The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish

by Dido Butterworth

  ‘And here, Premier, is a Chilean mounteback. Almost the last of his race,’ Abotomy exclaimed as he poured a glass of champagne. ‘Just look at those lips! It’s the only beast on the pampas able to take on the prickly pear—and beat it! Eats it down to the stumps, they say.’

  ‘Is that right, old fellow! The pear’s devastating the grazing lands of the west as we speak. The graziers are in uproar. Chumley, I don’t suppose this could be described as stage one in the fight against the pear, could it? If we could get some living examples of the mounteback and breed them up, in a few years we might have the dastardly shrub on the run! And what a handsome fellow! Proud, strong and virile. Answer to a maiden’s prayer the beast is, surely. And to a premier’s, perhaps. If we play our cards right, Chumley, that creature might just save my neck at the next election.’

  ‘You mean there might be votes in goats, Premier?’ said Abotomy gleefully.

  ‘Vere,’ the premier said, turning to the director. ‘Well done. Always knew you were a good man. Was a bit worried at first that you were overly academic, so to speak, coming from Cambridge and all. But I can see now I was wrong. The Royal Agricultural Show opens in a week, and if you could arrange to have these splendid specimens displayed there—perhaps with the Chilean mounteback chewing on a prickly pear—along with a few words on its potential to rid us of the infestation, I’d be immensely grateful. After that we could get the whole lot out on tour in the west. I know finances have been tight lately, and you’ve had a terrible fire, which must have set you back. But for this, money would be no object.’

  Vere Griffon felt like he was in a dream. He had expected the axe to fall on his career, if not his neck. But instead he was being feted as some sort of political Svengali. It was as if he’d entered another world. And perhaps he had.

  ‘Do you think we should tell the premier that the Chilean mounteback is supposed to be extinct?’ Vere Griffon asked after the politician had left. ‘Giglione claims he shot the last one.’

  ‘Politics, Vere, is all about expectation—and the management of it. What’s required, in this moment of peril, is hope. Hope that the pear can be defeated. That and public confidence that the premier is doing his utmost to eradicate the vicious weed. I think we can leave any practical concerns on the backburner for the moment. But I tell you what, credit would redound on the museum if an expedition were dispatched to secure a few living mountebacks—whether it succeeded or not. Perhaps Dithers should delay his African safari and go instead to South America?’

  ‘I thought your feelings towards Dithers were hostile,’ Griffon replied.

  ‘I was just having a little fun, Vere. Dithers is such a serious sort of fellow. Believes everything a chap says. A bit like you that way.’

  ‘I see. Perhaps you could try to mend fences with him. Tremendous asset to the place, you know.’

  Griffon thought he’d try his luck a little further. ‘Chumley, despite my best efforts, and my—I mean our—considerable triumph with the Giglione goats, I find myself in a spot of bother. On a couple of fronts. There’s the fire, of course. Blame could fall, entirely without basis I hasten to add, on me. Then there’s that damn investigation of Grimston’s. He’s found nothing, but the very fact he’s sniffing about the place is damaging. A museum director must, you know, be like Caesar’s wife—above suspicion. Otherwise the great and the good will avoid the place.’

  ‘Vere,’ Chumley responded after a brief silence. ‘The premier is so in awe of your perspicacity right now that I’m sure he won’t want your reputation, or indeed that of the museum, tarnished in any way. I’ll have a word in his shell-like. But now a word of advice to you, if you don’t mind. You might want to see that Mordant fellow moved on. Could be a spot of bother if Bunkdom was ever rolled for his fencing. Perhaps the government pathologist has a suitable position for a man of Mordant’s talents?’

  Vere Griffon finally understood that he had met his match. ‘I’ll speak to Leopold on the morrow,’ he said evenly—despite the fact that he had no idea what Abotomy was talking about.

  Chapter 26

  ‘It must be tonight, Beatrice. There’s not a moment to lose. Bumstocks might be destroying the evidence as we speak.’

  Archie and Beatrice were once more in the Harris Tea Rooms. Beatrice looked fiercely at Archie. ‘Yes. Tonight. I’ll be ready.’

  Bumstocks was working late. It was the gloaming before he made his way hurriedly down Macquarie Street towards Circular Quay. Beatrice and Archie, who had been watching from the park opposite, followed at a discreet distance. The old fellow was remarkably fast on his pins, and Beatrice had difficulty keeping up. Why she had worn her new heels that evening she could not say.

  Bumstocks boarded the Balmain ferry, followed by a furtive Archie and Beatrice. After Bumstocks seated himself for’ard and inside, they moved to the open deck on the stern. Beatrice shivered, and Archie hugged her. He took her hand in his and warmed it. He was even considering a second experiment in maritime kissing when the ferry started reversing. They’d reached Balmain.

  Bumstocks shot down the gangway with the speed of a man half his age, and proceeded up the hill at a cracking pace. Beatrice shed her heels, and was soon puffing. The taxidermist stopped at 88 Short Street, a worker’s cottage with a tiny neglected front garden. He rummaged in his trouser pocket for a key, entered, and slammed the front door shut. After a moment a light went on.

