The Greatest Fantasy Classics of Robert E. Howard. Robert E. Howard
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still studied the body; Dionus, Arus and the remaining policemen watched Conan, who stood, sword in hand, like a bronze figure of brooding menace. Presently sandalled feet re-echoed outside, and the two guardsmen entered with a strongly built, dark-skinned man in the helmet and tunic of a charioteer, with a whip in his hand; and a small, timid-looking individual, typical of that class which, risen from the ranks of artisans, supplies right-hand men for wealthy merchants and traders.
This one recoiled with a cry from the sprawling bulk on the floor.
'Oh, I knew evil would come of this!'
'You are Promero, the clerk, I suppose. And you?'
'Enaro, Kallian Publico's charioteer.'
'You do not seem overly moved at the sight of his corpse,' observed Demetrio.
'Why should I be moved?' the dark eyes flashed. 'Someone has only done what I dared not, but longed to do.'
'So!' murmured the Inquisitor. 'Are you a free man?'
Enaro's eyes were bitter as he drew aside his tunic, showing the brand of the debtor-slave on his shoulder.
'Did you know your master was coming here tonight?'
'No. I brought the chariot to the Temple this evening for him as usual. He entered it and I drove toward his villa. But before we came to the Palian Way, he ordered me to turn and drive him back. He seemed much agitated in his mind.'
'And did you drive him back to the Temple?'
'No. He bade me stop at Promero's house. There he dismissed me, ordering me to return there for him shortly after midnight.'
'What time was this?'
'Shortly after dusk. The streets were almost deserted.'
'What did you do then?'
'I returned to the slave quarters where I remained until it was time to return to Promero's house. I drove straight there, and your men seized me as I talked with Promero in his door.'
'You have no idea why Kallian went to Promero's house?'
'He didn't speak of his business to his slaves.'
Demetrio turned to Promero. 'What do you know about this?'
'Nothing.' The clerk's teeth chattered as he spoke.
'Did Kallian Publico come to your house as the charioteer says?'
'Yes.' 'How long did he stay?'
'Only a few minutes. Then he left.'
'Did he come from your house to the Temple?'
'I don't know!' The clerk's voice was shrill with taut nerves.
'Why did he come to your house?'
'To—to talk matters of business with me.'
'You're lying,' snapped Demetrio. Why did he come to your house?'
'I don't know! I don't know anything!' Promero was growing hysterical. 'I had nothing to do with it—'
'Make him talk, Dionus,' snapped Demetrio, and Dionus grunted and nodded to one of his men who, grinning savagely, moved toward the two captives.
'Do you know who I am?' he growled, thrusting his head forward and staring domineeringly at his shrinking prey.
'You're Posthumo,' answered the charioteer sullenly. 'You gouged out a girl's eye in the Court of Justice because she wouldn't give you information incriminating her lover.'
'I always get what I go after!' bellowed the guardsman, the veins in his thick neck swelling, and his face growing purple, as he seized the wretched clerk by the collar of his tunic, twisting it so the man was half strangled.
'Speak up, you rat!' he growled. 'Answer the Inquisitor.' 'Oh Mitra, mercy!' screamed the wretch. 'I swear that—'
Posthumo slapped him terrifically first on one side of the face and then on the other, and continued the interrogation by flinging him to the floor and kicking him with vicious accuracy.
'Mercy!' moaned the victim. 'I'll tell—I'll tell anything—'
'Then get up, you cur!' roared Posthumo, swelling with self-importance. 'Don't lie there whining.'
Dionus cast a quick glance at Conan to see if he were properly impressed.
'You see what happens to those who cross the police,' he said.
The Cimmerian spat with a sneer of cruel contempt for the moaning clerk.
'He's a weakling and a fool,' he growled. 'Let one of you touch me and I'll spill his guts on the floor.'
'Are you ready to talk?' asked Demetrio tiredly. He found these scenes wearingly monotonous.
'All I know,' sobbed the clerk, dragging himself to his feet and whimpering like a beaten dog in his pain, 'is that Kallian came to my house shortly after I arrived—I left the Temple at the same time he did—and sent his chariot away. He threatened me with discharge if I ever spoke of it. I am a poor man, without friends or favor. Without my position with him, I would starve.'
'What's that to me?' snapped Demetrio. 'How long did he remain at your house?'
'Until perhaps half an hour before midnight. Then he left, saying that he was going to the Temple, and would return after he had done what he wished to do there.'
'What was he going to do there?'
Promero hesitated at revealing the secrets of his dreaded employer, then a shuddering glance at Posthumo, who was grinning evilly as he doubled his huge fist, opened his lips quickly.
'There was something in the Temple he wished to examine.'
'But why should he come here alone in so much secrecy?'
'Because it was not his property. It arrived in a caravan from the south, at dawn. The men of the caravan knew nothing of it, except that it had been placed with them by the men of a caravan from Stygia, and was meant for Kalanthes of Hanumar, priest of Ibis. The master of the caravan had been paid by these other men to deliver it directly to Kalanthes, but he's a rascal by nature, and wished to proceed directly to Aquilonia, on the road to which Hanumar does not lie. So he asked if he might leave it in the Temple until Kalanthes could send for it.
'Kallian agreed, and told him he himself would send a runner to inform Kalanthes. But after the men had gone, and I spoke of the runner, Kallian forbade me to send him. He sat brooding over what the men had left.'
'And what was that?'
'A sort of sarcophagus, such as is found in ancient Stygian tombs, but this one was round, like a covered metal bowl. Its composition was something like copper, but much harder, and it was carved with hieroglyphics, like those found on the more ancient menhirs in southern Stygia. The lid was made fast to the body by carven copper-like bands.'
'What was in it?'
'The men of the caravan did not know. They only said that the men who gave it to them told them that it was a priceless relic, found among the tombs far beneath the pyramids and sent to Kalanthes "because of the love the sender bore the priest of Ibis". Kallian Publico believed that it contained the diadem of the giant- kings, of the people who dwelt in that dark land before the ancestors of the Stygians came there. He showed me a design carved on the lid, which he swore was the shape of the diadem which legend tells us the monster-kings wore.
'He determined to open the Bowl and see what it contained.
He was like a madman when he thought of the fabled diadem, which myths say was set with the strange jewels known only to that ancient race, a single one of which is worth more than all the jewels of the modern world.
'I warned him against it. But he stayed at my house as I have said, and a short time before midnight, he came along to the Temple, hiding in the shadows until the watchman had passed to the other side of the building, then letting himself in with his belt key. I watched him from the shadows of the silk shop, saw