a brightness in her eyes. Tommy saw that they were close to tears. “Papachen is in some trouble. That is all. He did not wish to be impolite. He thinks only of his work. Ach, if I could only help him...”

“Is it anything serious? I mean is there anything I could—”

Leni smiled. “You are kind. I am afraid you would not understand. His integrity. His years of hard work. And then to lose everything.” She stopped. “Forgive me. It is private trouble. I should not bore you.”

She hesitated and then suddenly asked, “Have you seen the famous statue of the Resting Boxer? It is in the Museo delle Terme.” She raised her head proudly with a significance that Tommy did not understand at the time. “It is a discovery of my papa.”

“I haven’t,” said Tommy. “But I will. Do you suppose you — I mean, would you go along with me some time to... to—”

“Take... a... gander — at it?” finished Leni.

“The once-over,” said Tommy.

“The once-over,” repeated Leni.

“A quick peek—”

“A quick peek.”

“You’re on.”

“You’re on. Does that mean yes?” Leni asked.

“Yes.”

“Yes. You’re on.”

Their laughter joined and echoed from the quiet caverns of the museum. They took each other’s hands on it. Something told Tommy that this was not the time to kiss her. But there was nothing to stop him from wanting to.

They met two days later, on a bright, clear, warm spring Sunday, and went to Alfredo’s, where Tommy, entranced, watched Alfredo’s showmanship as he manipulated the Fetuccini in the melted butter, and later they ate his famous sole in white-wine sauce and exchanged bits of information about their lives.

The Lisschauers were Viennese. Leni’s father, a famous archeologist, was the curator of the Museo Romano. Leni herself had studied with him for many years.

“Gee,” said Tommy. “I knew there was something. My mother came from Vienna. My father was an American. And you can read the past as though it were a book. And yet you’re sweet and simple. I’ve never met anyone like you. Shut up, Thompson, you’re ga-ga!”

“Ga-ga?” said Leni.

“Soft in the head,” explained Tommy, and then added under his breath, “about you,” continuing aloud, “You must learn our beautiful language. I’ll teach you if you’ll help me with my ancient history.”

Leni looked at him curiously with her large eyes. “You are a strange boy, are you not? You write about the sports and you are interested in antiquity. I thought Americans only cared about to make money.”

“I love it,” confessed Tommy, “making money, I mean; but I don’t let it get me down. What do you like to do besides read old Latin manuscripts at sight?”

“Oh,” said Leni, thinking seriously and counting on the fingers of one hand, “I like to dance, to play tennis, to ski, to...”

“That’s done it,” interrupted Tommy. “There’s a tea dance at my hotel at five. What do you say we go and step?”

Leni nodded her head violently in assent. They toasted each other in Lagrima Christi on that...

They kept meaning to go to the Museo delle Terme all through the afternoon. But there was such a fine blue Roman sky and the smell of flowers in the air — Tommy could not be sure whether it was flowers or Leni, who was dressed in a simple white frock with a little girl’s sash at the waist, and a big straw hat — and also they acquired a cabdriver named Pietro Dandolo whose fine brown horse was named Ginevra.

Pietro sang snatches of operatic arias as he drove — sang them very quietly to himself. And although it was warm, he still wore his rusty blue coat and shoulder cape and battered silk hat, and he sang his orders to Ginevra instead of speaking them, which was why Tommy and Leni grew to love him. Tommy engaged him for the whole day.

He drove them through the Porta Pinciana and the fragrance of the Borghese gardens to the Plaza de Popolo. From there they crossed the Tiber over the Ponte Margherita and went rolling along the muddy river past the Castel Sant’ Angelo, and the Salviati and Corsini palaces. It seemed so natural that all the time Leni’s hand should be in Tommy’s, and their fingers intertwined.

Tommy told Leni something about himself and the curious life he lived in New York — the constant round of prizefights, baseball games, golf and tennis matches. At fifteen he had had to quit school and start in as an office boy in the sports department of the Blade. His father had been a singing teacher who had been ruined by the depression.

Tommy’s education had been continued by his father to the best of his ability. He had a talent for writing and had become sports editor and columnist and lived in an atmosphere of athletes, competition, and sweat. But in Tommy too, there was a reaching for beauty, and a sensitivity to human beings and what made them tick.

The bright girl at his side was stirring a yearning in him, one that he felt unable to express, except in the curious language of his life and his trade. On her part, the girl was fascinated by the strangeness of this American, his vitality and animation, but with her feminine intuition she already felt the hungry, incompleted side of his nature and was drawn to it.

