We sat in his spacious quarters at the Ludus of Statilius Taurus. I had never been in a physician's quarters before, and I suspected that his decor was odd by the standards of that profession. Every manner of weapon hung on his walls or stood in racks around the rooms. Many of them had scrolls affixed describing the various wounds they could inflict. "That a man was strangled?" Asklepiodes said. "No. I have three murders here, and one break-in and robbery, all of them somehow connected. And an arson, let's not forget that. Sinistrus undoubtedly killed Paramedes, but who strangled Sinistrus? And I can't believe that it was the same person who killed Sergius Paulus. Do we have three murderers here? And who broke into my house, cracked me on the head and stole that amulet? Macro said that must have been done by a boy, and he seems to be a foreigner." I paced the floor and walked to a window. From below came the clattering, the shouts and the labored breathing of the fighters practicing in the palaestra.
