The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish Read online

  It was the last thing Archie felt like, but he took the proffered glass, sat on his trunk, and downed it in a gulp.

  ‘How does it feel being back, Archie? A bit queer, I’d venture.’

  Something in Archie collapsed. ‘Very hard,’ he said. ‘Beatrice is acting quite bizarrely. She has refused my proposal of marriage. She stormed out when she saw me.’

  ‘Oh, Archie! My dear, poor old fellow. Five years, you know, is a very long time. You’re a different man now, and Beatrice is quite possibly a different woman. I know how you feel, though. The war cost me dearly in love. And trust. But I’m sure things will work out. Give her some time, Archie. That’s what she needs. After all, your return must have come as quite a shock. Now, have another tot.’

  Archie found himself unable to say anything else about Beatrice. Everything was so confusing that he seemed to be in a dream.

  ‘Courtenay, I can’t thank you enough for this,’ he said. ‘I can see it will be quite a squeeze with two of us staying here.’

  ‘Not at all, old chap! Delighted to have you doss down with me. A man needs company at times. I’m out late at least one night a week with the Society for the Preservation of Native Animals. They’ve just appointed me treasurer. And with any luck I’ll be off to Africa before too long.’ Dithers rolled and lit another cigarette.

  ‘What will you do there?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll study the fauna. That sort of thing. But I also hope to answer some questions that have been with me for quite some time—since 1918, you know. Africa’s the last place where the cold-blooded killers thrive—the lion, leopard and the hyena. Our stone-age ancestors lived among them. I want to understand how the prospect of being eaten alive impacts the psyche. It might account for the devil in us.’

  Archie was stunned. This was so uncharacteristic of the genial, untroubled Dithers he thought he knew.

  ‘The common washroom is down the hall. Just one thing, Archie. I don’t always sleep well. If you hear me yelling and carrying on, take no notice.’

  Dithers flung a towel over his shoulder, and disappeared out the door.

  As Archie arranged his belongings he developed a severe headache. Was it the beer, the whisky, a malarial attack—or the effect of Beatrice’s rejection? Before he could decide, he collapsed onto the bed beside his trunk, and was instantly asleep.

  He found himself back in the Venus Isles, in the head-hunting days. Polkinghorne had been captured by cannibals, and a ritual leader approached with a bamboo beheading knife. The curator screamed, and his buck teeth lunged forward, as if to bite at Archie’s face.

  Buck teeth! Archie sat upright in his bed. He had a crushing headache, was covered in sweat, and was shaking. He went to his jacket pocket and took out the incisor that had fallen from the fetish. He looked at it. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, Archie. It’s impossible,’ he said to himself.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ Dithers drawled from the adjacent bed. ‘There’s a good chap. It’s just a bad dream.’

  Chapter 6

  Archie had slept badly. He struggled into his new shoes for a second time. His suit was damp and musty with sweat, and he disliked putting it on. ‘In the islands, a loincloth is haute couture,’ he thought wistfully as he limped to work. Jeevons, the museum guard, was waiting for him in the foyer. The man had, by his own account, seen a torrid war. His own limp seemed to come and go with his retelling of the battle of the Somme. But Archie had to admit that John Jeevons really looked the part in his polished shoes, military-style uniform, and cap, with its magnificent three-inch wide, shield-shaped badge, proclaiming ‘Museum Guard’.

  ‘There’s somebody waiting that I hope you might speak to, sir,’ Jeevons confided with a knowing look. ‘He arrived early, and I must say I think he’s rather queer.’

  ‘I see,’ Archie replied wearily. His headache was increasing, and the last thing he felt like was dealing with an inquiry from a member of the public. Jeevons led him to the guard room, where a man sat slumped in a chair. Beside him was a parcel the size of a golf bag.

  ‘Good morning,’ Archie said. ‘How can I help you?’

  The man leapt to his feet. ‘Are you the curator of artefacts? You see, I’ve got a priceless treasure.’ He started unwrapping the parcel, and soon the floor was covered with sheets of newspaper. Still, the fellow unwrapped, until the parcel was reduced to the size of a large cigar. As the last sheet came off, Archie saw that it contained the point of a spear.

  ‘This, professor, is the spear that killed Captain Cook! The very one!’ The man thrust the object under Archie’s nose.

  ‘I see,’ Archie said, nursing his head and stalling for time. ‘How do you know that this is the very spear?’

  ‘Oh, that’s definite, prof. I got it from my grandfather, who was given it by a sailor who’d been to Hawaii, and he bought it off the chief who ate Captain Cook’s leg. Said he found it in the flesh of the inner thigh. Near broke his teeth on it, he said. Anyway I’ve looked at the painting—’

  ‘What painting?’ Archie managed to interject.

  ‘The one of Captain Cook’s death in a book my sister’s got. There’s no doubt about it. You can see the spear going in, and I reckon I can even see the tip breaking off. How much will you give me for it, it being a family heirloom and all?’