They recrossed the Tiber by the Ponte Palatino and drove back through the wonderful, shining city, past the great Victor Emmanuel monument and the Palazzo Venezio to the Ambassadeurs, where they went down to the little café below and danced Viennese waltzes and Tommy taught Leni American slang and she came to look with a fond joy for the wide grin that spread over his face when he interpreted.

“You’re the tops. Get it? It means there was never anybody like you ever before. You’re the Number One gal.”

Leni repeated after him solemnly, “I — am — the — tops.”

“Here’s another one. Carrying the torch. When you’re crazy about someone — like ‘Baby, am I carrying the torch for you!’ Get it?”

“I get it,” said Leni, copying Tommy’s intonation exactly. “Can I carry the torch for you too, or is the torch only for gentlemen?”

The whirling waltzes and the unity that comes from the perfect matching of rhythm and movement finished them. By the time they went to the famous Ulpia restaurant, hard by the Trajan Forum, for dinner, they were in love. They sat close together in the damp cool of the grotto below with the magic upon them, their hands tightly clasped, listening to the little orchestra, the guitars and mandolins and the blind violinist with the wonderful throbbing tone. The old grotto was carved out of the tufa of the buildings of the Forum. Dim lanterns faintly showed the garlands of spring flowers, the hanging basket bottles of Chianti, and the bits of old marbles and pieces of ancient friezes.

Tommy said, “Gee, Leni, I’ve got a nerve to spring this on you this way, but I can’t help it. I’m going for you. I’ve never gone for a gal this way in my life. Do... do I have to translate that for you too?”

Leni took Tommy’s hand and held it to her cheek and shook her head that way, holding it. She said simply and directly, “Oh, strange, American Tommy. I am afraid that I going for you too.”

“I want to kiss you,” said Tommy. “Would anybody care?”

Leni looked at him with her eyes dancing like wood sprites. “This is Rome,” she said. “The old gods would like it very much.”

They kissed each other. They kissed each other again until the sweetness was no longer bearable. “Gee,” said Tommy, “I heard the gods cheering...”

“I did too,” said Leni, “only I think it was Benedetto.”

Benedetto, the enormous proprietor, waddled over to the table with a bottle of wine. He said, “Bravo! Bravo! Signore, signorina, permit me, the compliments of the Ulpia.”

“Looka,” said Tommy, after they had drunk a toast with Benedetto, “let’s get this straight now. I love you. I’ll never love anybody but you. I want to marry you. But quick. I want to take you back to New York with me. I never want you out of my sight from now on.”

Leni took his hand and said, “Oh, Tommy. I think perhaps I want to do so much...”

And then the dancing went out of her eyes and she caught her breath sharply and let go of Tommy’s hand. He could see that something inside her had gone limp.

“Oh, oh—” he said. “Trouble. What is it, Leni? Is there another guy?”

The girl suddenly was frightened and a little panicky. “Oh, Tommy — I should not have let myself go so. It is so different with us here. It has been understood for so long that I will be the wife of Professor Zanni. He is Papa’s associate. I know that Papachen wishes it. And we here are different with our families. Papa is everything. He would not understand you. And just now, when he is in such deep trouble. Oh, Tommy, I shall die...”

Tommy spoke a little grimly. “I get it. When I walk into Madison Square Garden or Twenty-one, I’m a big-shot, but in this set-up Mr. Thompson of the New York Blade is just John Mugg.” He paused, and when he caught Leni looking baffled again, said, “Never mind, sweet, that’s one I didn’t want you to understand. Look, what is the trouble your dad’s in? Tell me.”

Leni said, “Oh, Tommy,” again, and then replied, “It is about the statue of the Resting Boxer. The one — the one we did not see. Papa discovered it near the Fosso delle Tre Fontane. It was his great discovery. It is one of the most perfect bronzes ever found. Papa has written that it is in the style and manner of the sculptor Praexus in the time of the Emperor Titus. Mussolini made Papa a Commendatore because the statue is of the Golden Age of Rome...”

“And so—”

“And so a Professor Guglielmo in Napoli has published a paper on the statue, against Papa. He is a very important man in archeology. He has written that the statue is — how do you say?... a—”

Tommy whistled. “I get it. A phony.”

