Poseidon_s Gold

LIII

I ran the fingers of both hands deep into my hair, massaging my scalp. Somehow this shock was not the surprise it ought to have been. Everyone had been telling us the Hypericon was carrying the statue; readjusting to another story took an effort. But some things which had made no sense before might now fall into place.

'Tell us what happened,' I commanded the sculptor wearily.

'There had been some mix-up. Festus and I took the Phidias to Tyre, but the rest of his stuff, things he had fixed up on his own account, had gone to Caesarea. Festus then told me he had to make himself look a bit official-'

'You don't say!' Pa was getting rattled. 'There was a war on in that region!'

'Well that's it!' Orontes exclaimed gratefully. He appeared to lack any grasp of world events. Perhaps this was understandable, when he saw my brother behaving as if the Jewish Rebellion had been arranged solely to further his own business commissions. 'Anyway, he went down to Caesarea to supervise his other stuff and to fix up a ship-what turned out to be the Hypericon.'

'So you were not using her before this?' I asked.

'Oh no. We were in military transports up to then.' Bloody Festus! 'I was left in charge of the statue. Festus told me before I brought it south to let one of the Aristedon brothers inspect it.' The name was familiar; I remembered Carus and Servia mentioning they used these people to ship goods for them. 'They were to verify it for the new owners, and until they did, Festus could not clear the banker's order.'

'So Festus was paid by Carus through a banker in Syria?'

'More convenient,' Pa muttered. 'He wouldn't have wanted to carry that kind of sum with him from Rome. And if his mates in Judaea had put up the stake money, he could pay them their profits straight away with less risk to the cash.'

'I see. But before Carus would cough up so much money, he wanted an agent of his own to see the goods? So how did you lose our statue, Orontes?'

He was really squirming now. 'Oh gods… I thought it was for the best… Aristedon, their agent, turned up in Tyre and approved the statue. I was supposed to take it by road to Caesarea, but with soldiers barging about on all the highways, I was not looking forward to the trip. It seemed a godsend when the Aristedon brother suggested that his clients would prefer him to ship the Phidias in his own boat, the Pride of Perga.'

'Did you go along with that?' demanded Pa contemptuously.

'I assume Aristedon gave you some form of receipt?' I added dangerously.

'Oh yes…' Something was not right there. He had gone pale, and his eyes were wandering.

'So you let him take it?'

'Why not? It meant I could stop worrying about it. And I could forget about coming home on the Hypericon. I wanted to go back to Greece. That way I could spend my commission from Festus buying stuff for myself.'

I weighed in: 'So you handed over the Phidias, let the rest of my brother's cargo take its chance with the Hypericon, flitted off to Achaea, then wandered back to Italy in your own good time?'

'That's right, Falco. And since it meant I escaped drowning, I'm not going to apologise!' It seemed a reasonable attitude-unless this clown had lost your family a small fortune. 'After I got home I discovered the Hypericon had sunk and Festus had lost all his gear.'

'So where in Hades is the Phidias?' grated Pa.

'I was just congratulating myself on having saved it, when I heard that the Pride of Perga had miscarried too.'

'Oh come on!' roared my father. 'This is too much of a coincidence!'

'It was a bad time of year. Dreadful storms everywhere.'

'So then what happened?' I put in.

'I found myself in trouble. I was visited by Carus. He made me swear I would not tell Festus about the statue swap-'

'He paid you for this deception?'

'Well…' The sculptor looked more shifty than usual. 'He bought something I had.'

'It can't have been one of your pieces,' my father said pleasantly. 'Carus is a shit, but he is a connoisseur!'

Orontes spoke before he could help himself. 'He bought the receipt.'

Both Father and I had to try very hard to restrain ourselves.

'How much for?' I asked, with feigned lightness of tone-my only way to avoid a burst blood vessel.

'Five thousand.' The admission was almost inaudible.

'Is that all? The bloody statue was worth half a million!'

'I was hard up… I took what I could get.'

'But whatever did you think you were doing to Festus?'

'It didn't seem so bad,' wailed Orontes. Clearly he belonged to the amoral class of artists. 'If I had not changed the arrangements, Festus would have lost the statue anyway, in the Hypericon. I don't see any difference!'

'All the difference!' my father raged. 'Half a million nice bright shiny ones that Carus now thinks he can force us to pay!'

'He was trying to squeeze Festus too,' Orontes conceded dismally. 'That was why I didn't want to meet him when he came back to Rome. I reckoned Festus knew what I had done, and was coming after me.'

Father and I looked at each other. We were both reminiscing about my brother, and we were both perturbed. Simple rage did not explain the agitation Festus had been showing on that last trip home. If he had known that this worm Orontes had cheated him, he would simply have enlisted help, either from me or from Father, to blast the fool. Instead, he had been running in circles trying to organise one of his secret plans. It could only mean he really believed that Cassius Carus had a grievance, and needed to be squared.

Orontes misinterpreted our silence. Giving his all, he went on in anguish, 'Carus must have been putting terrible pressure on Festus by then, and Carus is known as a dangerous character.'

'Too dangerous for a fool like you to meddle with!' my father told him brutally.

'Oh don't go on-' He had no grasp of priorities. 'I'm sorry about what happened, but there seemed no way for me to get out of it. The way Carus first put it, he made me feel I had done wrong to let the statue go. He said everybody would feel better if we pretended it had never happened.'

'I cannot believe this character!' Pa muttered to me in despair.

'Can we get the five thousand off him?'

'I've spent it,' Orontes whispered. By then I was prepared for that. Nothing useful or good would ever come out of this studio. 'I spent everything. I always do. Money seems to shrivel up the minute I appear…' I gave him a glare that should have shrivelled something else. 'Look, I know you have a lot to blame me for. I never thought it would end the way it did-'

A bad feeling was creeping over me. Both my father and I were very still. A man with more astuteness would have shut up rapidly. But Orontes lacked any sensitivity to atmosphere. He went straight on: 'I left Rome and kept right out of the way as long as I knew Festus was prowling about. When Manlius told me he had left, I hoped he had managed to sort something out about the cash, and I just tried not to think about it. So how do you imagine I felt when I heard what had happened to him, and realised it was all my fault?' His question was almost indignant. 'I knew Carus and Servia hate to be done down, and I realised their methods could be harsh. But I never thought,' Orontes wailed, 'Carus would put the frighteners out so badly that Festus would do what he did!'

'What did Festus do?' I demanded in a low voice.

Suddenly Orontes realised he had caused himself an unnecessary predicament. It was too late. The reply came dragging out of him irresistibly: 'I suppose he had come under so much pressure, he chose to die in battle so that he could get away from it!'