Aristotle, Private Eye

It was 10 a.m. on a Monday morning when a broad came into my office looking distraught. "Are you Aristotle?"she asked. "I hear you´ve got a logical mind."

"One of the best," I said. "What do you need? A more logical political system? A theory of Poetics?"

"Er. . .no. I need help finding my husband. He´s disappeared."

Oh That figured. Say whatever else you like about philosophy, it doesn´t pay very well. That´s why I went into business as a detective. It was the only way I could pay the bills. "Give me the details."

"Well, my husbands´s name is Actaeon. He´s a hunter. Yesterday, he went into the forest with his dogs and he never came home. His dogs were eventually found eating a stag they had caught, but there was no sign of my husband."

"So have you reported it to the police?"

"Yes, they´re currently searching the woods for his body. But I hear you´re better then them."

"That´s an understatement, but unlike them, I don´t get paid tax money. It´ll cost you 50 drachmas a day plus expenses."

"Done. But find him, please." There were tears in her eyes.

* * *

My first stop was the forest to see what I could find. As the dame said, the police were already scouring the place. Detective Inspector Hercules was there. How a man of his intelligence--or rather, complete lack of same--became a detective is a mystery in and of itself. One that I´ve never been able to solve. He never seems happy to see me. "Ha," he said when I approached. "The great detective is here. I´ll have you know that we are doing quite well without you."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, Do you see these footprints here?"

"Sure."

"Well they perfectly match the boots Actaeon wore yesterday. You´ll also notice that there are the tracks of several dogs near the bootprints. Clearly, they were made by his dogs."

I smiled. "Hercules, your talent for deduction never ceases to amaze me. I suppose it´s only a matter of time before you follow those footprints and find Actaeon."

At this, his face seemed to fall. "Well, there we have a problem," he admitted. "The tracks lead to that river over there, but then they end."

"They end?" Sure enough, when I followed the tracks carefully, I saw a delightful babbling stream. Actaeon´s footprints ended right at the bank. The dogs´tracks were still there and also the tracks of a hoofed animal. They seemed to turn around and run away from the stream, but since the dogs had been found killing a stag that wasn´t really suprising. "He could have fallen in and drowned." I said. It was kind of hard to imagine a great hunter doing something so clumsy, but stranger things had happened.

"We thought of that," said Hercules. "We have the nymph brigade searching the stream, but so far they haven´t found a body. There´s also some strange sticky liquid on the ground near bank. I had a sample sent to the Centaurian lab. " His ears perked up. "Could that be them now?"

Indeed, a Centaur was approaching with a parchment. "I have your lab report, " he said. "That stuff is definitely human sperm."

Human sperm? This case was getting weirder. I said, "Do you think Actaeon was ´polishing his sword´ out here? It would help explain how he fell in." Guys get pretty careless when they do things like that.

Hercules snorted. ¨But what was he looking at. His dogs?¨

Well, why not? This was, after all, the Hellenic Peninsula. I'd heard of people getting off with dogs, geese, or even cows and horses. Still, there was something about it which felt wrong here.

"Hercules," I said somewhat more soberly, "do you think there's a chance that the gods have something to do with this?"

Hercules groaned and said, "I don't like to consider the gods when I'm on a case."

"Why not?"

"Well, because if the gods didn't have anything to do with it, then you're wrong. If they did, then you can't do anything about it because the gods can't be prosecuted in a court of law. Either way, it's not helpful."

That was actually a pretty good syllogism for Hercules. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling. Let's see. Actaeon was a hunter. That meant that the deity most likely to be involved with his life was Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. She had a reputation for being a tough nut to crack, but I decided to pay her a visit.

* * *

When I reached Artemis' place, I saw that she had company. Aphrodite, no less. I couldn't help feeling happy about that. Not only is Aphrodite something to look at, but she has a pretty fun personality for an Olympian.
'
"Aristotle," she greeted me with an enthusiastic hug. "How's your girlfriend?"

"Don't have one at the moment. Although, I'm sure you could fix that. But I'm not here to talk about my love life. I need to ask Artemis a few questions."

"Oh," said Aphrodite. "That's the way it always is with her. Whenever a guy stops in to visit her, it's always to ask her a few questions, or offer her a sacrifice for better hunting, or something like that. Nobody ever stops by and says to her, 'Artemis, that new play by Aristophanes is supposed to be real funny. Want to go?' Or 'Artemis, Apollo and Dionysus are in concert this week. It's their first reunion since that thing with King Midas a few years ago. Want to go?' "

"That's enough, Aphrodite," said Artemis clearly embarrassed by this conversation. "I don't really care about that anyway. You know I dislike men."