“Is false. Is a fraud. Three years ago the Manzini brothers were put into jail because they had made and buried many statues that were — that were phony, as you say. Now they are both dead. Professor Guglielmo has written that the statue my father has discovered is a fraud of the Manzini brothers.”

“Well, isn’t your dad’s word as good as his?”

“Guglielmo is an important man in Italy. He is high in the party. And we are Austrians. And proof? What is there but that which Papa has from his years of study, from his knowledge?”

Tommy chewed on his lower lip. “And unless he can prove he’s right, he loses his job. Nice. This guy you’re supposed to marry. Where does he figure in this set-up?”

Leni frowned. “He is terribly unhappy. He is afraid that Professor Guglielmo may be right.”

“Just a pal,” said Tommy. “And if your father goes out, he goes in.”

“Oh, Tommy,” cried Leni, “how did you know?”

“It’s got a familiar ring to it, sweet.” Tommy sighed. “At this point, enter our hero. And what does he do? He does nothing. On account of he’s just a dumb sports writer. It’s a fine plot, up to there.”

“Plot, Tommy?”

“Mmmm. Boy loves girl. Girl’s father does not love boy. In fact, he does not know boy exists. Girl’s father is in jam. Buckety, buckety, here comes boy on a white horse, rescues father. Father says, ‘Bless you, my children.’ Boy gets girl. Only this one has me stopped. Cold. As a hero I’m just a columnist. Let’s get out of here, Leni, and go for a drive. I want to cool my head off.”

They filled their pockets with sugar for Ginevra, the horse. Pietro Dandolo was sitting on the box singing the “M’appari” aria from Martha to himself, so they fed Ginevra until he had finished and then got in. Pietro said something in Italian to Leni and started off.

“Where is he going?” asked Tommy. “Not that it matters on a night like this.”

“He says because there is so big a moon, he is driving us to the Colosseo.”

The indeed so-big moon shone through the skeleton of the Colosseum and illuminated the simple white cross erected on the spot where the Christian martyrs died. Leni and Tommy wandered in through the main entrance, their arms about each other’s waist, picking their way around the pieces of fallen pillars and slabs of tufa and marble cornices. The great shell of the ancient arena was deserted except for the many huge Colosseum cats who lived there. Sometimes the moonlight picked up their eyes and made them glitter. The shadows seemed alive with their slinking figures, and sometimes their shapes were outlined, sitting on the long, broken columns.

Leni and Tommy sat close together on a drum-shaped slab of broken pillar and soaked in the feel of the place, the ancient quiet, and the beauty of the rising tiers of tumbled stone and the silhouettes of the arches.

Leni began to speak in her soft, expressive voice. “There, in the center, is the box where the Emperor sat. There was a great purple cloth that hung from it. The patricians and the Senators were in the nearby boxes, according to their rank. In that little gallery above sat the courtesans. The plebs, the common people, were up at the top.”

“The gallery boys,” said Tommy. “I guess a chump had no more chance of getting a ringside seat at this show than a guy named plain Joe Doakes could crash the first five rows at a heavyweight championship fight at the Yankee Stadium.”

“On days when the sun was too hot, or there was rain, there was a great canopy erected that covered the whole arena like a roof, a canopy of many colors.”

Tommy grunted. “We’re civilized. We let our customers sit out in the rain at Palmer Stadium and the Yale Bowl.”

“They could let in water and cover the whole floor of the arena enough to stage sea battles, of which the Emperor was very fond. Have you seen the excavations at the other end? In the time of Titus the floor of the arena was many levels below this one. We are sitting on the dust of twenty centuries.”

“I looked at them. You know what they reminded me of? The basement of Madison Square Garden, our big indoor arena in New York, at circus time. Runways for the animals, cages, dressing rooms. And nobody really knows very much about the shows they put on here, or what it was like, do they, Leni? There is the Emperor’s box. There sat the big-shots, there the girls. There was a canopy. Men fought with weapons and with their hands. Christians and slaves and condemned prisoners were torn to pieces by wild animals. That’s all.”

Leni sighed. “It is all so long dead, Tommy. One must be so careful of the records one reads into stones.”

Tommy sprang up suddenly from the drum of the pillar and took a few steps into the arena. The floor was white with moonlight, and the gray patch that ran through his hair looked like solid silver.

He spread his arms wide with his fists clenched and shook them and cried, “But it isn’t dead, Leni. Can’t you feel it? All the people. There were people here. Thousands of them. Human beings. The place was alive with them. What’s two thousand years? They must have been just like us. Leni, it drives me crazy. I want to see them. I want to bring this place to life.”

