The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish (4 page)

She led Archie through the boardroom. The space was spectacularly large, almost ballroom-sized.
The director's desk sat on a raised platform at one end. On the lower level stretched
an oval cedar table surrounded by thirteen chairs. One—the chairman's carver—was
ornate and twice as tall as the rest. Moving briskly forward, Miss Stritchley failed
to notice that Archie had stopped mid-stride, his mouth agape. He was staring at
something on the wall.

‘The Great Venus Island Fetish,' he whispered.

Painted in white, red and black ochre, the heart-shaped face was carved with crazed,
spiky lines that told of its maker's dangerous insanity. The nose, with its wide-open
nostrils, sat above a great slash of a mouth filled with jagged, blackened, pigs'
teeth. But these were not what one first noticed. It was the eyes. Bloodshot. Manic.
Hypnotic. They had been fashioned from pearl-shells smeared with red ochre, the irises
blackened spirals made from cone shells. They pulled at Archie's soul as powerfully
as a vortex.

Among the thirty-two human skulls decorating its margin were the last mortal remains
of the passengers and crew of HMS
Venus
, which had run aground on the uncharted islands
during the great cyclone of 1892, and, incidentally, given them their European name.
The object had caused quite a stir when it arrived in Sydney. Legend has it that
the Anglican bishop thundered from the pulpit that it should be burned, and the skulls
sewn onto it given a Christian burial. It was only the popular notion that the heads
belonged to heathen Chinese, bound for the Queensland goldfields, that had allowed
it to go to the museum, skulls attached.

Archie was unaware that, all along, the director had been watching him. Vere Griffon
had shed his jacket, removed his bow tie, and undone the top two buttons of his shirt.
But the spats remained in place, as did his starched collar. The slightly dishabille
look, he felt, suited his Grecian physique. This mattered to him, even when alone.
He could certainly afford the look in the presence of an inferior. On the desk before
him were a dozen perfect red roses in a vase. As he watched Archie,
he recalled the
worst day of his life—the fundraising dinner of six months earlier.

Griffon never thought he'd need to beg for money. When he arrived in Sydney in '23
he'd been hailed as ‘the wizard of Cambridge', and there'd been no end to government
largesse. But all that finished with the stock-market crash. After that, his only
hope of keeping the museum afloat lay in courting wealthy patrons. The trouble was,
every cultural institution in the city was chasing the same small clique of philanthropists.

Chumley Abotomy, a new board member, had offered to host a dinner. In his late thirties,
ruddy-nosed, paunchy and hairy-eared, Abotomy was an archetypical colonial country
squire. He was rough, coarse, loud, and very nouveau riche. His small eyes had a
sparkling elusiveness that made them transfixing. Vere Griffon had been seated next
to Abotomy's fiancée, the divine Portia Clark. He studied her image, reflected upside
down in his silver soup spoon, before deciding that her wistful expression bore a
striking resemblance to that of Botticelli's Venus on the half-shell.

Abotomy sat at the head of a splendid table, lit with candles and laid with entreés
of jellied trout and devilled eggs. Griffon wondered why Abotomy had seated Lord
Bunkdom rather than him on his right. Most of Sydney had suspicions about Bunkdom's
title. But there he was, goggle eyes swivelling madly as Abotomy held forth about
his country estate.

As Griffon listened to Abotomy big-noting himself, his
bonhomie began to evaporate.
By the time dessert was served, it was clear Abotomy would
not
invite him to speak
on the urgent need for donations to complete the new hall of evolution. Nor would
he turn the conversation towards the institution's many other pressing financial
requirements. With his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt, Griffon scanned the table.
Elizabeth Doughty, whom he had invited in the hope she might inspire Sir Hercules
Robinson to donate some valuable gemstones, had come in a hunting hat and tweed trousers
that were a positive parody of femininity. She
might
be coaxing a donation, but judging
from her claxon-like tone and Sir Hercules' twitching moustache, she was more likely
elaborating on the deficiencies of the museum's administration. As a board member,
Hercules could do damage with such information.

