Lest Darkness Fall (13 page)

            Another door opened, and a
fat, sleepy-looking man came in. "What's this?" he squeaked.

            The clerk and the municipal
policeman straightened up to attention, releasing Padway. The state policeman
immediately resumed hauling him toward the door; the local cops abandoned their
etiquette and grabbed him again. They all shouted at once at the fat man.
Padway gathered that he was the municipal
commentariensius
, or police
chief.

            At that two more municipal
policemen came in with a thin, ragged prisoner. They entered into the dispute
with true Italian fervor, which meant using both hands. The ragged prisoner
promptly darted out the door; his captors didn't notice his absence for a full
minute.

            They then began shouting at
each other. "What did you let him go for?" "You brass-bound
idiot, you're the one who let him go!"

            The man called Justinius
came back with an elegant person who announced himself as the
corniculatis
,
or adjutant prefect. This individual waved a perfumed handkerchief at the
struggling group and said: "Let him go, you chaps. Yes, you, too,
Sulla." (This was the state policeman.) "There won't be anything left
of him to interrogate if you keep that up."

            From the way the others in
the now-crowded room quieted, Padway guessed that the adjutant prefect was a
pretty big shot.

            The adjutant prefect asked a
few questions, then said: "I'm sorry, my dear old
commentariensius
,
but I'm afraid he's our man."

            "Not yet he
isn't," squeaked the chief. "You fellows can't just walk in here and
grab a prisoner any time you feel like it. It would mean my job to let you have
him."

            The adjutant prefect yawned.
"Dear, dear, you're
such
a bore. You forget that I represent the
pretorian prefect, who represents the king, and if I order you to hand the
prisoner over, you hand him over and that's the end of it. I so order you,
now."

            "Go ahead and order.
You'll have to take him by force, and I've got more force than you have."
The chief beamed Billiken-like and twiddled his thumbs. "Clodianus, go
fetch our illustrious city governor, if he's not too busy. We'll see whether we
have authority over our own jail." The clerk departed. "Of
course," the chief continued, "we
might
use Solomon's
method."

            "You mean cut him in
two?" asked the adjutant prefect.

            "That's it. Lord Jesus,
that would be funny, wouldn't it? Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!" The chief laughed
shrilly until the tears ran down his face. "Would you prefer the head end
or the legs end? Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!" He rocked on his seat.

            The other municipal officers
dutifully laughed, also; the adjutant prefect permitted himself a wan, bored
smile. Padway thought the chief's humor in questionable taste.

            Eventually the clerk
returned with the city governor. Count Honorius wore a tunic with the two
purple stripes of a Roman senator, and walked with such a carefully measured
tread that Padway wondered if his footsteps hadn't been laid out ahead of time
with chalk marks. He had a square jaw and all the warmth of expression of a
snapping turtle.

            "What," he asked
in a voice like a steel file, "is this all about? Quick, now, I'm a busy
man." And he spoke, the little wattle under his jaw wobbling in a way that
reminded Padway more than ever of a snapper.

            The chief and the adjutant
prefect gave their versions. The clerk dragged out a couple of law books; the
three executive officers put their heads together and talked in low tones,
turning pages rapidly and pointing to passages.

            Finally the adjutant prefect
gave in. He yawned elaborately. "Oh, well, it would be a dreadful bore to
have to drag him up to Ravenna, anyway. Especially as the mosquito season will
be starting there shortly. Glad to have seen you, my lord count." He bowed
to Honorius, nodded casually to the chief, and departed.

            Honorius said: "Now
that we have him, what's to be done with him? Let's see that complaint."

            The clerk dug out a paper
and gave it to the count.

            "
Hm-m-m
. '— and
furthermore, that the said Martinus Paduei did most wickedly and feloniously
consort with the Evil One, who taught him the diabolical arts of magic
wherewith he has been jeopardizing the welfare of the citizens of the city of
Rome — signed, Hannibal Scipio of Palermo.' Wasn't this Hannibal Scipio a
former associate of yours or something?"

            "Yes, my lord
count," said Padway, and explaining the circumstances of his parting with
his foreman. "If it's my printing press that he's referring to, I can
easily show that it's a simple mechanical device, no more magical than one of
your water clocks."

            "
Hm-m-m
,"
said Honorius, "that may or may not be true." He looked through
narrowed eyes at Padway. "These new enterprises of yours have prospered
pretty well, haven't they?" His faint smile reminded Padway of a fox
dreaming of unguarded henroosts.

            "Yes and no, my lord. I
have made a little money, but I've put most of it back in the business. So I
haven't more cash than I need for day-to-day expenses."

            "Too bad," said
Honorius. "It looks as though we'd have to let the case go through."

            Padway was getting more and
more nervous under that penetrating scrutiny, but he put up a bold front.
"Oh, my lord, I don't think you have a case. If I may say so, it would be
most unfortunate for your dignity to let the case come to trial."

            "So? I'm afraid my good
man, that you don't know what expert interrogators we have. You'll have
admitted all sorts of things by the time they finish ... ah ... questioning
you."