Other people might have found that awkward, but Aphrodite just laughed and put her arm around Artemis' shoulder. "No, you don't. You just think you do. If Aristotle were to ask you to the play right now, you would say 'yes'."

"No, I wouldn't." Artemis sounded like she was trying to be resolute, but she was wavering, and I couldn't blame her. When Aphrodite says that you're in love with someone, you pretty much are.

"Prove it. Ask her, Aristotle."

I sighed. This was turning out to be more than I bargained for. "Artemis, would you like to go to the play with me tonight?"

She looked like she was trying very hard to say, "No", but she didn't. She said, "Yes," and then, turning to Aphrodite, she said, "I hate you!"

"Great!" said Aphrodite laughing and clapping her hands. "You can pick her up at seven. And don't worry. She won't be wearing that ugly thing. In fact, maybe she won't be wearing anything. She looks surprisingly good naked." Aphrodite leered at me and gave me a wink.

"Watch it!" said Artemis.

"Oh all right. But let's hurry. We only have about five hours to find you a decent dress."

* * *

When I met Artemis that night, she did indeed look better than I had ever seen her. Also, she somehow seemed friendlier than usual. We ended up going to the Aristophanes play. It turned out to be another installment in that trilogy about those three guys: Linus, Cyrus, and Matthias. Personally, I never liked them that much. I mean you can only watch three guys poking each other in the eyes and going "Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck" for so long before you want to burn down the library where Aristophanes keeps his plays. Artemis seemed to enjoy it though. She laughed and by the time they got to the end when the actors threw pies at each other, Artemis was doubling over with laughter.

Afterwards, I bought her some wine. In fact, that's an understatement. I bought her a lot of wine.

"You know," I said when she was on her fifth cup, "this isn't going the way I expected at all."

"What do you mean?" she asked taking another swallow. "It's a lot more fun than you expected?" She seemed to think this was a witty remark because it caused wine to come out of her nostrils.

"No seriously," she said recovering a bit, "you probably think that because I'm the goddess of the hunt, I'm always tough. People don't know that I'm a woman with needs."

"What sort of needs?"

"Well. . ." she paused as if considering whether to share something with me. "Sometimes, if it's a nice day, I like to pamper myself a little. I find a nice stream and have a cool bath in it. Is that wrong?"

I laughed. "I don't have a problem with it, and neither, I imagine, would any man who happened to pass by that stream."

Then I choked as I suddenly remembered why I was on this date in the first place. I chose my next words carefully. "By any chance, would a hunter named Actaeon have passed by that stream and seen you?"

At the mention of Actaeon's name, a change came over her. The old Artemis seemed to come rushing back. "If he did," she said in measured tones, "he would have to be swiftly punished. I don't let strange men look at me naked."

It was starting to make sense, but there was still one question. "So exactly how would he be punished in such a way that there was no trace of his body."

This made her laugh again. "You're the philosopher. Let's see you figure it out."

I thought about that some more.

"You know," I said finally, "One thing kind of bothered me about Actaeon's disappearance. There were his footprints, there were his dogs' footprints, and there were also the tracks of that stag which his dogs chased off. Now the dogs' footprints were the least mysterious because they led to the stream and then turned around. Actaeon's were the big puzzle because they led to the stream and never seemed to turn around. But the other puzzle is that the stag's tracks led away from the stream, but I don't think there were any stag tracks leading to the stream. That makes me wonder how the stag got there in the first place."

Artemis laughed. "Not bad," she said. "So what do you think happened?"

"Well, here's a crazy theory. What if Actaeon and the stag were the same?"

"What?"

"Well, surely a goddess could change a man into a stag. And then the hunting dogs would chase him down and eat him. It's the perfect crime."

Now she frowned. "If that were true," she said, "what would you do about it? You can't prosecute a goddess for killing a mortal. It's the way the law works."

She was right. So I just sighed and said, "Maybe it's time for me to take you home."

It was a sad story. More than sad. Tragic. But the truth is that when the gods oppress us except ponder the tragic nature of the universe. If anyone's interested, I can expound on the essence of tragedy. But nobody really seems interested, so I guess it's back to detective work for me.

I am Aristotle, Private Eye.