The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish (15 page)

A collective shudder went through the crowd.

‘Mister Jeevons,' a tremulous female voice inquired. ‘The newspapers reported the
death as a misadventure. Was poison really involved?'

‘There are suspicions. Suspicions indeed, ma'am.'

Sopwith's death was clearly far from a closed chapter with the public, and Jeevons
seemed intent on stirring curiosity to a fever pitch. Would he, Archie, end up in
the tabloids, portrayed as the Lucrezia Borgia of the scientific world? he wondered.

Archie left the museum and walked automatically around Hyde Park, wondering what
to do. There seemed little point in approaching Griffon about Jeevons' behaviour.
No, best to pick the right moment, and speak to Jeevons directly.

As Archie walked back to the museum, he turned to his most unbearable problem. Beatrice
had written him off, it seemed, and Dithers' strategy of giving her time was yielding
nothing. Could she really be in love with Mordant? Archie had not entirely lost faith
in Dithers as his ‘Dear Dorothy', so he made his way to the mammalogist's office.

Dithers was bent over the stuffed skin of a large rat, a durry with a perilously
long ashy tip hung from the corner of his mouth.

‘Courtenay, I'm having no luck at all with Beatrice. No matter how much time I give
her, she just ignores me,' Archie blurted out.

‘Hmm. A difficult case. But I'm sure that she can be won over,
Archie. Might be best
to speak to her, or write her a letter. Say you're sorry. Got carried away. That
sort of thing.'

‘But what about Mordant?'

‘There is absolutely nothing in that, Archie. I was a fool to have even mentioned
the thing.' Dithers turned his attention back to the rat on his desk.

Archie walked to Anthropology and found Beatrice. She did not look up, but he could
feel her body tense at the sound of his footfalls. The words tumbled out of him.
‘Beatrice. I am truly sorry for whatever I have done to offend you. I really am.
I'm still mad about you. I meant what I wrote in my letter.'

Beatrice didn't even look up; she kept on writing. Archie crept back to his office,
feeling thoroughly miserable.

The following day Archie thought he could discern the slightest thaw. When they found
themselves alone, by chance, in the collection, Archie saw his opportunity. Apropos
of nothing, and looking at nobody in particular, he said, ‘I got carried away in
the islands, Beatrice. Five years is a long time, you know.'

‘It was horrible and embarrassing, Archie. But I forgive you,' Beatrice said with
some effort. ‘And I'm terribly sorry about Sopwith. I know how much he meant to you.'

Beatrice met his gaze. They both blushed, and Archie retreated to his cupboard. That
evening Beatrice permitted Archie to walk her to Circular Quay.

‘The place is so changed, Beatrice. And Vere Griffon frightens me. He has always
been a martinet, but he never seemed unhinged, as he sometimes does now. With Polkinghorne
missing, and Sopwith dead, there's a ghastly gloom over the place. I can't walk past
the spot where I unpacked my collection
without seeing Eric's face. He looked terrible,
Beatrice. Just terrible! And to think I might have been responsible. I was as careful
as could be with the labels, but I feel so out of touch with the world just now that
anything's possible.'

‘Archie, it's most emphatically not the same museum. Everything has changed since
the stock-market collapse. I sometimes think that the worry of it
is
driving our
director mad. At least, as you say, he seems to be so at times.'

Archie took a deep breath. ‘Beatrice, could I ask you a favour? I don't like the
idea of my, ahem, love token, being the property of the state. Do you think it might
be deregistered and returned to me?'

Beatrice stood stock-still. Then she burst into tears. ‘Archie! I waited so very
long for you. And when your proposal of marriage came I was the happiest girl in
the whole world. While you were away the only person who seemed to care that I existed
was Giles. I told him about my engagement to you, and showed him the thing in the
letter. It was he who told me what it really was. He laughed so cruelly about it,
Archie! I was so embarrassed and upset—ashamed that I didn't know what it was, and
that you could send me such an obscene thing. And Giles had been so very kind, letting
me cry on his shoulder when I missed you.'

