Act Two, Part One

"Now, now, Miss Hippolyta," Artie said instantly, attempting to draw her away. "This isn't the place for you. Come back into the lobby and we'll find you a seat where you can, ah…" His voice trailed off as he found that he might as well be trying to pick up and move the whole fountain beside them as to budge this young Amazon from her dead father's side.

She shot him a fiery glare. "And just where is the place for me, Mr Gordon, but here with Pap… with Father, as chief of his mourners and soon to be as well the embodiment of the Furies of old, to avenge his foul murder!"

"No one said it was murder, Miss Hippolyta," Jim pointed out sternly.

"Oh, indeed? He hurried out for a clandestine tryst in the middle of the night, and just happened to fall down here in the garden and bleed to death? Of course he was murdered, and by the hand of whomever lured him down here!"

The agents exchanged a glance. "Then you knew about his meeting."

"Yes, yes, Mr West," she replied in annoyance. "He was dithering about out in the front room of our suite, making so much noise that he awakened me, and when I came out to ask what he was doing, he complained that he couldn't find the key for the door."

"You were the last one who had it," said Artie.

"Precisely! I showed it to him, and he let himself out, telling me to lock up behind him."

"Which I'm sure you did," said Jim.

"Yeah, but only after letting yourself out as well!" Artie added.

Hippolyta's chin rose. "And what else should I have done? I couldn't have Father pottering about all over the place unsupervised, not after the disgraceful display he'd put on earlier! So I followed him — discreetly, of course. But then when we reached the lobby, I... well…"

"You lost him. Obviously."

Again she glared. "If you would kindly not interrupt, Mr Gordon, I was going to say that when I reached the lobby, I was attacked!"

"Attacked?" said Jim.

"You?" added Artie. "Who would be cra... I, uh… I mean, why would anyone want to attack you? Oh, and, uh… you are all right, aren't you?"

Hippolyta glowered. "I am perfectly fine, as you can see. As for why anyone would be crazy enough to attack me…" and here she shot Mr Gordon a look that was full of daggers, "I cannot tell you, for I have no idea. What I can tell you, however, is that the miscreant certainly paid the price for his insolence." She smiled smugly. "For I marked him, you see. The man is now sporting a fresh set of gashes across his cheek. He'll be easy to identify should he be fool enough to show his face around here." And she lifted a hand, her fingers flexing into claws — from which Artie found himself instinctively flinching away.

"Go back again," said Jim. "You followed your father downstairs, and someone attacked you in the lobby."

"Yes, as I said."

"You then fought off your attacker and… What happened next?"

She shrugged. "He ran away. I followed him, intent on giving him a hefty portion of my mind…"

"I'm sure you did," muttered Artie.

With another glare at Mr Gordon, Hippolyta continued with, "But he made good his escape, I'm afraid. Once I saw that I wouldn't be able find the attacker again, I retraced my steps to the lobby." At this point she sighed, her shoulders dropping. "Unfortunately, by that time I'd completely lost track of Father. I looked for him everywhere: lobby, banquet hall, display room — which I found locked and guarded, thank goodness — and even the, er…" A blush crept over her face as she admitted, "Well, I did check the men's room where Mr Gordon found Father earlier."

"Why didn't you just come here to the garden? This is where the note directed your father to meet with, well, with whomever he met."

"You saw the note?" she asked in surprise. "I never did. Oh, but if only I had! I might have arrived in time to protect poor Father! Which, I might add, is more than the pair of you have managed to do! First the final Apple, and now this!" She waved a hand at the poor dead man, then took a closer look and drew back in horror. "Why… why is there a handkerchief tied about his ankle?"

"Because," said Artie with a bluntness born of both the lateness of the hour and the young woman's native abrasiveness, "that's where he took his fatal wound, Miss Hippolyta. In the…"

"The heel?"she interrupted, her great unlovely face having gone absolutely white. "He was struck in the heel? With an arrow no doubt?"

"No, more likely with a knife," Artie replied. He shot Jim a puzzled look; this was the first time he'd ever seen the Amazon behave in anything close to the usual manner he would expect of a woman. "Now, see, Miss Hippolyta, you really shouldn't be here. Come along back to the lobby as I said before and…"

"No, surely it was an arrow! You must look for it at once! Or I shall!" She sprang up to her feet, swayed for a moment as if she might swoon, then lifted her chin once more. "Look for it. Look all around. The assailant would have… yes, of course! He would have been on the wall! That would be perfect. The closest equivalent we have here to the walls of Ilium. Standing on the wall to shoot down the celebrated hero of the Greeks…" She was waving her hands now, all but ranting.

Jim caught her arm and swung her to face him. "What on earth are you talking about?" he demanded.

