Murder in Megara

Chapter Twenty-eight

Everything Maritza knew about Theophilus’ activities before his disappearance turned out to amount to nothing. Or so she insisted. Even the emperor himself, pleading from a gold nomisma, could not jar any memories loose.

“’Man’s work’ is all he ever told me. We kept our noses out of each other’s business.”

“You must have known he was a thief,” John insisted.

“I do now,” was her sharp reply.

John had put the gold coin back in his pouch and left, telling her the emperor would be happy to see her again if she suddenly recalled anything. He wasn’t surprised Theophilus had kept her in the dark about his schemes. Her sort might easily have betrayed him to the authorities for less than John had paid her already.

Walking back to his lodgings he tried not to think about his mother being married to a man who would marry the woman he had just interviewed.

Although Maritza had told him very little, he hoped the scrap of parchment would have something to say to him-or rather the faint writing he could see beneath the historical note would. The message about the iron shipment had been hidden under words engraved in the tablet’s wax. Perhaps Theophilus had regularly employed such concealment.

John passed through light spilling from the door of a tavern. He had decided against further investigations tonight. Word about the man looking for Theophilus had obviously spread, as evidenced by Maritza’s approaching him.

This time John approached the dim stairway at his lodgings with caution. He didn’t want to fall prey to a real attack. As always the steps creaked loudly enough to drown out any sound made by someone lying in wait in the shadows above. He arrived at the upper hallway unscathed and pushed open the warped door to his room, which, as with most of the doors in the place, hung partly ajar in its crooked frame.

The man seated on John’s bed gestured for him to come in with a wave of the long-bladed knife in his hand. “Please shut the door quietly behind you. We don’t want to disturb the other guests, do we?”

“You’re the fellow on the church steps who told me to trust no one except myself and my horse,” John said.

“I’m glad you remembered me. I forgot to add one should also trust a man with a drawn blade.”

“You were not so intoxicated or sleepy as you appeared, it seems.”

“No one pays much attention to public drunkards.”

The man was right, John thought ruefully. Now he noticed that aside from apparently being nothing more than a pathetic fellow reeling about in a haze of wine fumes, the speaker was a big, solidly built man in early middle age, with close cropped hair and enough scars showing on his face and the backs of his hands to indicate an intimate knowledge of the weapon he displayed.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you,” the man went on. “You claim to know Theophilus, which I wouldn’t have believed except that I saw you leaving Maritza’s room.”

But he had not, seemingly, seen her going into John’s lodgings or John and her leaving.

“Do you know where the bastard is?”

“You don’t think I believe your story, do you? You’re no petty thief. I don’t know what you are, or who you are, but a simple thief? No.”

“Why don’t you try asking who I am?”

“Because you won’t tell me the truth, any more than I would tell who I am.”

John was still standing in front of the closed door. Could he yank it open and escape downstairs before the man with the knife could leap off the bed? Could he get his own weapon out in time to defend himself?

The long blade waggled at him. “Away from the door, friend. Have a seat.”

John lowered himself onto the indicated stool.

The blade pointed at him from the bed, not much more than an arms-breadth away. “Good. Now we are face to face. Let’s just call ourselves businessmen.”

“And our business is…what?”

“According to you, it is iron.”

“That’s right. Theophilus hasn’t paid me for the assistance I gave him with his last shipment.” John repeated what he had been proclaiming in various taverns. “But then you said you didn’t believe I was a petty thief, so why would you believe I am telling the truth?”

“I don’t believe you’re a petty thief, but I might entertain the idea that you are involved in the iron trade, and as far as the matter of Theophilus cheating you-well, I would take that as a given. Which shipment was it?”

John related the details so far as he knew them, watching the other’s face. “Theophilus cheated you too, didn’t he? Being cheated is the price of working with him!”

The blade plunged into John’s bedding and ripped across it. Cloth tore with a high thin noise. “Wait until I find the swine! I’ve been waiting for him to get back for over a week. If he’s taken flight with my share I’ll be joining you in your search with the intention of slipping sharp metal, and not necessarily iron, between his ribs.”

“I could use a man who enjoys using a knife,” John said. “As for this iron…I’m not so much interested in the money as the principle. We businessmen need to maintain certain standards. What I want is to see the bastard brought to justice. If you can take care of that, you can have whatever money you can carve out of him, and I’ll throw in something for good measure.”

“You’ll admit to being more than a thief? But what of it? You don’t know where the swine went to any more than I do.”

“I have contacts in many fields of commerce, only I’m not sure who to ask. These are busy men, you understand. They don’t like being disturbed over nothing. So one of the things I want to know is what else was Theophilus involved in, besides this iron business?”

The man on the bed studied his knife and smiled faintly, as if he were imagining what it would look like in Theophilus’ throat. “Oh, he was a very busy man. Anything you could smuggle, he smuggled. Iron, silks, counterfeit coins, forged religious relics.”

“And you assisted him?”

“I’m not saying any more.”

“Good, because I don’t work with men with loose lips. I will make further inquiries. Come back in a few days.”

When the stranger had gone, John sat on the edge of the bed and ran his finger along the rent in the fabric. Mithra! He’d just more or less arranged to have his own stepfather killed as far as his visitor was concerned.

Did it matter that his stepfather was already dead?