‘Lazy bums! So in the lock-up it stayed for days, until Graecina offered me use of the chair. I guess she had no idea what was hidden in it. When she told Polycarpus she had lent me the chair he must have been beside himself. I thought it was odd that a busy steward went in person to reclaim the chair, and went so soon too. He must have been shitting bricks – sorry, very perturbed – because he remembered the silver was inside. Presumably, Polycarpus thought the loot might be discovered, so he chased off to retrieve it. One of my dear little inquisitive nephews had been playing in the conveyance. But the little boy failed to tell his mama, when she caught him with the coaster, that he had seen a whole load of other things under the removable seat.’

‘Well, don’t snitch on him.’

‘I don’t grass up naughty boys, Tiberius.’

‘That’s a relief to all of us!’

‘Why, what have you done?’ Dromo demanded of the aedile, who gave him no answer. He just sat there, as he did, with that pleasant face giving nothing away like some fisherman on a wharf waiting for a bite on his line, knowing it would eventually happen.

I said, ‘I am sure your master was speaking hypothetically.’

‘What?’

‘A joke, Dromo!’ I squared up and continued. ‘It could have been a girl, by the way. My little sweetheart niece Aelia finds things she is not supposed to …’

‘Some girls are into everything,’ remarked Faustus obliquely.

I sniffed. ‘Polycarpus could well have fetched back the chair too soon, because you, super-efficient Tiberius Manlius, had arranged for a much more detailed search to take place here.’

‘Yes, and you certified my search was thorough! So the silver was not found because? …’

‘It was still at my uncle’s house while the search was going on. Polycarpus was on his mission to fetch it. I bet when he brought the chair back, he was horrified to hear you had searched again. The day he died, he had been moving the silver to the well, a safer hiding-place.’

‘You think his killer discovered him doing it?’

‘It seems likely. I wonder if they had a quarrel over this silver? The one thing I can say is this,’ I told Faustus. ‘On the night of the attack, Polycarpus and the others organised a spectacular cover-up. It involved the steward and slaves disguising the crime as a burglary.’

Faustus held up a hand. ‘Did they know real thieves had made an attempt? Roscius?’