  ‘If it could be authenticated—’

  ‘Whaddya mean, authenticated? I told you, my grandad got it off a sailor, who got it off the dirty cannibal wot ate Captain Cook’s bloody leg. What more proof do you want! You know that the council’s going to put a statue of Captain Cook in the park outside the museum, so I’m sure people’d want to see the spear that killed him when they come in.’

  ‘Well, this really is a weighty matter,’ Archie said, biting his lip. ‘I’d need to discuss it with the highest authorities. It might take some time.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ the man said, sitting down. ‘I can wait. But how much time? And how much money?’

  ‘Oh, it could be months. At least. Might even be years. And the money. Well, that would be up to the museum board.’

  ‘In that case, young fella, I’m going to offer it to another museum, one that might appreciate it!’ He grabbed a handful of newspapers, wrapped them roughly round the spear point, and stomped out.

  ‘Well, sir, that’s one for the books,’ Jeevons said as the fellow disappeared. ‘But as you’ll probably soon be a curator, you’d better get used to it. We get at least one duffer a week wanting to sell some priceless relic or other. Last week it was a bloke who claimed he had the wireless radio that Abel Tasman took to New Zealand. Sure enough it had “1642” engraved on the back, but poor Dr Doughty had to tell him it was a serial number, not the date of manufacture. Fellow got so upset he smashed the radio on the spot! We direct all the rum’uns her way. A lot of the other curators just won’t turn up for an inquiry.’

  ‘Thank God for Dr Doughty!’ Archie replied. He remembered her as being a distinctly academic type with little interest in anything beyond her minerals. The fact that she’d been performing such a valuable service on behalf of the institution raised her even higher in his esteem.

  When Archie reached his office he was dismayed to discover that Beatrice was not at her
desk. He could not go on without clearing things up, even if it did end with another rejection. He was about to go looking for her when the phone rang. He picked up the handpiece and listened to the prim tones of Dryandra Stritchley. ‘The director requires your presence on the second floor, Meek. The old skeleton gallery. Please be there at two o’clock sharp.’ Before Archie could reply, he heard the dial tone. She had hung up.

  At 1.59 p.m. Archie was in the public galleries, ascending the ample staircase leading to the second floor. The entrance to the old skeleton gallery had been temporarily blocked off with a pair of enormous, paint-flecked tarpaulins. Behind them could be heard much hammering, sawing and shouting. Archie ducked through the gap between the sheets. The old skeleton exhibit, which had occupied the hall for many years, was being dismantled to make way for a new display.

  ‘Step aside, please, sir!’ a strained voice warned. Almost immediately the skull of a great whale, borne aloft amid clouds of dust by half a dozen workers, came within a whisker of Archie’s head. The men had evidently been hired from the boxing gym: arm muscles on them like Popeye, he mused. And cauliflower ears to boot!

  The dust cleared a little and the light improved. Much of the hall was already vacant. In the middle of the great vaulted space a shaft of sunlight from a roof lantern pierced the gloom. In the centre of the beam stood Vere Griffon. He was dressed immaculately as always, in white shirt, bow tie and spats, and a black suit which was dusted at the shoulders. In that light, Archie thought, he looked like a figure out of a Rembrandt painting. Then he noticed that Vere Griffon was not alone: on the periphery of the beam crouched, or rather stooped, another figure. Dressed in a leather apron and a striped blue butcher’s shirt, it seemed the embodiment of a goblin from a fairytale. But, of course, Archie knew the man. He was Henry Bumstocks, the museum’s chief taxidermist.

  Bumstocks’ situation seemed somehow appropriate. A creature poised on the border of lightness and dark. He was almost a caricature of a man, and had certainly deteriorated while Archie had been away. His long grey hair was falling out in clumps, perhaps as a result of exposure to the chemicals used to prepare hides. His greasy beard reached almost to his waist, and his eyes were so deep-set they couldn’t be seen, leaving his hairy eyebrows and beak of a nose to dominate the wrinkled face.

  ‘Welcome back, Archie,’ Bumstocks mumbled through his thick lips, revealing irregular yellowed teeth. He gave an obsequious nod and offered a hand whose skin was so scabbed from contact with acids and alkalis, and whose nails were so deformed by constant exposure to formaldehyde, that they resembled mottled claws.

  ‘Good day, Henry.’ Archie forced himself to touch the proffered hand. ‘I must say it’s good to be back,’ he lied.

  ‘Afternoon, Archie,’ Vere Griffon said stiffly. He consulted his watch. ‘This is the site of our grand new venture: a gallery of evolution. In the great European institutions of learning Darwin’s theory has become the dominant paradigm, though, regrettably, here in the colonies it’s been rather slower in achieving ascendancy. An exhibition of the key fossils—ancestors and missing links—will do much to educate the public on the matter. It may even, over the long term, result in increased funding for science. You, Archie, have a key role to play in this enterprise. Which is why you are here today.’

