The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish (35 page)

Archie had never felt so utterly helpless. His friend had gone where he could not
tread. As a newly minted curator, he had a duty to treat the skulls as specimens.

When Vere Griffon walked through the door of his apartment that evening he was surprised
to see the wall of his sitting room alive with the dancing shadows of a fire. It
was burning gently in his fireplace, and sitting in a lounge chair before it, her
back to him, was Dryandra Stritchley.

‘Dryandra, what a surprise. What a pleasant surprise, I mean.'

‘I realised, after I wrote to you, Vere, that I couldn't leave. It would all be for
nothing without you.'

Griffon stepped back.

‘Surely you knew? How many times had you confided in me that you'd like to rid yourself
of those appalling curators? I have a talent for carrying out orders, you know. And
for looking after you.'

‘Dryandra, are you mad? Tell me, for God's sake, what's going on.'

‘Were you sorry to see that useless Polkinghorne, and Dolt, Hadley and Jones, vanish?
I made it so easy for you, Vere.'

‘But, Dryandra, how could you possibly make them leave? Did you threaten them?'

‘No, Vere. I was far more decisive. Dolt, Hadley and Jones were easy. Men are such
simple, gullible creatures. They were all eager to come home with me. And I love
cooking, especially fish. It was old Trembley who told me about fugu. It's such a
common species, and I love the challenge of preparing it. Getting the dose just right.
It's such a gentle death that it's almost a pleasure. And it makes candlelit dinners
for two so very interesting, even when the company is more comfortable communing
with a blowfly than a woman.'

Vere slumped into the unoccupied armchair beside Dryandra.

‘You killed them?' he whispered.

‘The bodies would have been a problem if it wasn't for my rose garden. I thought
that those useless curators should be productive, in death at least. They did little
enough in life.'

‘Polkinghorne gave me trouble, I admit. I watched him fight with the father of that
young man. He didn't want to come with me at first. He was scared of you, Vere. Of
what you might think of him. So I followed him onto the ferry, and eventually I persuaded
him to come back with me to Circular Quay, and to my home.

‘But surely you agree that my greatest triumph was Sopwith. I did hope that I'd killed
two birds with one stone there. And I didn't even have to manage the body. With the
others, Mordant was always eager to earn some pin money. Carrying boxes, letting
people in, administering a few drops of fugu here and there. But he never glimpsed
the full genius of it all.'

‘But the letters. They all sent letters!' cried Griffon.

‘Oh, Vere, you simple boy! I'm an excellent copyist, and our
files are full of paperwork
bearing staff signatures. You never asked to see the envelopes. But the best trick
is yet to come. I had to dig them up, of course. Couldn't leave skeletons in the
garden. It was tremendously interesting smoking the skulls so they resembled the
originals, and sewing them onto the fetish. I do believe I was a forger in a previous
life!

‘And don't worry, Vere dearest, the skeletons, along with the skulls I took from
the mask, are safe in our collection. I even labelled the skeleton boxes with their
state of origin. Dolt, with a switched skull, is now a “native of Victoria”, while
Jones and Hadley are natives of New South Wales. I don't worry much about the switched
skulls. They always were wrong-headed anyway. Delicious—and rather funny—don't you
think? Perhaps one day some super sleuth will discover my clues, and understand the
genius of it all. But not for a very, very long time.

‘I only slipped up once. My bone staining wasn't up to old Bumstocks and his bleach.
But even that wouldn't have mattered except for that young man, Meek. I almost had
him, you know. If Beatrice had played hard-to-get just a little longer, you would
have received a letter from the broken-hearted Mr Meek. “I can find neither peace
nor love here. I've returned to the islands,” it would have said. But he never took
the bait.'

Vere was staring at Dryandra, his eyes dark with horror.

‘Our work's not yet done, my beautiful Vere. My poor, hard-working Mordant is now
assisting with the roses. Those man-catchers really are most ingenious objects. Archie
Meek was careless enough to leave one unattended after the opening. I don't know
how I would have managed Mordant without it. But there are yet suspicious minds we
must still. Meek
and Goodenough at the least.

‘We're two of a kind, Vere. Inseparable. Let's pledge on our better selves that we'll
never part. Come with me to Malaya. After we've done our tidying up, that is.'

Sunlight spilled onto the old sandstone verandah where Beatrice stood looking out
between the buildings at a tiny sliver of water glittering in the sunlight. A real
estate agent might describe it as ‘harbour glimpses'. As the warm sun dispelled the
last of the winter gloom, Archie stood, looking positively Arcadian, in his gardening
boots and gloves, and secateurs in hand.

‘I'm so happy, Archie. I keep having to pinch myself to know it's real.'

‘I can hardly believe it myself, Beatrice. I had no idea that Dryandra Stritchley
thought so highly of us. To leave us use of her house until she returns. And with
no real duties apart from caring for her roses. It was extraordinarily generous.'

‘Such a lovely letter, too, wishing us well for our marriage. I never realised how
similar her handwriting was to Griffon's,' Beatrice said absently. ‘Strange that
she was so emphatic about not disturbing the flower beds. But I suppose that her
roses are like children to her.'

‘And that, Beatrice, is the only dark spot thus far, on the glory of married life.
No matter what I do, I can't get the things to bloom as gloriously as she did. I've
read every book—put my everything into it. But still it's not enough.'

Beatrice was aware of a tenderness in her breasts. She thought she knew what that
meant, but it was far too early to say anything.

‘When do you think she'll be back, Archie?'

‘Her letter gave no idea. But surely she'll write from Malaya, giving us time to
find somewhere else, before she returns.'

‘Darling, I'd be delighted if we could stay here forever.'

‘Perhaps we will, my sweet. It all depends on Dryandra.'

END

END NOTE

While preparing the manuscript for publication I uncovered some remarkable facts
pertaining to various incidents portrayed therein. A cult mask, known as the great
Darnley Island mask, is strikingly similar to the fetish described in the manuscript.
It was probably (though not certainly) destroyed in a fire that consumed most of
the Australian Museum's ethnographic collection in the nineteenth century. The cause
of the fire was never determined, but newspapers reported that a one-legged man and
a butcher's boy were seen fleeing the scene shortly before the blaze broke out.

Even more remarkable instances concern Dr Doughty's adventures in the Spice Islands.
A privately published journal reveals that a Count Vidua of Genoa had travelled to
the Dutch East Indies. While climbing a volcano, his leg broke through a lava crust
and was badly burned. A German surgeon travelling
on the count's vessel urged the
nobleman to have his limb amputated. But Vidua waited too long, developed gangrene,
and died. That surgeon's name was Leggenhacker. Moreover, I was astonished to learn
that Cummingtonite and Dickite are actual mineral species, and that Abraham Trembley
was a world-renowned authority on the Medusae.

Less certain, but still intriguing, are the parallels between Courtenay Dithers and
several anthropologists of historical note. George Augustus Robinson's experiences
in 1840s Victoria are similar, as is the story of Sydney University anthropologist
Olive Pink, who gave up her studies to live among the Aborigines at Alice Springs.

When I first worked at the Australian Museum in the 1980s, its collection included
a most grotesque assortment of stuffed goats. They had been acquired ninety years
earlier through an exchange with an Italian professor of zoology, who received in
return an irreplaceable collection of now-extinct marsupials. Strangely, around the
time of the exchange, the director, Edwin Pearson Ramsay, was made a
Cavaliere
of
the Crown of Italy, though what services he rendered that country remain obscure.
But here, I must emphasise, I rely on my memory. Many specimens have been de-accessed
from the collection over the intervening years. I'm not sure that the goats still
exist.

T.F.