secret agents reported that
powerful influences were at work to bring about the escape of this arch-
criminal. I set reliable men to find out what those influences were. Their
investigations led straight to Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, a life-long
member of the Imperial secret service, universally known as a professional
informer, yet considered second to no man in the secret service as to
usefulness and reliability, the only man among the spies of Commodus who
had been trusted and retained by Pertinax and Julianus, the very man whom
my relations in Rome, who had kept me posted as to conditions here, had
represented as most likely to be dependable and serviceable. I ordered him
apprehended but he and his despicable sister, Galvia Crispinilla, escaped
arrest by taking some of her poison. Their papers were seized, but so huge
was the mass of them and so great their confusion that they could not be
put in order and their secrets utilized at once. So sluggishly did their
unravelling proceed that, although it was manifest at once that the
precious pair had been agents in Rome for the King of the Highwaymen, had
marketed for him his booty, had kept up an almost daily correspondence
with him, had warned him of all facts and rumors likely to affect him, had
maintained a highly organized and cleverly concealed system of secret
agents and road-messengers for his benefit and theirs; yet, until his
voluntary confession, neither I nor anyone else concerned had the
slightest inkling that the King of the Highwaymen was named Caius Galvius
Crispinillus and was a full brother to the procuress and poisoner and the
professional spy, who had committed suicide to escape retribution for
their villainies. Until his confession was brought to my attention I had
equally no inkling that all relevant aspersions upon you had originated
with or been transmitted by Marcus Galvius Crispinillus.

"The case against you, on the basis of the papers filed at Secret Service
Headquarters, was most damnatory. You were represented to have been the
man who had suggested to Egnatius Capito the formation of his conspiracy
against Commodus; and to have planned for him the inclusion in it of all
undetected survivors of the members of Lucilla's abortive conspiracy of
the year before; to have offered yourself as the most likely man to
succeed in assassinating Commodus, as he held you in high regard for some
exploit in some roadside affray in Sabinum; to have pretended