  ‘Well, we know where he lives. But how do we get a look inside?’ asked Beatrice, still panting.

  ‘I think he lives alone, Beatrice. The cottage was in darkness when he arrived. And nobody came to greet him. It might be worth hanging about for a few minutes. He was in such a rush, perhaps he’s running late for something and will go out again. We can wait just round the corner, behind that picket fence.’

  As they stood in the darkness Beatrice thrilled to feel Archie take her hand in his. But she refused to be distracted, and kept one eye fixed on the front door of number 88. Sure enough, a few minutes later Bumstocks emerged, an ornate apron tied round his waist and a briefcase in his hands.

  ‘I say! A Mason. I would never have guessed,’ whispered Archie.

  ‘He locked the front door, Archie. I don’t think we’ll be able to get in.’

  ‘Let’s try the laneway at the back.’

  In the dark space of the rear lane, Archie counted off the blocks: ‘100, 98, 96, 94.’

  ‘No, that’s still 96, Archie, it’s a double block,’ corrected Beatrice.

  ‘94, 92, 90, 88. This is it.’

  Archie stood beside a dilapidated paling fence. A crude wooden door a couple of feet square had been cut into it. It was used by the nightcart man to remove the can. Archie tugged on the latch. It opened easily.

  ‘Thank God the can’s been emptied,’ Archie said as he lifted a malodorous old kerosine tin from the opening. ‘I’ll go through and open the front door.’ Beatrice was grateful that Archie was such a gentleman. She really doubted that she could have followed him in through the toilet.

  Beatrice walked to the front door. There was a creaking sound, and the door swung open. ‘Hurry up. Come in,’ urged Archie. ‘We can’t put the lights on. Someone might see us.’

  Archie struck a match. The entire hall seemed
skewed to the left, as if it was falling into the neighbouring block. Its floorboards were covered with a single threadbare runner that extended less than half its length. A naked light bulb, its upper half black with filth, hung by an electrical cord from a Bakelite socket. Paint was peeling from the ceiling and walls.

  ‘I’m scared, Archie,’ Beatrice whispered. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be here.’

  But Archie kept moving down the hall. When they reached the kitchen he struck another match. A wood stove—a Metters No 2, its face spotted with rust—stood in the fireplace. Beside it a pantry lay open, revealing a few mismatched cups and plates. On one of the plates was half a pork pie.

  ‘Upstairs,’ said Archie. He gingerly made his way up the narrow staircase. At the top was a closed door. For a second Archie hesitated. Moonlight flooded in from a window opening into the staircase. He touched the knob, and the door swung open. ‘Must be the tilt of the house,’ he said nervously as he stepped forward and struck another match.

  ‘My God!’ exclaimed Beatrice. In the middle of the room was a narrow, single bed. Its old striped horsehair mattress was falling apart. There was nothing else on the floor. What had caused Beatrice to gasp was the walls. Every inch of space was taken up with glass-fronted display boxes. Row upon row of them. And in them were the most varied scenes of domestic life imaginable. In one, a mother wearing an old-fashioned Mother Hubbard dress was busy frying sausages, her child playing at her feet while the father sat at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and smoking his pipe. In another, a mother was bathing her children, and in yet another, mother and father lay together in bed, reading Harper’s Bazaar.

  The innumerable scenes had each been constructed with the greatest care: the furniture was so intricately wrought that it would not have been out of place in a dolls’ house at Buckingham Palace. The tiny frying pan and other kitchen utensils were forged out of metal, and included every detail. They must have been made under a microscope, Beatrice marvelled. But what drew her gasp were the figures themselves. The mothers, fathers and children enlivening every scene were not human. They were cats. Kittens mostly, judging from their size. And they had been stuffed with so much care that the expressions of concentration, weariness, disapproval or joy they wore were almost human.

  Archie and Beatrice stood for a long time in silence, uncertain of what to do next. It was Beatrice who heard the front door open. The hallway light came on downstairs, and their hearts froze. They were trapped.

  Bumstocks’ heavy footfalls moved along the hallway, and ceased. The clink of glass on glass was heard, and the pouring of liquid. A kitchen chair creaked under a heavy weight. And an unearthly mumbling began.

  ‘Be still, my hands.’ It was Bumstocks, in a reverie.

  ‘It’s not right, God damn, it’s not right for you to arrive here in this bloody sack, dropped in the sink with such a thud. If only they had asked me, I would have done things different. Brought you here in a fine box. As fine as I could get. No help now, anywise.

  ‘I must look at you. Forgive me, to uncover you in such a state. I keep the light low.

  ‘Your eyes are not as kind as they were. Nor is your mouth. But the wee spots of flesh at the corner of your eyes—I know them. The sweetness of their memory pierces me to the heart.

  ‘You are heavy, and slippery. I must sing as I go. And drink. To you.’

