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said. "The dead fellow out there is a relative of Pompey's. For all I know, Pompey may have already sent someone looking for him."
    "Where did these pieces of parchment come from?"
    "They were hidden in a secret compartment in his shoe."
    Diana raised an eyebrow. "This fellow was one of Pompey's spies?"
    I hesitated. "Perhaps."
    "Why did he come here? Why did he want to see you, Papa?"
    I shrugged. "We hardly spoke before I left him alone for a moment."
    "And then?"
    "Davus came into the garden, found his body, and raised the alarm."
    Diana eagerly reached for a sheet of parchment. "If we look for vowels, and common consonant combinations—"
    "And common words, and case endings."
    "Right."
    "Or likely words," I added.
    "Likely?"
    "Words likely to occur in a document carried by Pompey's spy. Such as ... such as 'Pompey,' for example. Or more likely, 'Magnus'— Great One. "
    Diana nodded. "Or ... 'Gordianus,' perhaps?" She looked at me askance.
    "Perhaps," I said.
    Diana fetched two styluses and two wax tablets for scribbling notes. We studied our separate pieces of parchment in silence. Out in the garden, Davus paced back and forth in the sunlight, whistling tunelessly and scanning the roof. He pulled Numerius's dagger from its scabbard and cleaned his fingernails. From the front of the house came more screams from Aulus, and then the sound of Bethesda crooning an Egyptian lullaby.
    "I think ..."
    "Yes, Diana?"
    "I think I may have found 'Magnus.' I see the same sequence of letters three times on this piece. Look, there it is on your piece, too."
    "Where?"
    "There: λVΨCΣQ
    "So it is. By Hercules, these letters are small! If you're right, that gives us λ for M, V for A ..."
    "Ψ for G ..."
    We scribbled on our wax tablets. Diana scanned her piece of parchment, put it down and scanned two others. "Papa, may I see your piece?"
    I handed it to her. Her eyes moved down the page, then stopped. She sucked in a breath.
    "What is it, daughter?"
    "Look, there!" She pointed to a group of letters. They began with Ψ and ended with CΣQ— or, according to our cipher, began with a G and ended with nus— and had five letters between.
    " 'Gordianus,' " she whispered.
    My heart pounded in my chest. "Maybe. Forget the other pieces for now. Let's work together on this one."
    We concentrated on the section of text immediately following my name. It was Diana who spotted the large numbers strewn throughout; rather than quantities, they appeared to be years, following Varro's fashionable new system of dating everything from the founding of Rome. The cipher letters for D and I (presumed already from GORDIANUS) turned out to stand as well for the numerals D (five hundred) and I (one). Deciphering the years also gave us the letters for C, L, X, and V.
    Using our growing list of deciphered letters, we quickly spotted familiar names embedded in the text. There was METO, and CAESAR ... ECO (my other son) ... CICERO ... even BETHESDA and DIANA, who seemed more amused than alarmed at seeing her name in a dead man's document. As we made further progress, the most devious feature of the text became obvious: not only did the cipher mix Greek and Latin letters, but the text alternated between phrases in both languages, with a patchwork of truncated and irregular grammar. My Greek had grown rusty in recent years. Fortunately, Diana's Egyptomania had included brushing up on the language of the Ptolemies.
    With her sharper eyes and quicker stylus, Diana drew ahead of me. Eventually, despite some remaining gaps here and there, she managed to make a hasty translation of the entire passage into Latin, scribbling it out on a long piece of blank parchment. When she was done, I asked her to read it aloud.
    " 'Subject: Gordianus, called the Finder. Loyalty to the Great One: Questionable.' "
    "A loyalty report!" I shook my head. "All these bits of parchment must constitute some sort of secret dossier on various men in Rome— someone's evaluation of