Well, all right; some of them told us to get lost.

There was one particular house which Petro and I both viewed with suspicion. While I was away he had been examining Helena's lists and, formulating theories (the kitchen maid must have been an absolute disaster close to). He shared my feeling that we ought to re-investigate the villa owned by Aurelia Maesia. Though female, her pattern of travelling to, Rome most resembled what we were looking for.

She lived in Tibur itself. Her house was on the western side, near the Hercules Victor complex. This noteworthy sanctuary was the most important in Tibur, set, on the steep hill above the lower reaches of the Anio as it travelled past the town. Massive stonework supported old arcades whereupon sat a large piazza, surrounded by double-height colonnades which had been left open, on one side to give a dramatic view down the valley. In the centre of the temenos, the temple to the demigod was approached by a high flight of steps; immediately below it lay a small theatre. A market filled the colonnades, so the area hummed. They had an oracle too. `Why don't we just consult the oracle?' Petro growled. `Why waste effort dressing, up as layabouts and getting drenched to the armpits when w e can' Just pay a fee and be told the answer?'

`Oracles can only deal with simple-'stuff "What is the Meaning of Life?" And "How can I get the better of my mother-in-law"' You aren't expected to tax them with technical complexities such as "Please name this bastard who kidnaps and kills for fun". That calls for sophisticated powers of deduction.'

`And idiots like you and me who don't know when to turn a bad job down.'

'That's right. Oracles arc whimsical. They tease and mislead. You and I stick in there with jaws like sheep tics and produce an unrebuttable result.'

`Well then,' chaffed Petro. `Let's go and make ourselves a pest.',

Like most women's houses which ought to be impossible for dubious men to enter, Aurelia Maesia's well-trimmed grounds were simplicity itself to penetrate. There may have been a porter and steward at the house but we were admitted by a female cook who took us straight to the lady herself.

She must have been sixty. She was dressed in a stately manner, with gold pendant earrings set with amber and dangling pearls: She had fleshy face, about to droop and go more gaunt; her skin was meshed with a web of fine lines. I put her down as pleasant but dull. The moment we met her I knew she was not our murderer, but that did not preclude her driver or anyone else with whom she habitually shared her carriage' on her trips to Rome.

She had been writing a letter, with difficulty since she was not using a scribe and her eyesight was clearly very poor. As we shuffled in, she looked up rather nervously. We went through the routine and, our cover accepted, were led to a dry fountain in a licheny courtyard. It was ancient, but

elegant. Sparrows hopped hopefully in the two tiered bowls, watching our approach with cheeping curiosity. A lad had been put in charge of us:

`I'm Gaius.' I set our bag down carefully, to avoid revealing that most; of its supposedly technical contents were just farmyard junk. Extracting a blunt stick, I began scratching, off lichen boldly. Petro stood in the background, staring at the sky in an aimless manner.

`Who's he?' asked the lad, still checking our credentials. `He's Gaius too.'

'Oh! How do I tell which is which?'

`I'm the clever one.'

When Petro took a turn at the introductions, he always called us 'Titus', saying `like the Emperor's son'; it gave him a childish pleasure to assume Imperial trapping when we were playing at louts.

`And you are?'

'Titus,' said the lad.

Petronius gave him a lazy grin. `Like the Emperor's son!'

Young Titus had apparently heard that one before.

`Seems a nice lady, Aurelia what's her-name,' I offered, after some time cleaning the weathered stone. `Lives here, does she? I only ask because a lot of our clients in this area only come down on holiday.'

`Lived here for years,' said Titus.

`Still, I expect she goes to Rome sometimes?' `Quite often really.'

Petronius had a finger, up his nose. Titus almost copied him, then fell shy of it. I looked up, and addressed Petronius: `Listen, our, Gaius look around and see if you can find me – a little stone or a bit of chipped tile from somewhere

Why do I always have to go?'

`You're the fetcher, that's why.'

Petro managed to look as if he had, no idea what I wanted,, wandering off aimlessly while I kept Titus trapped in tedious chat.

'Bit of a trip for your mistress, Rome? I don't mean to be rude, but she doesn't look in her prime.' To the lad she must have. seemed a real antique. -`Still, she, obviously has the

money to be comfortable. Now you and I, if we went, we'd be banging about on some old cart – but a lady now -'

`She goes in her own carriage.',

`Some charioteer takes her?'

'Damon.'

`That's a nice Greek name.'

`He drives her up and brings her back again. She stays with her sister; they make a family party up at festivals. It's regular.'

`That's nice.'

`Wonderful!' he chortled; obviously his idea of entertainment involved far more thrills than two sixty-year-old women were expected to devise. He was about fourteen, and yearning to make a disgrace of himself. `They go to the Games and natter all through it, and never have any idea who won the fights or the races. They just want to see who else is there in the audience.'

`Still -'I was poking at the jets with my wire. `The ladies like to go shopping. Plenty of that in Rome.'

`Oh, she brings stuff back. The coach is always full of it.'

`This Damon who does the driving, he has a nice job. I bet you'd like to take over from him.'

`No chance, mate! Damon would never let anybody else do that.'

`Keen is he?'

`He lives with the cook. He grabs every chance to get away from her.'

Petronius came strolling back, having apparently forgotten what I sent him for.

In the course of pretending to hack dirt and vegetation off the fountain, 'I had discovered what I was looking for. Aurelia Maesia's villa had a domestic water pipe from the Tibur aqueduct and her fountain was supplied by a secondary pipe, though its water could be cut off with a tap. (This was a rarity since most people want spare water, to sluice out the latrine) I guessed someone had turned off the tap and forgotten they had done so. The tap was the usual big cast bronze affair, with a square loop on top which would be worked by a special removable key.

`Do me a favour, Titus: run and ask whoever keeps it to give us a lend of the key. Then I'll show you something.'

While the lad scampered off, Petro said quietly, `There's a stable containing the carriage. It's a raeda. Damned great four-wheeled effort, covered in bronze flashings. The fellow who must be the driver was lying asleep on a bale: ginger, hair, filthy beard, twisted leg and he's only half my height.'

`Easy to spot.';

`Proverbial.'

'Damon's his name,' I said.

`Sounds like a bloody Greek shepherd.'

`A real Arcadian. I wonder if he owns a dirty; great sheep-shearing knife?'

Young Titus rushed back to us, to say nobody had the key for the tap. I shrugged. In our bag was a length of iron bar I could use, taking care not to bend it. I hate to have to leave an iron bar behind. Apart from the fact you can use them to break heads, what do you do the next time you want to operate some inept householder's tap for them?

The tap was stiff and hard to turn, as I knew it would be. I could feel the water-hammer setting up immediately. It was banging all the way back through the house; that was probably why they had turned off the tap in the first place. A pity, because just as soon as it was turned back on the fountain glugged into life. It was attractive and musical, though not, very level.