  The clink of a glass was followed by eerie chant.

  There was three men come out o’ the west, their fortunes for to try, and these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die.

  They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, throwed clods upon his head, and these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead.

  They have let him lie for a very long time till the rain from heaven did fall. Then little Sir John sprang up his head, and he did amaze them all.

  They let him stand till the midsummer day, till he looked both pale and wan. Now they pour him out of an old brown jug, and they call him home-brewed ale.

  Yes, they call him home-brewed ale.

  ‘I must take a wire and empty you. Grey you flow into the sink.

  ‘And now I must put out your eyes.

  ‘Then I’ll put you to rest in your own brown jug. And tend you and clean and scrape you, till you’re whole again.

  ‘But how shall I put myself to rest?’

  Archie took Beatrice’s hand and they stole silently down the stairs. They could see the great hulk of a man hunched over in his chair, breathing heavily. A bottle of Scotch sat on the table beside him, and he held an empty tumbler in his hand. As they approached the open kitchen door, the figure stirred. A flash of reflected light revealed that Bumstocks’ eyes, hidden so deep in their sockets as to be all but invisible, were open—and fixed on them.

  At that moment, if she could have, Beatrice would have screamed. But she was paralysed with fear. Henry Bumstocks’ stare seemed to pierce her soul. His gaze turned to Archie, and he began clasping and unclasping his free fist, as if he was reaching for something to club the pair with.

  ‘Mr Meek, Miss Goodenough. What are you doing here?’

  Archie was now beyond fear. He knew only one thing: that he must not let Beatrice come to harm. Their very lives, he felt, depended on what he said next.

  ‘Ah, Bumstocks,’ he began as if he were expecting to meet the taxidermist. ‘We’ve come with a message from the director. There are some specimens requiring urgent taxidermic attention. As a result of the fire. He’d like you to be at work early, to attend to them.’

  ‘But why are you standing here, in the dark, in my hall?’

  ‘Well, we knocked, Henry, and thought we heard somebody upstairs call us. So we came in. But we couldn’t find a light switch. We were just admiring your wonderful taxidermy,’ Archie said.

  ‘My little kittens,’ Bumstocks said softly. ‘I get them from the pound. If nobody wants them they drown them, you know. So I take the poor sodden things in. If I could afford to feed them, I’d take them in live, I would.

  ‘Oh, it don’t matter anywise, Archie, why you’ve come. I never get visitors, so it’s good to see you.’ Henry Bumstocks’ face was transformed by the kindest of smiles. ‘Can I offer you a cup of tea?’

  ‘It’s a lonely life the taxidermist leads,’ he said as they sat at the table. ‘Bit like being a funeral director. I was never much to look at anyway, but whenever I told a girl what I did for a living she’d run a mile. And the formaldehyde’s not been kind to my hands, or my head. S’pose that’s why I never married. Anywise, the kittens is my family now.’

  ‘Henry, can I ask you something?’ If Archie did not ask now, he knew he never would. ‘There have been some strange goings on at the museum, and I’m determined to get to the bottom of them. When I returned from the islands I discovered that the Great Venus Island Fetish had been installed in the boardroom.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been doing my best to look after it. The skulls started to sprout mould and I’ve had to bleach them to get rid of it. I’m afraid it’s damaged some.’

  ‘How many, Henry?’

  ‘Four, so far. You
can pick them because they’ve lightened off a bit, with the bleach.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Archie, ‘they’ve turned from dark brown to orange. And bits have started to drop off—must be the corrosion caused by the bleach.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Archie. But orders is orders.’

  Archie slumped into his chair. His whole world was suddenly turned upside down, and he felt like a fool. Yet still it didn’t make sense. ‘What happened to Polkinghorne?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, it was so terrible, Archie. Soon after you left, a new cadet arrived at the museum. His name was Peter White. White by name, and pale and delicate by nature. He was about sixteen, and fascinated with mummies and suchlike. Anywise, Polkinghorne took him under his wing, and they became very close. I saw them once, in the Egyptology collection. You know what I mean. Anyway, one day Peter didn’t show up to work. Instead his dad came in, and he took Polkinghorne outside and flogged the poor bugger half to death in the park across the road. It was dark. Winter. They had words too: I know because I was walking home when they parted.

  ‘Polkinghorne said he didn’t want a doctor. Just to get home. But he never got off that ferry.’

  ‘Do you think he committed suicide, Henry?’ asked Beatrice.

  ‘Maybe. But I wasn’t going to besmirch his name. Said nothing to nobody, ’cept Giles. Only told him I didn’t see Polkinghorne get off the ferry. But I reckon he leapt off the stern with weights in his pockets.’

  ‘One more thing, Henry,’ said Archie carefully. ‘We know that Sopwith’s skull was in the taxidermy workshop.’

  ‘Aye. What of it? What were you doing snooping around my work area?’ Bumstocks said sharply.

  ‘That’s a long story, Henry. But why was Sopwith’s cranium in your workshop?’