The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish
Read The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish Online
Authors: Dido Butterworth,Tim Flannery
Nothing is known of Miss Dido Butterworth, curator of worms (retired). Museum records
contain no employee of that name, though there is speculation that the name is a
pseudonym for Hans Schmetterling, curator of worms (1936â55).
Tim Flannery, discoverer of the manuscript of
The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish
,
is the author of several works of non-fiction and was curator of mammals at the Sydney
Museum 1984â99.
The Text Publishing Company
Swann House
22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
Copyright © Tim Flannery 2014
The moral right of Tim Flannery to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of
this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner
and the publisher of this book.
First published in Australia by The Text Publishing Company, 2014
Design by W. H. Chong
Typeset by J&M Typesetters
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Butterworth, Dido, author.
Title: The mystery of the Venus Island fetish / by Dido Butterworth; edited and introduced
by Tim Flannery.
ISBN: 9781922079305 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781921961625 (ebook)
Subjects: Adventure stories.
Other Authors/Contributors: Flannery, Tim F.
(Tim Fridtjof), 1956â , editor, writer
of introduction.
Dewey Number: A823.4
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government
through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
To my father
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
by Tim Flannery
The Butterworth manuscript was discovered in rather unusual circumstances. The initial
finding was made by Margot Fitzgerald, an education officer at the museum. Her classroom
is a last stop for stuffed animals no longer needed by the scientists. The exhibits
end their days there, petted by small hands until baldness, burst seams or an increasingly
whimsical appearance consign them to the incinerator.
On the day of the discovery Margot heard a group of boys sniggering as they clustered
around a taxidermised baboon which I had recently brought her.
âThat monkey's got a cigar sticking out of its bum,' she heard a boy say. Since I
had recently transferred the mount to her care, Margot contacted me. When I arrived
to investigate I found that the hide of the creature had shrunk, and it had become
almost bald. A scroll of paper, its tip yellowed with age, could be seen
protruding
from its posterior.
I could just about make out a few typed words on the outermost sheet, one of which
appeared to be the name of a retired staff member. Animal skins are normally stuffed
with kapok or cotton wool. Could this be a lost manuscript? My heart skipped a beat.
I took the decrepit mount to the taxidermy workshop, where George Bowridge extracted
one hundred and thirty-five sheets of government-issue, wartime foolscap paper, tightly
rolled and covered on both sides with single-spaced type. In Bowridge's opinion they
had been inserted at the time of stuffing, some fifty years ago.
He said that in his experience museum staff are notoriously averse to discarding
anything. Some curators he knew had accumulated great balls of string originally
used to tie packages sent to them, while others hoarded boxes full of worn-out shoes.
He'd been told that in times past requests had been made of taxidermists to secrete
objects, which might better have been destroyed, into animal mounts. Who, I wondered,
would have selected the anus of an ape to secrete a manuscript? And why?
Authorship of the pages is attributed to a Miss Dido Butterworth, curator of worms
(retired), but a search of the museum archives revealed no employee by that name.
I can only guess that Dido Butterworth is a pseudonym. But for whom? I suspect Hans
Schmetterling, curator of worms between 1936 and 1955. Strangely, a character by
that name features in the manuscript.
I could learn little of the real Hans Schmetterling. Evidence of his activities as
curator are sketchy to say the least, and the museum archivist noted that, despite
the excellent standards maintained by her department, several key papers relating to his employment could
not be found. A search of births, deaths and marriages also came up blank.
Others may disagree with my supposition that Schmetterling is the author. I'm convinced
by the numerous, detailed and often lyrical references to worms in the work that
whoever wrote it must have had an intimate knowledge of the annelida.
I have no idea whether
The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish
presents fact or fiction,
but it is a gripping tale and something of a window onto a lost world. In that spirit
I offer it to the reader.
My duties as editor have been light. Some of the dates
and events referred to are clearly erroneous, but I felt it best to leave things
largely as they are, for fear of sowing further confusion. The only substantial alteration
I've made is to delete the numerous (and often tediously lengthy) descriptions of
worms.
Melbourne, 2014
Archibald Meek watched from the canoe as the muscular form of his adopted brother
Cletus dived through the water, coming to rest atop a submerged coral bommie. Cletus stilled momentarily,
then thrust his arm into a hidden cavity. A black cloud erupted, leaving only the
man's legs visible.
Agame
. The giant Pacific octopus. Archie's eyes followed Cletus
as he swam to the surface, the beast's tentacles waving wildly.
Cletus bit into the animal's head as he broke the surface, then flipped the lifeless
mass into the canoe and catapulted himself aboard. Then he froze. For a moment Archie
thought he'd glimpsed the great hammerhead shark that had been hunting the lagoon
of late. It was longer than Cletus' canoe and it moved hypnotically, as if to the
throb of an invisible kundu drumâ
seeing all, sensing all. But it was not that. Cletus
pointed with his lips. On the western horizon was the faintest of black streaks.