He stopped suddenly, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and began to pace, and the dark shapes of the cats scattered to the deeper shadows.

He spoke again. “This couldn’t have been so different from what we know — World Series day, or fight night at the Polo Grounds, or the Harvard-Yale game at New Haven. Crowds coming in to see the show, pushing and gabbing... If you’ll listen, you can hear the scrape of thousands of sandals on the ramps and that excited hum and chatter of a crowd going to a show. You would hear snatches of conversation. They must have talked in Roman slang as they went to their seats the same way we do — ‘Who do you like tonight? I’ve got a good tip on the third prelim. A new guy down from the north — they say he’s a honey, fast and shifty... Is it true that Decius, or whatever he was called, is out of shape? They say he didn’t train a lick. A wise guy. I heard the main go was in the bag. I got it from the inside. Friend of mine who knows the guy who trains the gladiators. I’m gonna have a couple of bucks riding on Drusus. He’s a house fighter. Those guys haven’t blown a decision yet...’ ”

Leni was standing too, now, her face pale, reflected from the white ball of the nearly full moon that now hung directly over the black shell of the old arena. Her lips were parted with excitement. She did not understand much of what Tommy was saying, but the feeling of it was reaching her. “Oh, Tommy. Please go on.”

“Crooks, gamblers, sports, pickpockets, actors, writers, just plain people out for fun, guys with their dolls, and the dolls dressed and made up to kill — I’ve seen their paint pots in the museums — big-shot gangsters, lawyers — Rome was lousy with lawyers, politicians — the regular fight crowd. Why, you can work right back from the numbers on the portals, Leni. If they numbered the portals they must have had tickets that corresponded to the numbers.”

“Yes... yes, Tommy. They were made of bone, I think.”

“Then they must have had ticket takers and ushers. Probably political jobs. Maybe they even had programs—” He grinned suddenly. “Can’t you see the program sellers standing under those arches and on the ramps, and by the stairways hollering, ‘Get your programs here. You can’t tell the gladiators without a program. Names and numbers of the Christian martyrs.’ ”

He threw up his head and gazed around the great amphitheater to the entrance arcades. “And what about grub and concessionaires? There never yet was a sports crowd that didn’t get hungry and thirsty. There must have been venders selling things to eat and drink. What would the Roman equivalent have been of our hot dogs and peanuts and beer and pop?”

“Meat on a stick, probably,” said Leni: “yes, and fruit...”

“They probably hollered just the same as ours. ‘Get it red-hot here!’ And wine—”

“The vinarii,” interrupted Leni, almost breathless, “the wine merchants. They carried it around in skins...”

“Red wine and white. Didn’t they used to cart snow down from the mountains to cool it? ‘Ice-cold, ice-cold, ice-cold! Get your ice-cold vino here, ten cents a cup. Who’ll have a cup? Sweet or sour, sir?’ Noise, cries, excitement, and maybe the bums up in the two-bit seats stamping their feet because they wanted the show to begin. And the guys selling souvenirs. ‘Show your colors.’ The blue and the white. Hawkers, with blue ribbons and white ones. ‘Show your colors, folks. What’s your favorite?’ ”

“Oh, and little clay figurines of the gods,” breathed Leni, “for the good luck.”

“Sure. And statuettes of the favorite gladiators to carry or tie to your tunic the way the gals who go up to New Haven for the Army-Yale game pin a little bulldog or Army mule to their coats.”

“And girls selling garlands of flowers to throw into the arena to the victors,” Leni said. “There they stand, with flowers in their dark hair, and the garlands over their arms...”

Tommy put his arm around Leni’s shoulder and pointed to the vast floor of the arena. “They had to get ready, didn’t they? Set the arena for the show? There are the roustabouts — slaves, I suppose — marking off the combat areas, looking after the props, preparing the boxes of sand to cover up the bloodstains. There’d be the officials, and judges and referees and masters of ceremony, dressed up to kill and strutting like an A.A.U. official in his hard hat at a big track meet. Officials are all alike.

“The crowd is sifting to its seats. People are visiting from box to box, laughing and making bets. Whistling breaks out from the top tiers as a gladiator comes out to try the footing and look at the direction of the sun so that if he wins the toss he can get it to his back. I guess man could whistle from the time he had a mouth.