            "Um-m-m. My lord, I
said I didn't have much
cash
. But I have an idea that might interest
you."

            "That's better.
Lutetius, may I use your private office?"

            Without waiting for an
answer, Honorius marched to the office, jerking his head to Padway to follow.
The chief looked after them sourly, obviously resenting the loss of his share
of the swag.

            In the chief's office,
Honorius turned to Padway. "You weren't proposing to bribe your governor
by chance, were you?" he asked coldly.

            "Well ... uh ... not
exactly —"

            The count shot his head
forward. "How much?" he snapped. "And what's it in — jewels?"

            Padway sighed with relief.
"Please, my lord, not so fast. It'll take a bit of explaining."

            "Your explanation had
better be good."

            "It's this way, my
lord: I'm just a poor stranger in Rome, and naturally I have to depend on my
wits for a living. The only really valuable thing I have is those wits. But,
with reasonable kind treatment, they can be made to pay a handsome return."

            "Get to the point,
young man."

            "You have a law against
limited-liability corporations in other than public enterprises, haven't
you?"

            Honorius rubbed his chin.
"We did have once. I don't know what its status is, now that the senate's
authority is limited to the city. I don't think the Goths have made any
regulations on that subject. Why?"

            "Well if you can get
the senate to pass an amendment to the old law — I don't think it would be
necessary, but it would look better — I could show you how you and a few other
deserving senators could benefit handsomely from the organization and operation
of such a company."

            Honorius stiffened.
"Young man, that's a miserable sort of offer. You ought to know that the
dignity of a patrician forbids him to engage in trade."

            "You wouldn't engage in
it, my lord. You'd be the stockholders."

            "We'd be the
what?"

            Padway explained the
operation of a stock corporation.

            Honorius rubbed his chin
again. "Yes, I see where something might be made of that plan. What sort of
company did you have in mind?"

            "A company for the
transmission of information over long distances much more rapidly than a
messenger can travel. In my country they'd call it a semaphore telegraph. The
company gets its revenue from tolls on private messages. Of course, it wouldn't
hurt if you could get a subsidy from the royal treasury, on the ground that the
institution was valuable for national defense."

            Honorius thought awhile.
Then he said: "I won't commit myself now; I shall have to think about the
matter and sound out my friends. In the meantime, you will, of course, remain
in Lutetius' custody here."

            Padway grinned. "My
lord count, your daughter is getting married next week, isn't she?"

            "What of it?"

            "You want a nice
write-up of the wedding in my paper, don't you? A list of distinguished guests,
a wood-cut picture of the bride, and so forth."

            "Hm-m-m. I shouldn't
mind that; no."

            "Well, then, you better
not hold me, or I shan't be able to get the paper out. It would be a pity if such
a gala event missed the news because the publisher was in jail at the
time."

            Honorius rubbed his chin and
smiled thinly. "For a barbarian, you're not as stupid as one would expect.
I'll have you released."

            "Many thanks, my lord.
I might add that I shall be able to write much more glowing paragraphs after
that complaint has been dismissed. We creative workers, you know —"

-

            When Padway was out of
earshot of the jail, he indulged in a long "
Whew!
" He was
swearing, and not with the heat, either. It was a good thing that none of the
officials noticed how near he had been to collapse from sheer terror. The
prospect of a stand-up fight wouldn't have bothered him more than most young
men. But torture ...

            As soon as he had put his
establishment in order, he went into a huddle with Thomasus. He was properly
prepared when the procession of five sedan chairs, bearing Honorius and four
other senators, crawled up Long Street to his place. The senators seemed not
only willing but eager to lay their money on the line, especially after they
saw the beautiful stock certificates that Padway had printed. But they didn't
seem to have quite Padway's idea of how to run a corporation.

            One of them poked him in the
ribs and grinned. "My dear Martinus, you're not really going to put up
those silly signal towers and things?"

            "Well," said
Padway cautiously, "that was the idea."

            The senator winked.
"Oh, I understand that you'll have to put up a couple to fool the middle
class, so we can sell our stock at a profit. But we know it's all a fake, don't
we? You couldn't make anything with your signaling scheme in a thousand
years."

            Padway didn't bother to
argue with him. He also didn't bother to explain the true object of having
Thomasus the Syrian, Ebenezer the Jew, and Vardan the Armenian each take
eighteen per cent of the stock. The senators might have been interested in
knowing that these three bankers had agreed ahead of time to hold their stock
and vote as Padway instructed, thereby giving him, with fifty-four per cent of
the stock, complete control of the corporation.

            Padway had every intention
of making his telegraph company a success, starting with a line of towers from
Naples to Rome to Ravenna, and tying its operation in with that of his paper.
He soon ran into an elementary difficulty: If he wanted to keep his expenses
down to somewhere within sight of income, he needed telescopes, to make
possible a wide spacing of the towers. Telescopes meant lenses. Where in the
world was there a lens or a man who could make one? True, there was a story
about Nero's emerald lorgnette ...