Beatrice fidgeted with her cuff, and looked at her feet.

‘I can't give it back, Archie—because
he
has it!' she finally wailed.

Archie's face hardened. ‘Good God! What are you saying, Beatrice! Do you mean that
you gave that little ponce my foreskin?'

‘Oh, Archie! Please don't! I knew you'd be upset. But you must know that I'd never
do anything like that. He has it because he stole it! When I showed it to him in
the collection, he reached down and snatched it out of the cabinet drawer before
I could do anything. I couldn't go to the director, Archie, I just couldn't,' Beatrice
wailed again. ‘It was just too embarrassing.'

Archie had no idea how he found his way back to Dithers' rooms. He was so upset he
could barely speak. Dithers, assuming that Beatrice continued to remain distant,
and having run out of ideas, left Archie to his silence.

So it was true, Archie told himself. Beatrice
had
been seeing Giles while he was
away. Had she kissed him? Or maybe gone further? He found himself shaking with rage.
It was as if the top of his skull had been lifted off and a green poison poured into
his brain. A poison that suffused his vision and coloured every thought and action.
A poison that made Beatrice seem at once desirable and detestable.

To top it all off, the little ponce had his foreskin. A terrible suspicion began
to form in Archie's mind. What could Mordant possibly want with the thing? Then he
remembered Griffon. Did the director know of his circumcision? Was Mordant working
for him, and might his foreskin end up on the fetish, with his skull to follow?

The only alternative explanation was that Mordant was out to embarrass him—to make
Archie look like something out of a circus sideshow. He could just imagine it: ‘Step
up, step up and see the man who proposed to his girl with his foreskin!' Perhaps
Mordant was displaying the thing to some squealing hussy right now. Or, horror of
horrors, maybe he was showing it around the
museum. The thought that the people he
worked with could be gawking and pawing at it unmanned him. Archie choked with revulsion
as he lay in his bed. Endless scenes of mockery played out in his mind. Perhaps even
Nellie at the Maori's Head had seen it! It was all too much. What a total idiot he
had been.

He knew he must get his foreskin back. But if his suspicion that Mordant was in cahoots
with the director was correct, he would have to be very careful indeed.

Chapter 12

Abotomy found Dithers at his desk, examining a series of small bats through a hand
lens.

‘Understand you're a bit stuck, old fellow?'

Dithers sprang to attention. ‘Yes, sir. A combination of unfortunate circumstances.
But I'll soon be off to British East Africa to secure your lion and zebra.'

‘As it happens, I could do with your help out at Abotomy Park. We're having a
battué
,
and a fellow who knows how to do a little stuffing could be of use.

‘A
battué
?'

‘Shooting the fauna off the place, you know. For the museum.'

The news put Courtenay Dithers in a quandary. There was no doubt that the specimens
could be valuable. Abotomy Park
was located in one of the biologically richest and
least explored regions of New South Wales. But what of his position as treasurer
of the Society for the Preservation of Native Animals? Its members might look askance
at his participation in a
battué
.

‘Umm, Mr Abotomy…'

‘It's Abumley, Dithers, but Chumley will do between us.'

‘Thank you, er, Chumley, I'm a little unsure…'

‘Man, don't talk twaddle! Vere Griffon insisted on your participation. He'll be severely
disappointed if you don't come.'

‘I see,' replied Dithers. ‘How long do you think the
battué
will take?'

‘Be away for a few weeks, I expect.'

‘When do you leave?'

‘Tomorrow morning. You can stay with me tonight. We'll set off early.'

That afternoon Dithers packed his bags and left a note on Archie's bed saying that
he'd had to depart urgently, on director's orders, and would be away for ‘some time'.
He remembered that he'd booked tickets on a steamer to Cape Town the following week.
Now he would have to delay his African adventure once again.

