Teaser

Artemus Gordon put the finishing touches on the display case, turned on the alarm mechanism, then stepped back and tripped it. Instantly the entire case plummeted through the floor, the trap door it had descended through snapping back into place to block anyone from reaching the case and its contents.

"Perfect," said Artie with a grin. He crossed the room to pull the hidden reset lever and watched as the showcase made its slow ascent back up through the floor. "Ready for all those shiny little baubles," he said to the as-yet empty case as he made sure the trap door was completely closed again. Leaving the alarm off for the time being, he nodded to the hand-picked guards, then wandered off in the direction of the hotel lobby to wait for his partner James West to show up with the special guests.

Artie had already been in Denver for a week, going over every aspect of security in advance of the scientific conference. There were papers to be given on many topics — physics, astronomy, chemistry, electricity — and how Artie would have loved to have the leisure time to listen in on most, if not all, of the presentations! But he and Jim were in charge of safeguarding the keynote speaker, Professor Achilles Bracewell, and that would no doubt mean no leisure time whatsoever all week.

Prof Bracewell and his wife Helena had made an important archaeological discovery in the region that had once been the ancient kingdom of Lydia. Ah, Lydia! thought Artie. The legendary home of the fabulously wealthy King Croesus, the land where the minting of coins had first occurred. It was in that remarkable region of myth and legend that the professor and his team had unearthed many amazing and valuable artifacts made of gold, silver, and electrum. And it was for exhibiting these treasures that Artie had been sent ahead and had worked so hard designing and building the alarms to protect the display cases.

Jim had had the other job: that of escorting the professor with the treasures, as well as his family, across the country on the Wanderer to the conference here. And they should be arriving… Artie consulted his pocket watch. Yes, any time now.

As he moved through the increasingly busy hallway heading for the lobby, Artie was stopped by the hotel's own head of security, Dermot Parrish. "Mr Gordon!"

"Yes, Mr Parrish?"

Parrish jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the exhibition room. "Everything ready?"

"It certainly is. And the hotel room?"

"We've got the professor and his girls in one of our finest suites up on the third floor. No trees or trellises that would allow anyone to climb up there. No way to get into the suite except through the door itself and it has a unique key. Even the manager's skeleton key won't open that door, and the only extra copy of their key has been entrusted to me." The man fished it out of his pocket for a second to show it off, then asked as he stowed it away again, "Is all this really necessary, Mr Gordon? The professor's not going to be storing the treasures he brought with him up in the suite, so what's with all this folderol?"

Artie shot Parrish a glance. "No one said anything to you about Mrs Bracewell?"

"Mrs? He's bringing his wife too? All anyone told me about were the two daughters."

"No," said Artie, his voice dropping to a mournful tone. "Sadly, Mrs Bracewell won't be here for the conference. Shortly after she aided the professor in making the discoveries that will be on display, she, er, perished."

Parrish stared at him. "She what?"

Artie nodded. "There's some confusion as to just how Helena Bracewell met her end though; I've heard that she became very ill, but also heard that she fell to her death. At any rate, while there's a strong possibility the artifacts themselves will be targeted…"

"Yeah, I know two of them have been snatched already," put in Parrish.

"Right. And my partner and I are determined that nothing more will be taken, but there's also the possibility the family itself may be at risk."

Parrish gave a whistle. "Well, I'll make sure my men are on their toes. We've got a lot of big name scientists here this week, and we want to make sure everyone's safe."

"Good man," said Artie with a pat on Parrish's shoulder. Leaving him, Artie went on into the lobby and had a look around.

The attendees were beginning to arrive. With his actor's eye for characterization and ear for dialect, Artie studied the crowd, easily picking out from the general throng the scientists who were here for the conference, while also keeping an eye out for anyone who seemed not to belong among such an erudite assemblage. He eavesdropped unabashedly on conversations swirling all about him in a half-dozen different languages, automatically storing away the trivia he was picking up against possibly needing to know someday that Wilhelm Tempel was a prolific discoverer of comets or that de Boisbaudran had recently used a spectroscope to detect the element eka-aluminium, just as predicted by Mendeleev's periodic table.

And now the lobby door opened and in came Jim, followed by a little white-haired man who must surely be Prof Bracewell. The professor had a large black case clutched in his hand and was busily warding off a small troop of bellhops, all of whom seemed intent on assisting the professor with his case, and all of whom were being rebuffed.