  Archie looked around. The skeleton hall was the museum’s most opulent exhibition space. Its roof was supported by rows of fluted columns, each carved of a different rock type: creamy sandstone, black basalt, royal purple porphyry, pure white marble. Perhaps it had once housed an exhibition of minerals, he thought. In the golden days, before the 1890s depression, there had been huge interest in mineral wealth, and money was no object. The upstart Australian colonies were desperate to import culture and to show that they were the equal of the British in everything, from the sciences to sport. Extravagances such as this hall had been commonplace: they placed the museum, for a few decades at least, as one of the finest in the world. Back then it was routine for the museum’s agent to outbid all comers for specimens collected by the greats, such as John Gould, Wallace, and Humboldt, even Charles Darwin himself.

  ‘Now, Archie, this new gallery will house many of our greatest treasures,’ Vere Griffon continued. ‘Wallace’s orangutans, for example, and our gorilla, one of the first brought out of the Congo, you know. We shall tell the whole story of the evolution of life, from the ancient fishes of the old red sandstone right through to modern times. But it’s the evolution of the human race we will focus on. Some months back Professor Radcliffe-Brown gave a most interesting lecture on the evolution of our species, from Pekin man to Heidelberg man, and of course our very own Piltdown man. I’m determined to illustrate all stages of development, and am delighted to say that through the kind offices of Sir Arthur Woodward, who as you may recall is the retired curator of geology at the British Museum, I’ve been able to obtain an excellent cast of that inestimably important missing link, Piltdown man. Sir Arthur has even taken a personal interest in our new exhibition. He has intimated that he might be induced to make a trip to Sydney for the opening, health permitting, of course, as part of a farewell tour, so to speak, of the geological curiosities of the Antipodes. Under his guidance Bumstocks has been undertaking a full reconstruction of the Piltdown man, which will form a centrepiece of the new exhibition. The model is well advanced: and a splendidly barbaric creation it is!’

  Vere Griffon marked a line in the dusty floor with his shoe.

  ‘Your input will be required from here on. Eastwards to the far wall, it’s all man: modern man, the story of our ascent from a state of savagery to the pinnacle of human development—the English race. Your job, Archie, is to find striking examples to illustrate the ladder of human development, starting with the degraded state in which mankind exists in nature. The black fellow must figure large: he’s an immensely important human document, so to speak. The Venus Islanders clearly belong with him, on the lowest rung of the developmental ladder. Warfare, cannibalism, idolatry: that’s the sort of thing we’ll need to show if we’re to get the point across. Your first task is to provide me with a list of objects suitable for the exhibition. Have them ready for inspection before the end of the month. I’m not sure yet what we’ll use to illustrate the superiority of the English. But I feel certain it will come to me soon.’

  For once the director seemed happy. But Archie was flummoxed. He’d never thought of the Venus Islanders as being at the bottom of the human totem pole. On the contrary, during his years among them he had learned how sophisticated their canoes, gardening and social relationships were. What’s more, Auntie Balum and Uncle Sangoma had fed and educated him—indeed, taken care of him as if he were their own child. He was more fond of them than he was of his own parents, who, he reflected bitterly, had not sent a single letter while he’d been away. Archie silently vowed that the Venus Islanders would not feature as savages in this new exhibit.

  ‘Meek,’ Vere Griffon added. ‘You have come back at the right moment. I have one more task for you. I’d like some savages to perform at the exhibition opening. It would bring the display to life. Arrange for a troupe of Venus Islanders to travel to Sydney and perform for us.’

  For a moment Archie was silent. Sangoma would surely want to see the fetish. What would he make of the four orange skulls? Griffon looked at him demandingly. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said reluctantly as he turned and made his way to the entrance. As he walk
ed away, it occurred to him that it might not be such a bad thing to have Uncle Sangoma visit Sydney. He could see civilisation, and he might take some useful ideas back to the islands. Archie would write to him via the mission, asking for a dance troupe. He would protect them, and make sure the islanders had a damn fine time of it during their stay.

  Archie headed straight to Dithers’ office. The mammalogist had dozens of flying-fox skulls arrayed on the desk in front of him, and was evidently considering a knotty problem concerning their classification. ‘Have you seen Beatrice today, Courtenay?’ Archie asked.

  ‘No. I heard she’s on sick leave. But, as I said, give her time, Archie. You’ll do more harm than good chasing her around before she’s ready.’

  ‘But I don’t understand it, Dithers. I get the feeling she abhors me. Do you think she’s found someone else?’

  ‘I don’t think so, old chap,’ Dithers said, his mind on his studies. ‘Mordant’s been giving her a bit of company lately, but—’

  ‘Mordant! My God! Surely not!’ Archie exclaimed. ‘I mean to say—she wouldn’t stoop that low. No, not Mordant, Courtenay? That nasty, mediocre little ponce!’

  Dithers immediately regretted his injudicious words. He did not for a moment think there was anything between Beatrice and Giles.

  ‘Archie, listen to me. I’m certain that Beatrice has waited for you. Just give it time, man. If you go off half-cocked now you’ll lose all chance of winning her over.’

  Archie felt as if he were about to explode, a feeling made worse by the knowledge, deep down, that Dithers was right. He must be patient. With a supreme effort, he told himself that his thoughts would be best directed elsewhere. And, heaven knew, he had enough distractions to keep him occupied.