“Oh, no! I want to pay them more than a courtesy visit I’ve got some very special questions for those two.”

The old man nodded, his eyes shining. “I thought you might have a few. We can arrange it whenever you are ready. And now, since it is still early in the day, who is next on your list?”

“Martha and Mary.”

“The sisters of Bethany? You need to further verify what you have just heard from Matthew and James?” he asked incredulously.

I said nothing. Had I told him my real reason for wanting to go to Bethany, he might have turned me over to Shem with instructions to lose me in the wilderness.

Joseph scratched at the creases in his forehead. “A visit to Martha and Mary, at this time, would not be in your best interest.”

“Why?”

He pointed, almost imperceptibly, toward the roadside whittler, who never once looked up at us although we were only thirty feet away. “Undoubtedly our little friend has a horse tied nearby,” Joseph explained, “and he is certain to follow us. Consider this simple problem in deduction, Matthias. Assume that we were seen yesterday, talking to James in the Temple courtyard. This morning we met with Matthew, and then James, the brother of John, joined us. Now we go to the home of Martha and Mary. What do these five have in common?”

It didn’t take me long. “Their close connection to Jesus.”

“Exactly. Now if you were either the high priest or the procurator, who both serve at the whim of Vitellius, what sort of suspicious thoughts might run through your mind if you received reports that a Roman citizen had arrived in the city and was meeting with no one except those who had been closely associated with Jesus—and to compound matters was staying at the home of the man who had claimed his body for burial?”

“If I had anything to hide I guess I’d begin to lose some sleep. But I’ve only got five more days, Joseph, and I want to make every minute count. Tomorrow I had hoped we could visit Peter and John, but I’d really like to complete this part of the investigation first, and the only way I can close it out to my satisfaction is through a visit to Bethany.”

“Now, now, do not abandon hope. I never said the trip was impossible.”