Julia said. We stood on the steps of the Soma, the tomb of Alexander the Great. She was beautifully dressed as a Roman lady, but she had already started to use Egyptian cosmetics. It was a bad sign. “Of course it’s nonsense,” I said. “When everybody is lying, as they usually do when you’re investigating a crime, the art is to sort through the nonsense, and especially the things they don’t say, to find the truth.” “And why are you so sure Ataxas is lying? Just because he was once a slave? Many freedmen have done well after earning their freedom, and they usually don’t brag about their former status.” “Oh, it’s not that. But he said that they were carrying on a dispute of long standing. But I saw them together and it was the only time that evening that Iphicrates kept his voice down. During a dispute! You heard him. He bellowed at the top of his lungs anytime anyone questioned him in the slightest fashion.” And that reminded me of something else: another man I would have to question.