“And can you get an idea of the dressing rooms below? The taping and bandaging and last-minute advice to the fighters, and the swordsmen limbering up and doing knee flexes and lunges and making passes with their short swords, and the boxers shadow-boxing to warm up, the way every fighter has since guys first put up their dukes, and whistling their breath out of their noses as they punched at the air.

“And I guess maybe down in the dungeons the Christians were on their knees, quietly praying, and the other doomed stood by and watched them. And sometimes over the noise of the crowd and the cries of the candy butchers and wine sellers and hawkers you would hear from deep down the impatient roaring of the hungry beasts, the way sometimes when the circus is in the Garden and there is a sudden lull and you hear the lions from down below...”

Leni was crying, “Oh, Tommy, Tommy, you have made this place of the long ago so alive...” Her eyes were shining, and now she too stood with her head thrown back and her arms outstretched toward the slender white cross. “These things were so. They were. Oh, they were.”

Suddenly she stopped short and spun around facing the man and cried sharply, “Tommy!”

Tommy was startled. There was such a strange look on her face. Her eyes were so wide. “Sweet, what is it?”

The girl suddenly placed both hands to her temples and held them and spoke in German. “Ach, lieber Herrje! Es ist nicht moglich — a her dock... dock—”

“Honey, what’s happened?”

Leni ran to him. “Tommy, you must come with me at once. But at once. It is still early. You will come with me. I have had — oh, how do you say it? Something inside of me, all through me.”

Tommy held her off. “Is it a hunch, honey?”

“Oh, yes, yes, Tommy. Is that the word? Something inside of me has told me something.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Leni shook her head. “No-no. Not yet. But you will come...”

She took him by the hand and together they ran out of the arena, frightening the cats again. Pietro was so startled that he stopped in the middle of the Toreador song.

“Trenta, Via Palestro, e presto!” ordered Leni. They scrambled into the carriage, and a surprised and startled Ginevra rattled them over the cobblestones and onto the smooth asphalt of the Via del Impero, at what, to the best of her recollection, was a gallop.

Leni said, “I do not want to say yet, Tommy. Just hold me, please.”

The address was a private house, not far from the Museo Romano. “Our home,” Leni said. She still had Tommy by the hand as she rang the front doorbell. A pleasant-faced elderly woman in a black dress and white apron came to the door. Leni said breathlessly in German, “Ach, Liesel. Is Papa still up?”

The woman replied, “He is not at home, Miss Leni. The Conte Alberini came. They both went away together. I believe they were to go to the Museo delle Terme.”

Leni wasted no time. She cried, “Come. Oh, if it is not too late. Presto, Pietro, al Museo delle Terme. The little door on the Via Gernaia side...”

Ginevra, thoroughly outraged, clattered them past the huge gray Station Centrale, whipped them around a corner on two wheels and deposited them before a tiny iron door in a high, thick wall. Leni seized a bell pull and jangled a bell wildly and then pounded with her little fist so that the iron door rattled and clanged.

The door was finally opened by an ancient attendant in a faded blue uniform coat.

“I am Leni Lisschauer, Professor Lisschauer’s daughter,” Leni said. “Is my papa here?”

The attendant nodded. “Si, si signorina. It is a little irregular. We are closed. They are all on the second floor with the Conte Alberini. You may come.”

He had an old lantern, and by its dim rays he led them, Leni still clinging to Tommy’s hand, through a garden in which were many shadowy statues, to the dark and gloomy museum built on the site of the old thermal baths. It grew lighter as they went up the stairs to the second floor. The room at the far end of the museum was illuminated and they heard voices coming from it.

Leni, still towing Tommy, broke into a little run. They burst into the room. The four men there turned and stared.

One of them was Professor Lisschauer. He looked very old. The second was tall and dignified, with a black beard and a monocle. With him stood a short, fussy, bald-headed little man wearing a pince-nez The ourth was a thin man with a narrow face and long black hair combed back from a high forehead.

But the thing that caught Tommy’s eye was not so much the men, but the great bronze on a marble pedestal in the center of the room. It was the figure of a naked man seated, his arms resting on upper legs, his hands encased in the iron-studded, hard-leather cesti worn by the ancient pugilists, with thongs extending halfway up to his elbows and ending in a tight leather cuff.

