I, too, returned to the courtyard. Most people had gone and the last stragglers were disappearing. Gratus had everything swept up, put away, taken out to a mule in no time. His staff carried off food hampers and baskets of tableware. He came and said goodbye to me.

‘These were here – shall I leave them out or put them indoors?’

He meant the two chairs. I said he could leave them. I had lost any sense of responsibility towards this apartment and its contents. ‘You are very observant, Gratus. The ungrateful Simplicii don’t deserve you. If I can think of anyone I know who needs a good steward, I shall put in a word on your behalf.’

I could try leaning on my parents; they collected waifs, though they probably had enough already. Another possibility might be Manlius Faustus, though his uncle, who ran their household, was a slightly unknown quantity. Uncle Tullius had bought Dromo, for one thing.

I shook hands with the steward and on Graecina’s behalf thanked him for his attention to everything today.

The last person to leave was Sextus Simplicius. He told me he would like to know as soon as the investigation was closed. He was eager to close up the apartment, sell the contents and terminate its lease. That was more urgent now Polycarpus was not around, though Simplicius had asked Graecina to keep an eye out, temporarily. She must have seen how her husband ran things. I made a mental note to suggest to her becoming a concierge as a way of earning. Another good deed for the unfortunates I had met in the course of the case.

‘I gather,’ I said to him, ‘you are ready to sell off the slaves?’

‘Any who survive your enquiries without being executed!’ Sextus Simplicius agreed. ‘Not to mention you-know-who.’

Indeed, he did not mention Myla by name but I noticed she was lurking in a colonnade again and heard him.

Since funerals are night-time events, it was now very late. Dromo was pointedly ‘asleep’ on his mat. Fake snores made it clear he was not intending to take a report to Faustus now – not that I would have sent him out on his own in the dark.

Despite the time, as soon as Simplicius left I called out to Myla. She would have been able to tell from my tone there was no point in playing deaf. So she shuffled up at her own slow pace, complaining rudely, ‘I was going to bed!’

‘So am I in a minute,’ I retorted, not letting her see how she vexed me. ‘This cannot wait. I want a serious chat with you.’