‘You'll enjoy the crowd,' Abotomy said, as he loaded Dithers' luggage into his Rolls
Royce Phantom II Sports Saloon. ‘We country folk are a sociable lot, and I'm sure
Portia will appreciate your company. She gets a bit glum up on the farm by herself.'

The sun was at its zenith as they drove through the Blue Mountains. An hour or two
later, Abotomy pulled into the Hydro Majestic Hotel. Perched at the edge of a vertiginous
cliff, almost on the summit of the mountains, it resembled a sumptuous palace.

Dithers stepped from the car and breathed deeply. Humus, oak. The crisp, cool mountain
air soothed him. When he saw his suite, he was astonished. It consisted of a bedroom,
lounge room and a most extravagant bathroom, all exquisitely appointed. He'd seen
nothing like it since the Savoy years ago. By the bed he found a catalogue offering
a range of hydropathic treatments. Drawings of languorous women, draped in nightwear
or up to their necks in bubbles, adorned the pages. And there were advertisements,
too, for various ‘electric therapies' which were not illustrated, but were evidently
meant for those with nervous complaints.

That evening, after soaking in the bath, Dithers met Abotomy in the Hydro's dining
room. He mentioned the electric therapies.

‘Well, you're most welcome to try one, Dithers old chap,' Abotomy said with a wry
smile.

‘Why, thank you, Chumley. But what are they?'

‘Don't suppose you know much about farm animals, do you? More an expert on wild beasts.
Well, if you leave a mare without a stallion for too long, she grows edgy. Same as
a cow without a bull. Women are no different. And these damn quack doctors have got
onto it. They get to work with a bit of electrical fiddling and before you know it
the womanly nerviness vanishes! Damn cunning. And damn rum too, if you ask me. I'd
never let Portia near the place, though she's at me often enough for a holiday here.'

‘How the other half live!' thought Dithers as he blushed into his soup.

First light saw the Phantom again heading westwards, the great vista of the inland
plains open before it. Dithers had not appreciated how far beyond the black stump
Abotomy Park was. Or how poor the roads of the outback were.

‘It stretches on forever,' Dithers gasped. He had no idea of the extent of the country.

‘Yes, indeed. And the soil's pretty good in parts. If it weren't for the droughts
it would be the best country in the world, my grandfather used to say.'

As the countryside drifted by, Abotomy explained to Dithers how the museum intended
to make an exchange for the Giglione goats. Prudently, he omitted mention of the
thylacines. It seemed to Dithers that Abotomy was a splendid sort of chap, truly
passionate about science and the welfare of the museum. Abotomy even took a keen
interest in the distributions of Australasian bats—a subject Dithers was working
up a report on, and which hitherto had aroused little curiosity, even among his fellow
curators.

‘Are there any dangers in the outback?' Dithers asked, thinking it best to have a
little local knowledge.

‘We have our fair share of spiders and snakes, but nothing a man of your experience
couldn't handle.'

‘Spiders?' echoed Dithers. Since childhood he had had a phobia about them: he could
front a charging lion without blanching, but there was something about large, hairy
spiders that terrified him.

‘You don't like them, Dithers? Don't worry. There are very few at Abotomy Park.'

Dithers was keen to change the subject. ‘Has the director
told you how he plans to
exhibit the African mammals I'll bring back?'

‘No, nothing as yet. Old Vere's been a blank page on that. What do you think, Dithers?'

‘I did have visions of a grand diorama. Perhaps as part of a new mammals hall.'

‘What do you mean, a diorama?'

‘Have you ever seen the exhibits of fauna at the museum in London? Their lion are
displayed magnificently. The pride sit on a grassy slope below a kopje. The rocks
in the foreground are real, but those behind are painted. You can't tell where the
real grass and rocks end and the painted ones begin. Looking at it, you really feel
you're there on the veldt.'