His head was turned to the right looking up over his right shoulder. He was curly-headed and bearded, heavy-muscled He had been through a terrific battering. On his right shoulder and right elbow and in the crisscrossed thongs of the right forearm were three deep and gaping cuts. His ears were cauli-flowered, ballooned, and cut. His nose had been smashed to one side and cut, his lips puffed, his cheek-bone swollen and gashed. His eyes showed the heavy ridges of the professional prizefighter, and traces of old scars as well as new wounds. The cesti, which were thick and about two and a half inches wide, covering the knuckles and letting the fingers protrude, had sharp cutting edges, and the two halves were held together around the hand with narrow strips of iron.

The thin man with the lank black hair made a little movement toward Leni, but her father was the first to recover. He spoke to her in German.

“Leni! What are you doing here? Who is this man? Ah, yes, he was at the museum. I remember. But why?” He stopped, turned to the group, and said in Italian, “Forgive me. Count Alberini, I believe you have met my daughter. Professor Guglielmo, my daughter Leni.”

Leni introduced Tommy. The bearded, monocled man was Count Alberini, State Director of Museums and Art; the fussy little bald-headed man was Guglielmo. The thin, narrow-faced one with the long hair was Armando Zanni, Lisschauer’s assistant. Then she turned to her father. “Papachen, what has happened?”

“It is all over, my child. Count Alberini has accepted the statement and the testimony of Professor Guglielmo. The Manzini brothers were once known to have made a statue of a boxer. Zanni has had no alternative but to agree with him. I have given my resignation. The Count has been very kind. He brought Professor Guglielmo here from Naples to confront me and give me a last chance to prove my case. I could not.”

Leni turned to Tommy quickly in pain and in panic, and translated what her father had said. The Count was coughing discreetly and then spoke softly and deprecatingly in English. “Your pardon. But this is indeed a very private matter. This young man—” He looked inquiringly at Leni.

The girl turned. “He is an expert—” She was very close to tears.

Professor Guglielmo removed his pince-nez and cocked his head to one side and asked, “Of antiquity?”

“No,” cried Leni, her young voice ringing defiantly through the room. “No! Of life!” Suddenly she turned to Tommy and wailed, “Oh, Tommy, Tommy! Do something! Make him live. Bring him to life for me the way you did the old people of the Colosseo. Tommy...”

Tommy caught her by the shoulders and said, “I get it. Keep your chin up. I get the picture.” He faced the group of men. “Do all of you gentlemen understand English?”

They all bowed. Zanni said, “But naturally. It is a part of education.”

“Good,” said Tommy. “Anything you don’t understand Leni will translate for you. She’s onto my jargon.” He grinned pleasantly at Zanni. “Education sometimes has its limits. Leni, tell all these guys to keep their shirts on. I want five minutes with this old chap. Maybe I can help.”

He stepped out of the circle and walked slowly over to the statue while the four men and the girl stood watching him. He spoke to himself very slowly as he stood in front of the great bronze, his hands in his pockets, his head cocked a little to one side.

“The Roman Kid, eh? What a licking you took!... Gee, shave off those whiskers, and you could be Paolino sitting on the rubbing table in the dressing room at the Yankee Stadium after Max Schmeling got through with him. What a pasting!... That’s a lovely pair of tin ears you’ve got, my friend. You just never bothered to duck, eh? What a job, what a job!...”

He commenced to circle the statue slowly, examining it minutely. He fingered the three cuts on the right side, went suddenly to the other side and examined the left arm, whistled, and said, “Oh, oh, sidewinder!”

He inspected the hands carefully and then hopped up on the pedestal, fingered and examined the cuts on the face, the bruises and abrasions and scars. He jumped down to the floor again, and suddenly fell into a boxing stance, looked at the statue again and changed it, and then walked rapidly around it again. Once he addressed himself to Count Alberini. “These cuts,” he said, “are definitely cuts? Not accidents? Ages of being buried, or being tossed around?”

“We do not believe it has been buried for ages,” the Count replied with a little smile, “but the cuts and marks were all placed there by the sculptor.”

“Thanks,” said Tommy. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

He made one more circle around the statue and then backed away from it with a little gesture of salute and said, “Thanks, pal. There’s been many a guy since your time who’s had his ears pinned back just the way yours were.”

He turned and faced the group, uttered something out of the corner of his mouth to Leni that sounded like “Buckety, buckety,” and then said with a fine, studied, dramatic carelessness that delighted him, “Gentlemen, what would you like to know about this guy?”

It was old Professor Lisschauer who grasped at the straw. He said, “What? Iss there anything you can tell us?” There was deep despair in his voice, which made Tommy suddenly ashamed of his fine pose. He dropped it.

