The Athenian Murders Read Online Free PDF Page B

thoughtful, still, their perfect outline marred by the hair spilling over his head, and by the neatly trimmed beard. When Diagoras resumed his story, his voice was barely audible: 'But... that night, almost at dawn, the border guards
     
    knocked at my door ... A goatherd had found his body in the forest, near Lycabettus, and notified the guard ... Once they'd identified him, they called me, as there was no man at his house to receive the news and his uncle Daminus was out of the City ...'
     
    He paused again. The distant storm and the sound of another fig being smoothly beheaded could be heard. His face was contorted, each word now a great effort. He said: 'Strange as you may find it, I felt guilty ... If I'd gained his trust that afternoon, and persuaded him to tell me what was the matter . . . maybe he wouldn't have gone hunting . . . and he would still be alive.' He looked up at his obese interlocutor, who sat listening, leaning back in his chair, looking so tranquil he might have been about to fall asleep. 'I confess I have spent the past two days tortured by the thought that Tramachus may have decided upon his fateful hunting trip to escape me and my tactless questions ... So, this afternoon, I made a decision: I have to find out why he was so terrified, and how I could have helped . . . That's why I've come to you. In Athens, the saying goes that to know the future you need the oracle of Delphi, but to know the past you simply need the Decipherer of Enigmas ... '
     
    'That's ridiculous!' exclaimed Heracles.
    His unexpected reaction startled Diagoras. Heracles stood up quickly, dragging all the shadows of his head after him, and paced briskly about the cold, damp room, thick fingers stroking the sticky fig he'd just taken from the bowl. He went on irritably: 'I only decipher the past if it's something I can see - a text, an object, a face. But you talk of memories, impressions and ... opinions! What kind of guidance can they provide? You say that for a month your disciple had seemed "preoccupied", but what does that mean?' He raised an arm abruptly. 'Just before you entered the room, I was staring at that crack, and it might have seemed that I too was "preoccupied"! You claim you saw terror in his eyes. Terror! I ask you this: was terror written out in Ionic characters in his pupils? Is the word "fear" engraved in the lines on our forehead? Is it a line like that crack on the wall? A thousand different emotions might have produced the expression that you attribute to fear alone!'
    Diagoras replied, a little uneasily: 'I know what I saw. Tramachus was terrified.'
    'You know what you thought you saw,' pointed out Heracles. 'Knowing the truth is knowing how much of the truth we can know.'
    'Socrates, Plato's teacher, believed something similar,' admitted Diagoras. 'He said that all he knew was that he knew nothing. In fact, we all agree. But the mind too has eyes and with it we can see things that our physical eyes cannot.'
    'Is that so?' Heracles stopped abruptly. 'Very well, then, tell me what you see here.' He held something up quickly to Diagoras' face: a dark green, sticky head protruded from between his thick fingers.
     
    'A fig,' said Diagoras, after a moment of surprise.
    'A fig like any other?'
    'Yes. It looks intact. It has a good colour. An ordinary fig.' 'Ah! That's the difference between you and me!' cried Heracles triumphantly. 'I look at this fig and am of the opinion that it seems like an ordinary fig. I may even believe that it is very likely an ordinary fig, but I stop there. If I want to know more, I have to open it up ... as I did with this one while you were speaking.'
     
    He gently parted the two halves of the fig that he'd been holding together: in a single sinuous movement, multiple tiny heads rose up angrily from its dark interior, emitting a very faint hiss. Diagoras' face contorted in disgust. Heracles said: 'And when I do so . . . I'm not as surprised as you when the truth turns out to be