For a moment she stared down at him as if she'd never seen him before. Then she gave a laugh. "Why, isn't it obvious? My father, Achilles Bracewell, murdered by unholy hands, struck down even as his ancient namesake was killed — by an arrow in his heel." She drew herself up tall, her eyes flashing. "And what's more, I can name for you the assassin who carried out the foul deed. Of course, I should have seen it at once and warned Father against the man!"

"What are you talking about?" Jim reiterated, even as Artie put in, "Actually, your father was saying there was a woman involved."

"Yes, yes, I've no doubt of that. Naturally there would be a woman behind the man, putting him up to it, egging him on until the last of the three golden Apples is firmly in her grasp. But don't you see? Our names! Our names are our fates! Atalanta's is intrinsically tied up with the Apples. Mother's — Mother's name was Helena, and she died burning, burning up of a fever as hot as the flames that overthrew ancient Troy. My own fate is that of the Amazonian queen, betrayed by a man who ought to have trusted her, or else by her own sister, or perhaps by both. And Father…"

She glanced down at him, lying peacefully by the fountain, his eyes closed forevermore. "Father's fate has come upon him. He has died as that great hero of old died, struck down in his heel by the perfidious Paris."

"Ah…" said Jim, and glanced at Artie. "Paris?"

"Oh, come on!" Artie snapped. "You don't really believe that, do you, Hippolyta?"

"You can't accuse a man simply because his name fits an ancient legend," Jim added.

"And doesn't even fit it perfectly!" Artie finished.

"Nevertheless," said the young woman, drawing herself up with queenly hauteur. "There is no doubt in my mind: my father was killed here in this garden by the hand of that ignominiously rude man we met earlier in the display room just minutes before the third Apple was found to be a forgery. The murderer is Mr Parrish!"

…

"But I don't want to go up to the suite and go to bed; we must keep searching!"

"Miss Hippolyta," said Artie through gritted teeth, "we have just spent the past hour scouring the entire gardens. If there were any arrows here, we would have found them!"

"And before the undertaker took your father's body away, he examined the wound, as did Mr Gordon and myself. There's no doubt of it: the ankle was cut with a knife, not shot with an arrow," Jim added, his own patience rapidly approaching its last frazzled end as well.

"Then we must search again! I am absolutely certain that…"

"…that what?" Artie interrupted. "That the coincidence of someone here at the hotel having a name that vaguely resembles the name Paris means that — of course, naturally! — he must be the mastermind behind your father's death?"

She gave a sniff of derision. "No, of course not. Do you think I'm a fool?"

The agents exchanged a glance, and Artie seriously considered answering the woman's query with the truth.

"No, no," Hippolyta continued, "Mr Parrish is not the mastermind here. Why would you think such a thing? On the contrary, the mastermind behind all this, from the moment the first of the Apples was stolen right up to this last infamous act of murder against my father — the mastermind, I say, gentlemen, is none other than my own ravishingly beautiful but utterly heartless elder sister!"

Jim closed his eyes for a second. "Well, I knew that was coming," he remarked.

"Ah, then you recognize her fair hand in all this? Excellent!"

"No, Miss Hippolyta, what I recognize is that you hate her with such a passion that you believe the worst of her at every turn. Do you happen to have any proof to back up your accusation?"

"Proof?"

"Yes, evidence," said Artie. "Hard and fast evidence."

"But of course! I've had to put up with her all my life. I know her character, the sort of wicked schemes she is capable of."

"No," said Jim firmly. "We mean the sort of evidence that will stand up in court."

"The fact that you say she's the biggest Jezebel since… well, since the original Jezebel herself is not going to sway a judge at law," Artie pointed out.

She gaped at the men. "But… but she is evil! She is! I know her! I…" Abruptly she turned on her heel and stormed off, her voice floating back to them. "Fine! I see that she's worked her wiles on you the same as she does all men. Well, if no one else will hold her accountable for her crimes, you may rest assured that I will!"

"Uh-oh," muttered Artie as he and Jim rushed after the Amazon. They caught up with her halfway up the stairs; Jim outpaced her and whirled to confront her. "Miss Hippolyta…"

"Get out of my way!" she demanded.

"You are not going to take the law into your own hands, Hippolyta. You are going to sit down and keep quiet and let us investigate this. If Atalanta is in fact behind this, we will discover the truth, I promise you."

"Ha! When you're already under her spell, the both of you?"

"And if she isn't behind this," Jim went on as if she had never spoken, "and your accusations are false, you yourself will be in big trouble with the law if you've carried out any of your threats of vengeance. And you know it."

"But she deserves… Oh, fine! Have it your way then! You have twenty-four hours to prove to me that my sister is innocent. But after that…"

"After that, what?" said Artie.

She spun to glare at Mr Gordon behind her. "After that, we shall see, shan't we?" She turned her glare towards Mr West again and snapped, "Now if you'll excuse me, I shall go up to my room and go back to bed. That is what you were imploring me to do earlier, is it not?"