“Plenty,” he said grimly. “In the first place, the guy was a southpaw.”

“A which?” inquired Professor Guglielmo politely.

“Portsider. He was left-handed. I’ll bet most guys hated to fight him. Nobody likes to fight a southpaw.”

Count Alberini looked interested. “So?” he said. “How do you determine this?”

“Looka,” said Tommy. “You can’t miss it.” He stepped up to the statue, took a pencil from his pocket, and used it as a pointer. “Here! Deep cut on right shoulder. Another on the arm just below the elbow. Another on the forearm inside the lacings. No cuts on the left shoulder or arm whatsoever. Here’s how the orthodox boxer stands—” Tommy fell into the regular stance, left hand, left foot forward. “Here’s how this guy stood—” He reversed his position and stood with his right foot forward, right arm extended and curled, left arm bent at his side. “Get it?” he said. “The reason he has those cuts on the right arm is because that is the part of him that was the closest to his opponent.”

For the first time light came back to Leni’s face. The Count solemnly walked over to the statue, inserted his monocle in his eye, inspected the three cuts one after another, assumed the left-handed boxing stance that Tommy had taken, straightened up, slapped his thigh, and said, “Per Bacco!”

“Uhuh!” said Tommy. “And anyway, the guy’s had a busted left duke — hand, I mean. That artist didn’t miss a thing. Here, you can see the swelling where it knit badly. He used the left for the Sunday punch. That would be the one most likely to go. All right. He wasn’t a boxer. He was a slugger. All he wanted to do was to get in close enough to lay in that left — which meant curtains. Get it?”

Guglielmo walked over, adjusted his pince-nez, and said, “You can explain that?”

“Look at the ears on him,” said Tommy. “Guys who can box don’t get marked up that way. This guy’s had a hell of a licking. All those bums who take five to give one wind up with pretzel ears and scarred eyebrows. He’s got the musculature of a slugger too, and the legs. Here, look at all these heavy muscles behind the shoulders and down the back, and on the arms. The fast boxer and snap hitter has slender shoulders and tapering muscles. And anyway, the cuts on the arm again tell you that. Look here, Professor, let me show you. Square off in front of me.”

He got Guglielmo in a boxer-like attitude. The little old man seemed to like it and tried to look fierce and belligerent. Tommy ranged himself opposite him in the left-handed stance, but with his right arm and fist completely extended in front of him, and the left cocked at his breast.

“I can keep you off in this way. But this guy fought with his right arm curled in front of his face like a shield as he shuffled in. That’s how he got those cuts where they are.”

Guglielmo practiced a little, transformed himself into a slugger, examined the statue, went into a pose again, straightened up, looked at Alberini and said, “Mirabile!... E vero...”

Leni clapped her hands. “Oh, Tommy, bravo!”

Professor Zanni shrugged and said, “In the realm of pure conjecture...”

Tommy threw him a look, licked his lips, and spoke again. “Now if you’d like,” he said, “I think I can tell you something about the guy who whipped him. The sculptor who did this made his sketches in the dressing room or in the arena, immediately after the fight. Now—”

Zanni suddenly showed even, white teeth. “Just a moment, my friend. How do you know he lost the fight? Perhaps he was the winner, no?”

“Zanni,” said Tommy, “you ought to read a book. It’ll broaden you. Do you admit that he was sketched immediately after a fight?”

“If the statue were genuine, I would. The artist has been so careful to include every mark with nothing omitted. But he might still have been the winner.”

“Then the sculptor would also have been careful enough to include the victor’s chaplet or garland which would have been on this guy’s head if he’d won,” said Tommy with his most charming smile.

“Bravo!” said Alberini and Guglielmo in unison.

“Herrlich!” said Professor Lisschauer. He moved over toward Alberini and Guglielmo. There was a little gleam of hope in his tired eyes.

“Thanks,” said Tommy. “All right, then. The little guy who licked him was probably a Greek. He—”

It was Zanni who interrupted again with a laugh. “Hah! No, no, my friend. That is now pure fancy. You have the true American imagination.”

“You sure root for the home team, don’t you, Zanni?” Tommy said.

“I do not understand this expression.”

