The Mystery Megapack

aroused and possibly frightened Licinius Aper lumbered upon us, blubbering, wringing his hands.
    “It is as I predicted, Sirs. I fear that it is. An outrage. A blasphemy! It is the work of my enemy, I am sure, to discredit and destroy our city—”
    For the first time he said our rather than my , as if the catastrophe, for the first time, applied to more than himself.
    “What has happened?” Servilius Pudens demanded, speaking for all of us.
    “It’s so—so—incredible—!”
    Licinius Aper could have gone on for enough to fill twenty pages without saying anything, if I were to report his speech exactly, so I must condense his matter: it seemed that the goddess Venus of the thousand breasts, the very one we had let pass in the street upon our entry to the city, had vanished.
    “But that’s absurd,” said Arpocras. “Half-ton marble goddesses don’t just disappear! ”
    Aper leaned forward, as if to deliver his lines in a bad stage-whisper, “They say that she walked. The temple suddenly filled with an unnatural light. She struck down her priestesses, and walked out of the temple, into the night! The people are terrified, Noble Sirs, as you can well imagine. For myself, I don’t know what to think—”
    “But you think it might have something to do with the schemes of your enemy, Clodius Carus,” I said, attempting to organize his thoughts.
    He stopped, startled, as if the idea had not occurred to him. If so, he was stupider than he looked. If not, his acting was getting better.
    “We are men of the world,” I said. “We don’t really believe that barbarous, provincial marble statues get up and walk, do we?”
    “No, but—”
    “Then it must be the doings of this Clodius Carus, yes?”
    Suddenly Aper’s distraught features seemed so much more calm.
    “I am relieved that you see that,” he said.
    * * * *
    But first we had to inspect the scene of the crime, and crime it was, too. We all quickly dressed. The centurion of my guards came to report. Accompanied by a troop of soldiers, marching in step, the steady tread of their hobnailed boots imposing some sort of order on the chaotic night, we followed them through the streets of the city. Pudens, Arpocras, and I walked. Licinius Aper rode in his chair.
    The streets were filled with disorderly people, who melted away as we approached, or just stood staring, silently, as we passed.
    We came to the temple, which was of moderate size, Greek in form, but more ornately decorated in the Oriental style.
    As soon as I entered, I saw that a serious crime had indeed been committed. There were three dead women, two on the floor, one lying halfway out onto the steps. Their skulls were crushed. There was blood everywhere. These are the priestesses of this Claudiopolitan Venus, allegedly struck down by their goddess when she deserted the city.
    And she had deserted it. The thousand-breasted divinity was distinctly missing from her shrine within. The place was filled with thick, strange-smelling smoke. It was clear enough to me that some kind of oil had been set afire on the floor, but this did not burn down the temple because the building was made entirely of stone and the oil was swiftly consumed. I held the edge of my toga up over my nose to avoid choking on the fumes, made my way to the back and examined the hole in the floor, behind the altar, where the divinity had been affixed. It was clear enough to me, and to Arpocras, who stood beside me, that the goddess was shaped out of a single pillar of marble, that she was, when not parading about the city in her gilded car, affixed here like a post, and her walking out of the temple was made all the less plausible by her not having any legs.
    “It is shocking! Shocking!” said Licinius Aper, when we emerged from the temple. He had just arrived, and had not ventured to climb the temple steps, though he stood supported by two of his muscular slaves. He waved a hand about, indicating a huddle of glum-faced individuals whom I took to be local senators. “It will be the ruin of us all!”
    I am not sure if he was performing for me or for his colleagues, but for once he was telling the honest truth. If the goddess were not recovered, it would be the ruin of Claudiopolis, the end of the religious trade, and much else, as the superstitious multitudes fled elsewhere to avoid a place obviously shunned by the very gods. No one seemed much concerned about the dead priestesses, but financial catastrophe on the horizon