On the professor's arm was a singularly lovely young woman with eyes like sapphires, hair like spun gold, and a figure like a sylph, dressed in the height of fashion. She too was carrying a case, and if anything was being besieged by the bellhops more so than the professor. So many young men, all insisting on coming to her aid! But Artie couldn't blame the men for hovering like flies around honey. He himself had been stunned by the sight of such a gorgeous young lady and was still, metaphorically speaking, picking up not only his jaw but both eyeballs off the floor.

Now the lobby door opened once more, this time with a crash as if it had been kicked. And perhaps it had been, for the young woman who came staggering in through it certainly hadn't a hand left free to deal with the door knob! She was carrying — Artie counted them — no less than nine bags and cases of varying sizes, shapes, and colors.

But what a contrast she made to the first young lady! Both had blue eyes, but this one's eyes were as pale and watery as a day without sunshine — and added to that, were hidden behind thick-lensed spectacles. Both had blonde hair, but this one's coif was falling to pieces, frizzy strands wisping out in every direction from the plain bun set high on the back of her head. Where the first was a sylph, the second was, to put it charitably, Rubenesque. And where the first was deeply fashionable, the second apparently knew nothing of — or more likely, cared nothing about — fashion at all. Her only concession to current trends was the bustle enhancing the back of her skirt — except that in this case, instead of truly enhancing anything, that particular bustle only served to emphasize all the worst aspects of its wearer's figure.

Astonishing! Artie knew that Prof Bracewell had two daughters, and plainly these young women were they. But such a disparity between them! Rarely had he ever seen the equal of the first young woman for such exquisite perfection of beauty, nor the match of the second for, well… for being so completely otherwise.

The woman carrying all the burdens trailed belatedly after Jim and the others with their attendant swarm of bellhops. By now the first three had reached the front desk and were signing in. As the desk clerk handed over their special key and gestured up the stairs, the lone woman reached the center of the lobby where there stood a quaint oval sofa. Just then one of her bags escaped her grasp and fell loudly to the floor.

As of yet, none of the bellhops had left off dancing attendance on the beautiful young woman to offer a hand to the overburdened one. And even now not one shook himself free to come to her aid, despite how obviously she needed help. They only stood and stared as if they'd never seen anything like her in all their born days — if they noticed her at all.

Hmm. Well, seeing that no one else was going to do so, Artie himself took a step toward her. But it was too late. The second woman had stopped in her tracks when the bag dropped. Looking around and not seeing any help forthcoming from the bellhops, she drew herself up to her full height, and with a flash in her eyes that could be seen even through her myopic spectacles, she abruptly flung out both arms so that all the remaining eight bags and cases went spinning from her to land with an impressive cacophony of clatters and crashes.

Now that she had the entire lobby's attention, she seated herself regally on the sofa, arms folded, legs folded, one foot shod in a dowdy, sensible, flat-soled slipper jigging angrily in mid-air.

And even now not one bellhop came to her aid, all of them only staring all the more at the queen of drama in their midst.

Artie glanced at Jim, who returned the look by giving a slight nod in the seated woman's direction, a nod that said to Artie, Deal with her.

Artie inclined his own head in acknowledgement, then crossed to the sofa, put a pleasant smile on his face, and said to she who sat there, "May I help you?"

The look she shot him was sharp enough to cut glass. "If you're a bellhop, where's your uniform?" she snapped.

"I'm not a bellhop, miss. I'm…"

"You are the hotel manager, then?" she interrupted.

"No, miss."

"Or the owner of this establishment, perhaps?"

"Not that either."

"Then I fail to see how you could possibly be of any help!"

"Nevertheless," he persisted, "I am at your service." Giving a slight bow, he introduced himself. "Artemus Gordon, of the Sec…"

"Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed, cutting him off once more. "Mr West said you'd be joining us here once we arrived. Father is very eager to meet you, you know, though I'm certain his interest in making your acquaintance lies chiefly in the fact that you have a Greek name, albeit in a Roman spelling. In fact, I predict that his very first conversation with you — or perhaps I should say, at you — will consist of five to ten minutes regarding the Greek goddess Artemis with detailed enumeration of her aspects and attributes. This will be followed by three minutes on how the name Artemidorus, meaning Gift of Artemis, was derived from her name, being eventually shortened to the masculine form Artemas, ending in m-a-s, which is found in the Book of Titus in the Bible as one of the colleagues of the Apostle Paul.