“Leni does,” suggested Tommy. “Maybe you’ve read a book, but not the right one. There’s one over in the library of the American Academy I can refer you to. Professor Stoddard gave it to me. It tells how the Greeks never punched for the body. They were purely head punchers. This guy hasn’t a mark on his body. But look at his kisser. The Greeks, from all I can find out, were much better boxers than the Romans. And make no mistake. The guy who gave the Roman Kid his pasting was a little sweetheart. He fought on a bicycle, and—”

Even Leni joined in the unison chorus, “A bicycle?” They were all hypnotized.

Tommy grinned. “Excuse me. That’s one I haven’t taught you yet, Leni. He fought in retreat. He knew he had to stay away from this guy or get killed.”

“Why do you say a small man?” asked Guglielmo.

“Figure it out,” replied Tommy. “Small men are fast. Big guys are slow. This guy is still alive, isn’t he? If his opponent had been a big, fast guy with a punch, he’d be dead instead of sitting there. You could cave in the side of a guy’s head with one of those things he has on his hands. But the Greek was fast enough to keep away, and probably smaller. He either didn’t have a punch or he was afraid to get close enough to let one go. And the direction of the cuts and bruises on the Kid’s face indicate that the Greek hooked, or punched up at him, and therefore was smaller.

“Look at the condition of the right side of the Kid’s face, compared to the left. The Greek probably let him have a few right-hand smashes when he had him woozy. But he was a smart little guy and he knew how to fight a southpaw, which is more than most of our fighters do today. He kept moving, circling to his own left and the Kid’s right, away from that deadly left hand, and as he circled and back-pedaled, he kept popping him with left hooks — look at the way his nose is bent, the size of his right ear, and the mess he made out of the right side of his face.

“Even so, he didn’t want to risk getting close enough to finish him. He had the fight won, so why take a chance? He just popped him with that left until the southpaw collapsed from the accumulation of punches, loss of blood, and exhaustion. Afterwards—”

Leni suddenly placed her hand to her face and screamed.

Her cry echoed through the high, empty vaults of the deserted museum.

“Tommy! Papa!” she was staring. “The Tertullian Fragment! The description... Tommy! Papa!”

They were all talking and shouting at once, Alberini crying, “Corpe di Bacco,” Guglielmo saying over and over, “Si, si, si, si, ma si, si-si...” and Professor Lisschauer, “Lieber Herr Gott. Aber gewiss...”

“I don’t get it,” said Tommy.

“The Fragment!” cried Leni. “The description of the boxing match before Titus!”

“Holy smokes!” said Tommy. “I had forgotten it.”

“The name... the name!” cried Professor Lisschauer. “Sinistrus, the Left-handed One. It iss. It iss. You half here before you Sinistrus, Roman boxer of the Emperor Titus, defeated by the little Greek, Phistra, and granted his life because of the love of the Emperor for his sister Aula.”

It was not strange that Leni and Tommy should be hugging each other, but it was a little unusual that Lisschauer and Guglielmo should be in each other’s arms, and patting each other on the back, until the little man suddenly stepped back and cleared his throat and said, “I must have leave to speak. Count Alberini, Professor Lisschauer, I withdraw. I apologize. I have done a great injustice, though my intent was honest. I was wrong. The Manzini brothers have been dead two years. The Tertullian Fragment was discovered less than six months ago. They could not possibly have known of its contents. I hope that I will be forgiven. For my friend Professor Lisschauer I have the greatest esteem and admiration.”

The Count adjusted his monocle and said, “Professor Guglielmo, it is no more than I expected from a man of your attainments and generosity. The resignation of Professor Lisschauer is, of course, not accepted.”

Professor Lisschauer somehow made a magnificent job of not seeing where Leni had just been. He came to Tommy and said, “I wish to thank you from the bottom uff my heart, and to make to you my apologies for my attitude and my ignorance in the museum that morning. We are all too far from the realities of life. You have shamed us all...”

Tommy said, “Gee — don’t — it catches me in the throat... I’m... I’m just a dumb guy who happens to have been around fights and fighters all his life...”

There was a pause. “I am so happy,” said Professor Lisschauer, “I could to sing and cry. We will go to my house, all, and drink some wine. Mr. Thompson, Count Alberini, Guglielmo, Zanni.” He stopped. “Where has gone Zanni?”

“Zanni,” said Tommy succinctly, “has taken a powder.”

They all looked blank, but Tommy didn’t explain. They moved off down the long aisles of glass cases and marbles and bronzes toward the stairs. When they reached the darker portions and the attendant went ahead of his lantern, Tommy did what was requisite.

“You know,” said Leni, when she could speak again, “I... I think perhaps boy is going to get girl...”