Besides, the list includes his partner Helena Justina ("a force to be reckoned with"), her two brothers and their wives and ex-wives, and the "very old waiter" Apollonius.

[4] Lucius Petronius Longus, Falco's friend is revealed to have continued his search for Florius, only to have given up and retired from work with the vigiles, while Albia's maternal grandparents (Helena's parents) are absent, implying that they are deceased.

Faustus persuades Flavia Albia, the adopted daughter of Marcus Didius Falco and a delatrix in her own right, to help, with the hope that she could clear the names of the slaves.

Titianus, Albia and Faustus track down a nephew of the Rabirii crime lord named Roscius, who admits that he was in the Aviola apartment but while he could not find the silver, he did see the bodies of the murdered couple.

Crises soon mar the investigations — Quintus is brutally assaulted, apparently by the Rabirii in the Aventine, but the 4th Vigiles Cohort apprehend one of the attackers.

When the Rabirii fail to save the man, this sparks off a deadly gang war on the Esquiline, but Albia and the rest of her contacts survive.

She dredges up the Aviola silverware from the well and to celebrate her discovery with Faustus and his slave Dromo even drinks wine poured into one of the chalices from the well.

Polycarpus decided to fake a robbery to protect Cosmus and the other slaves, just as Roscius and his men attempted to rob the apartment.

For their confessions, Albia decides to commend Amaranta, Daphnus and his witless brother Melander for exoneration, but she implies that the rest would not be so lucky, least of all the now fugitive Cosmus, since they all were negligent in their duty to protect their owners.

Albia writes a report for Faustus, advises the long-suffering Titianus to send out a warrant for Cosmus' arrest, and then returns home to Fountain Court, but it is not the end yet.

Halfway up, Albia suddenly falls violently ill, sickened from having drunk wine mixed with tainted water from the well, but is saved and nursed back to health by Faustus.