"He will then," she continued as she produced a hankie from the cuff of one sleeve, unfurled the pastel blue cloth with a snap, and set about using it to polish her glasses, "most likely skip to the penname Artemus Ward as the earliest, most famous consistent use of the m-u-s spelling. But as Charles Farrar Browne, whose penname that was, was himself born in 1834, your name obviously cannot derive from his. That will take Father an additional, oh, ten minutes. He will finish with yet another ten minutes on the original Artemas Ward, the Revolutionary War general, who favored the m-a-s spelling, with inconsistent occasional specimens of m-u-s instead. In fact, Artemus in both spellings for a single individual seems to have been the norm in late Colonial times."

Perching the glasses back upon her nose, she refolded the hankie into a small fat triangle and tucked it back up her sleeve. "There! And after all that, in all no less than half an hour's worth of talk, Father will finally think to ask you how you came by the name yourself. To which you will reply?"

"Ah," said Artie, surprised to find himself with a turn in this conversation. "My mother took a fancy to it."

Her eyes rolled at such a prosaic answer. "I see," she said shortly. "Well. That being the case, Father will then lose all interest in you."

"He will."

"Oh yes. Father is highly predictable."

A handful of bellhops finally arrived under the supervision of James West. Giving the bellhops the number of the suite to which to deliver the baggage, Jim then turned to the woman sitting on the sofa and said, "Miss Bracewell, I believe I asked you to wait outside with the remainder of the luggage until I could send the bellhops out to take care of it all."

"And I believe, Mr West, that you did not ask me to do anything, but rather ordered me to stay out there with the luggage. Do I so offend your aesthetic sensibilities that you prefer I not be seen in your presence in public?"

"Someone needed to guard the luggage. Someone who could be trusted with it."

"And again, that is not so! There were eleven items of luggage, and four of us. If each had taken an average of three bags apiece, we would have easily gotten all of the luggage and us into the hotel all at the same time!"

Jim closed his eyes briefly, then turned to Artie and made sure his partner knew which suite the Bracewells were assigned to before heading off to follow the bellhops to the foot of the stairs where the professor and his lovely daughter awaited him. Slipping her hand from her father's arm, the darling girl smiled at Jim West and accepted his arm instead as they began to mount the stairs.

Sotto voce, Artie remarked to himself, "Must have been a very pleasant trip here on the train!"

Not quite sotto voce enough, he found, for the scholarly young woman responded instantly with, "That depends, of course, on one's definition of the word pleasant." Adjusting her spectacles with a quick poke at the bridge of them using her middle finger, she regarded Mr Gordon for a moment, then said, "Curious…"

"What is, Miss Bracewell?"

"The fact that you are obviously Mr West's senior in age, but obviously his junior in this work partnership."

Putting on a geriatric accent, he replied, "How very kind of you to notice what an old geezer I am, Missie."

She frowned mightily and exclaimed, "What was that about?"

Returning to normal, Artie said, "Well, you did bring up how much more elderly I am compared with my partner."

"My point," she said coldly, "was that while you are older than he, your role is of the junior partner."

He smiled genially. "So?"

"So," she responded, "he has exercised his positional seniority over you by going on to snap up the prize of escorting my beautiful elder sister Atalanta, leaving you here stuck with the homely younger sister, me." That sentence ended with a smile on her lips. Yes, the sort of smile that would make a man wary of a knife in his back or poison in his drink.

Oh, very pleasant journey indeed, thought Artie, but kept that thought to himself this time. Instead he remarked, "Ah. I hadn't been told either of your given names, Miss Bracewell. Your sister is Atalanta then. And you are…?"

Not answering immediately, she turned in her seat to watch the group on the stairs. "It's a very simple mnemonic, Mr Gordon, if you know your Greek mythology. My sister is Atalanta the fair. She of a thousand suitors, but swift of foot to run from them all. She at whose feet men cast their treasures of gold. Whereas I…" And here she sprang suddenly to her feet, drawing herself up to her full height, startling Mr Gordon not only with the abruptness of her action but with the fact that, standing tall, she towered over Artie's head by a good half-foot. "I am Hippolyta," she declared. "The Amazon."

And the only thing that popped into Artie's head for a reply was, "You certainly are."