`I have to ask.'

`I realise.'

`Was your conversation amicable?'

`We had no conversation.'

`Why not?'

`I did not go.'

`You are on my list!'

`So what? I had been told that the man wanted to see me; I had no reason to see him. I stayed away.'

I consulted my notes. `This is a list of visitors, not just people who had been invited:'

Urbanus did not blink. `Then it is a mistake

I drew a long breath. `Who can vouch for what you say?'

`Anna, my wife.'

As if responding to a cue she appeared again, nursing a baby. I wondered if she had been listening. `Wives cannot appear in a Roman law court,' I reminded them.

Urbanus shrugged, with wide-open hands. He glanced at his wife. Her face was expressionless. `Who wants to prosecute me?' he murmured.

`I do, if I think you are guilty. Wives don't make good alibis.'

`I thought that was all wives were for,' muttered Helena, from her stool. Urbanus and I gazed at her and allowed the jest. Anna was nuzzling her child. A woman who was used to sitting quietly and listening to what went on around her, one perhaps who could be so unobtrusive you forgot she was there…

`I had no reason to meet Chrysippus,' the playwright reiterated. `He is – was – a bastard to work for. Plays do not sell well, not modern plays anyway; the Classics are always desired reading. But I manage to be marketable, unlike most of the sad mongrels Chrysippus supported. As a result, I found a new scriptorium to take my work.'

`So you were dumping him? Were you on contract?'

He humphed. `His mistake! He had not allowed it. I did think – that is, Anna thought – he might be seeking to tie me in. That was another reason to keep out of his way.'

`And would it have been a reason to kill him?'

`No! I had nothing to gain by that and everything to lose. I earn ticket money, remember. He was no longer important to me. I deal separately with the aediles or private producers when my work is performed. When I was younger, royalties on scrolls were make or break, but now they are just incidentals. And my new scriptorium is one with a Forum outlet – much better.'

`Did Chrysippus know?'

`I doubt it.'

I wondered what happened to the heaped chests of box office money, after the family paid the bills for their frugal life. `Do you bank with him?'

Urbanus threw back his head and roared. `You must be joking, Falco!'

`All bankers screw their clients,' I reminded him.

`Yes, but he made enough from my plays. I saw no reason to be screwed by the same man twice over.'

While I sat thinking, Helena contributed another question: `Falco is looking at motives, of course. You seem more fortunate than the

others. Even so, there are jealous murmurs against you, Urbanus.' `And what would those be?' If he knew, he was not showing it. Helena looked him in the eye. `You are suspected of not writing your plays yourself.'

It was Anna, the wife, who growled angrily at that.

Urbanus leaned back. There was no visible annoyance; he must have heard this accusation before. `People are strange – luckily for playwrights, or we would have no inspiration.' He glanced at his wife; this time she ventured a pale half-smile. `The charge is of the worst kind – possible to prove, if true, yet if untrue, quite impossible to refute.'

`A matter of faith,' I said.

Urbanus showed a flash of anger now. `Why are mad ideas taken so seriously? Oh of course! Certain types will never accept that literate and humane writing with inventive language and depth of emotion can come from the provinces – let alone from the middle of Britain.'

`You're not in the secret society. "Oh only an educated Roman could produce this"

`No; we are not supposed to have anything to say, or to be capable of expressing it… Who do they say writes for me?' he roared scornfully.

`Various improbable suggestions,' Helena said. Maybe Scrutator had told her; maybe she had pursued the gossip herself. `Not all of them even alive.'

`So who am I- this man before you – then supposed to be?'

`The lucky dog who counts in the ticket money,' I grinned. `While the mighty authors you are "impersonating" let you spend their royalties.'

`Well, they are missing all the fun,' Urbanus responded dryly, suddenly able to let the subject rest.

`Let's get back to my problem. It could be argued,' I put to him quietly, `that this is a malicious rumour, which Chrysippus began spreading because he knew he was losing you. Say you were so affronted by the rumour you went to his house to remonstrate, then the two of you argued and you lost your cool.'

`Far too drastic. I am a working author,' the playwright protested in a mild way. `I have nothing to prove and I would not throw away my position. And as for literary feuds – Falco, I don't have the time.'

I grinned and decided to try a literary approach: `Help us, Urbanus. If you were writing about the death of Chrysippus, what would you say had happened? Was his money a motive? Was it sex? Is a frustrated author behind it, or a jealous woman, or the son perhaps?'

`Sons never rise to action.' Urbanus smiled. `They live with the anger for too long.' From personal experience, I agreed with him. `Sons brood, and fester, and permanently tolerate their indignities. Of course, daughters can be furies!'

Neither woman present took him up on that. His wife, Anna, had not contributed to the discussion, but Urbanus now asked her the question: whom would she accuse?

`I would have to think about it,' Anna said cautiously and with some interest. Some people say that as a put-off, she sounded as if she meant she really would mull it over. `Of course,' she put to me, with a teasing glint, `I may have killed Chrysippus, for my husband's sake.' Before I could ask if she did it, she added crisply, `However, I am too busy with my young children, as you see.'

I was satisfied that Urbanus would have been stupid to kill Chrysippus. He was in the clear, but he interested me. The conversation drifted into more general matters. I confessed to having experience as a working playwright in a theatre troupe myself. We talked about our travels. I even asked advice on The Spook Who Spoke, my best effort at drama. From my description, Urbanus thought this brilliant farce ought to be turned into a tragedy. That was rubbish; perhaps he was not such an incisive master of theatre after all.

While we chatted, Anna was still holding the small baby on her shoulder, smoothing its gown over its back when it grew fractious. Both Helena and I noticed that she had inky fingers. Helena told me afterwards that she thought it might be significant. `Have the rumourmongers picked up something genuine? Is it Anna who has the way with words?'

Nice thought. You could make a play about a woman taking on a man's identity. If it turned out to be a woman who actually wrote Urbanus' plays, now that really would be a piece of theatre!