"
"And why do they deny it?" Agathemer queried triumphantly. "Why, because
they were caught by this busybody and asked whether they knew Bruttius
Asper and Sabinus Felix and they said they did; then haled in here by him
and confronted with us and asked whether they knew us and of course said
they did not, as they did not. And why do they not know us? Because they
are not couriers at all, but men passing themselves off as couriers. Our
papers are in perfect order, as you say. Ask them for their papers. They
haven't any!"
By the faces of the two I saw that Agathemer had guessed right. They, in
fact, were impostors. They had no despatches, no credentials, no papers at
all, except a diploma with entries from Bononia, through Parma, Placentia
and Clastidium to Dertona and so onwards; a diploma so manifestly a clumsy
forgery that, at sight of it, I wondered how it had fooled the stupidest
change-master.
Pescennius barely glanced at it. To his apparitors, he said:
"Arrest these three!"
In a trice Donnotaurus and the two impostors were seized.
To us he said:
"Gentlemen, I apologize for having doubted you, even for a moment. And I
thank you for having so cleverly and quietly exposed these precious
gentry.
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