We began by traversing a narrow street around the corner from our house that quickly widened into the piazza surrounding the great Pantheon. A fountain with another obelisk, one of many looted from Egypt over the centuries, rested in the piazza’s center. Beyond the fountain rose the massive edifice of the Pantheon, once a temple to the old gods and now a church.
I admired the facade with its huge granite columns, triangular pediment, and inscription. When I’d traveled to Egypt, I’d been frustrated by the hieroglyphs, whose meaning I’d longed to decipher. At least here in Rome, I could read the Latin, beaten into me as a boy by a tutor too afraid of my father to risk me not learning my lessons.
“M. Agrippa L F Cos Tertium Fecit,” Grenville pronounced, skimming his walking stick through the air as though underlining the words. “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, during his third term as consul, made this. Except he didn’t, you know.”
I had read the guidebooks Grenville had pressed on me before our journey. “Because the first temple Agrippa erected on this spot was destroyed,” I continued dutifully. “Rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian, inscribed to honor Agrippa, the close friend of Augustus Caesar.”
“Kind of Hadrian,” Grenville said. “But likely also done to forge a connection between himself and the great Augustus. An emperor ever had to remind lesser men of his grandeur.”
I’d also re-read my Gibbon before we’d come and knew that most emperors had spent so much effort on their grandeur that they’d fallen from power, usually violently, before they’d had time to grow comfortable in their purple robes.
Once we’d boasted of our knowledge of the ancients, we wandered through the porch and its breathtaking columns and onto the marble floor of the interior.
The dome was the marvel of the place, made of concrete, arching overhead to its oculus, open to the gray sky above. Largest of its kind in the world, the dome was worth the long journey from England to stand beneath and admire.
After we’d gaped upward for a while, we wandered to the tomb of Raphael. A Madonna with child, her face serene, the child’s very adult, stood in a shielded niche adorned with columns of purple stone. Epitaphs praising the artist rested below them. Grenville and I read the Latin inscriptions, which stated that Nature herself feared she would die once Raphael was gone.
As I turned from this effusion of praise, I again caught sight of the gentleman I’d pursued this morning. Broadhurst—or if Grenville was correct, his brother.
The man lingered near a chapel on the other side of the rotunda, on the edge of a small group who had entered, as had Grenville and I, to observe the Pantheon’s magnificence. The moment I set my eyes on the fellow he vanished behind a clump of gentlemen in greatcoats, leaving me to doubt myself once more.
“Did you see?” I gestured with my walking stick, pulling Grenville’s attention from the tomb of the great artist. “Broadhurst. I vow to you.”
“Mmm?” Grenville peered at where I pointed, straining a bit, as he did not have my height. “Beg pardon, my dear chap, I did not. Where?”
I could only wave my hand in the direction, but Broadhurst, or whoever he was, did not reappear.
Brewster, however, made a sharp gesture to me from the other side of the Pantheon. He’d halted inside the doorway, studying a side altar that sported beautiful gilded candlesticks and a gold crucifix. He’d had his hands stiffly at his sides, as though keeping himself from temptation. He’d not seen Broadhurst this morning, but he’d noted my interest in the man now and had fixed his sharp eyes on him.
He pointed to the entrance with an inquiring look.Want me to nab him?I surmised he was asking.
I shook my head—the gentleman had done nothing to deserve Brewster laying hold of him—but I moved quickly that way and out the door.
The clouds had thickened again while we’d been inside, and rain began to patter down. I caught sight of a brown-coated back that I believed belonged to my quarry and followed him as rapidly as I could around the Pantheon to the narrow street beside it.
The thick walls of the round building squeezed out the space, making me slow my steps. Other tourists lingered in the narrow passageway, gaping at the architecture, and I was obliged to push my way through them.
I’d feared I’d lost the man again, but when I reached the rear of the Pantheon, the rotunda giving way to a squarer wall behind it, I found him waiting for me. He stepped out from a niche behind the building and faced me squarely.
If Grenville had not suggested that the gentleman I’d glimpsed this morning had been his brother, I’d swear he was Norris Broadhurst himself. Same round face, same short graying hair, same broad build.
“Captain Lacey?” he inquired.
“Indeed.” I halted, out of breath, and tipped my hat. “You are Mr. Broadhurst?”
“No.” The word was abrupt. “My name is Mr. Cockburn.” He spoke loudly and carefully, gazing behind me as though making certain that if anyone overheard, they’d overhear correctly.
He needn’t have worried, because we were quite alone in this place. The crumbling bricks behind the Pantheon were of no interest to those who wished to gaze upon its remarkable facade and interior. Grenville and Brewster, if they had followed, had either lost me or not yet caught up.
The man leaned closer, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “Truth to tell, you have the right of it.” He drew a long breath. “I have heard of your reputation, Captain Lacey, and I spied you this morning in the piazza. I apologize for fleeing—your presence startled me, but I made up my mind later to speak to you, and hence followed you here.”
“And dashed out again the moment I saw you?” I asked in irritation. “You could have called on me or written, to save my injured leg while I chased you about.”
“I do beg your pardon.” Mr. Broadhurst wore an expression of chagrin, but also one of fear. “I could not risk approaching you where others could see.”
“Well, here I am before you,” I stated.
“Indeed.” Broadhurst passed a pale tongue over his lips. “I wish to ask you to look into a murder, sir. I have been told you do such things for the Runners.”