Jim stepped to one side and swept out an arm mockingly. "As you wish, Your Majesty."

"Hmph!" She elevated her chin once more and stomped off up the stairs.

"Whew!" murmured Artie. "We should probably warn Atalanta about her!"

"We also have to break the bad news to her," Jim added as the two continued up the stairs. "By the way, what was that thing I saw you slip into your pocket during our fruitless search for the non-existent arrow?"

Artie sighed and reached into his pocket. "Something I wanted to show to you first before Hippolyta could find out I'd spotted it. Here."

He handed over a folded piece of cloth, lavender, lace-edged, and finely embroidered in one corner with a spray of lilacs surrounding a large capital H.

Jim studied it minutely, unfolding it, then folding it back into a square again. "Nothing hidden inside it. A lady's handkerchief though, and with Hippolyta's own initial on it." He glanced at Artie. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Probably." Artie sighed. "It's a horrible thought, but… Great Scott though, Jim, that angry young giantess would never make it on the stage! That has to be about the clumsiest, heaviest-handed frame-up job I've ever seen! To insist like that that her sister is a thief and a murderer, and then drop her own lace hankie at the murder scene!"

They arrived at the third floor and went immediately to the Bracewell suite. The door, they found, was locked, and a knock upon the door only resulted in a cross Amazonian growl of "Do go away!"

With a shake of his head, Jim turned and started for their own suite. "Ah…" Artie hurried to catch up. "Aren't we going to warn Atalanta? She really shouldn't be stuck in that suite alone with Hippolyta, not with what Hippolyta believes about her."

"She isn't. Atalanta's in our suite, remember?"

"She… she is?"

"Yes. Ever since she came to wake us up. I told her to stay there and keep the door locked."

"You did?" Artie frowned. "But when I went back for my gun, I didn't see anyone in there."

"Didn't she let you in when you knocked?"

"Well, no — but then I didn't bother to knock. I just figured you'd locked up, so I picked the lock and let myself in." He shrugged as they reached their suite. "But I didn't see anyone in the…" He trailed off as Jim knocked.

No answer.

Jim shot Artie a frown. "Oh, surely we don't have yet another Bracewell missing!" he growled. An instant later Jim snatched the lock pick from under his lapel and made short work of the lock. The next instant the two agents were flanking the door, revolvers in hand as Jim softly turned the knob, then threw the door open.

Silence met them. Jim glanced through the doorway, then sprang inside, Artie right behind him. They took in the room before them — completely empty — and the closed doors to their two bedrooms.

"Atalanta!" Jim called out, moving towards his room. Artie mirrored him, heading for his own bedroom as he too called the young woman's name. He found, as he expected, that there was no one in his room. He turned away, shaking his head, and followed Jim into the other bedroom. There he saw his partner standing over the bed and in the very act of holstering his gun. "Jim?"

Jim touched a finger to his lips and nodded at the bed. Under the covers, with the blanket pulled up to her pretty chin, her blonde hair flowing all over the pillow, and her breath coming in long slow sighs, there was the final member of the Bracewell family.

"Oh, good. You found Sleeping Beauty — or maybe Goldilocks."

"Yeah. She must have come in here to lay down and wait," said Jim.

"Well, as long as nothing's happened to her." Artie too holstered his weapon. "She should be fine here for the rest of the night, I suppose. You don't want to, uh…?"

"Wake her up and give her the news? No, it'll keep. Let her get her sleep now." Jim crossed to the closet and brought out an extra pillow and blanket.

"Right," said Artie as the two left the bedroom and Jim set about making up the sofa for his own use. "Morning is soon enough for her to find out… well, to find out what happened. You get to tell her," he added, poking a finger at Jim.

"Thanks," said Jim, sounding not a bit grateful. "And while I'm attending to that unpleasant task, you get to go baby-sit Miss Hippolyta."

"Wait, what?" Artie complained. "Aw, James!"

"You're the one who saddled me with being the breaker of bad news."

"Yeah, and I should have thought that one through a little longer first!" Artie shot back. He turned and looked towards Jim's bedroom, thinking about the slumbering princess within that room. Then, with a shake of his head, Artie added, "Poor kid though. After everything else that's happened lately, now she has to go plan a funeral — and alongside Hippolyta to boot!" He rubbed a hand over his face, then yawned. "Well… g'night, Jim — or what's left of it." And Artie wandered off for his own room.

"G'night, Artie," Jim returned. Shedding his jacket, gun belt, and boots, Jim lay down to make himself comfortable on the sofa and was shortly sound asleep.

Within his bedroom, however, a pair of exquisite blue eyes popped open. Had… had someone mentioned the word funeral? Atalanta hesitated, bit at her lip, then snuggled down under the covers again and closed her eyes once more.