That left only Dithers, his curator of mammals. Patrician, with impeccable manners,
a Cambridge man. He never failed to charm with his tales of derring-do among the
African big game. He was seated next to the evening's principal target, Mrs Gladys
Gordon-Smythe. Wrapped in a fox-fur stole, the widow was on the wrong side of sixty.
Griffon watched as Dithers fixed her with his soulful black eyes, his kind mouth
forming the most sympathetic of shapes. The widow's titterings and fast-emptying
champagne flute indicated that she was enjoying the attention. Then something broke
the spell.

She raised her lorgnette and pointed her powdered face directly at Griffon. ‘Director.
Director! Have you any news of that young curator of yours, Mr Archibald Meek? I
am most anxious to learn what he has done in the Venus Isles. Perhaps his collections
of artefacts will complement those made by my
dear, late husband. He was martyred
bringing the gospel to the savages, you know.

‘Perhaps,' she added coyly, ‘if Mr Meek's collections are good enough, one might
be motivated to fund a gallery of Pacific cultures to exhibit them.'

Griffon sat in silence, all eyes upon him. Blast Meek! The man had simply vanished.
A year and a half overdue, and his director had no idea where he was. Off digging
gold in New Guinea, no doubt, or in the thrall of some dusky maiden. Would the fellow
never return and live up to his responsibilities?

‘Nothing but early reports, Mrs Gordon-Smythe,' he replied at last. ‘But they are
quite encouraging. As you know, the Venus Isles are pretty much the most remote and
uncivilised spot in the entire Pacific. Communications are slow. But I'm sure Meek
will return soon, and in triumph.'

At that moment, Griffon would have loved to kill Archibald Meek. Along with the rest
of his useless curators. Then he could start over, and build the finest museum in
the Empire. One worthy to have him at its head.

As he watched Meek, Griffon let none of this show. He lay inclined, plank-like on
his chair, his hands folded behind his head. Until he began stroking his hair, he'd
been as still as a mannequin. ‘Ah, the prodigal curator returns!' he murmured. ‘Alas,
after the stock-market crash, the museum budget no longer extends to a fatted calf.
Welcome back, Meek.'

Archie wrenched his gaze from the mask. He had heard about the crash aboard the
Mokambo
,
but none of it had made any sense. Not that he'd ever taken an interest in such matters
anyway. But, at that moment, not even news that the plague had returned to the city
would have made an impression. Only one thing mattered to him: the Great Venus Island
Fetish. It unnerved him to see it removed from the locked and darkened storage chamber
where he had left it on the eve of his departure. It seemed to him that the evil
thing had been set free.

‘The fetish,' he stammered. ‘It really should be in the collection area, where it
will be safe. There's a great danger. I mean of borer and dermestid beetle, not to
mention fading.'

‘Meek, have you forgotten your place? You come here two years late, dressed like
an imbecile, and all you can talk about is the decor?' barked Griffon.

‘No, sir. Sorry, sir,' replied Archie, automatically losing five carefree years.

‘The board and I felt sure we'd never see you again. Thought you'd gone native. You
were given three years' study leave in the Venus Islands, not a day longer. Your
reports were laconic, to say the least, and we've had none at all for the last two
years. You're damn lucky, Meek, that you've got a position to return to. Good Lord!
What's that?'

Archie's suit revealed far too much shin and wrist, and the director's gaze was fixed
on his employee's left forearm.

Archie squirmed. How could he explain his initiation and tattooing, and the absolute
necessity of undergoing it? ‘Er, a tattoo, sir,' he mumbled, pulling his sleeve over
the image of a frigate bird.

‘A tattoo!' thundered the director. ‘A tattoo? God damn it, man. Have you gone completely
mad? A curator, in my museum, gone bloody native! My God, how will you explain that
to our donors? What will Mrs Gordon-Smythe make of that? She's been asking after
you, you know, and is keen to fund a new Pacific gallery. But, my word, man, if she
sees that damn thing on your arm she'll take her money straight to the art gallery!'

In all his years Archie had never heard Vere Griffon raise his voice. The director
was a martinet, no doubt, but his style ran more to intimidation with tones indicating
the slenderest restraint upon a cauldron of emotion. The young man felt crushed.
Maybe he had gone native. But he had done great things as well. His only hope of
mollifying his director lay in enumerating them.

‘I've made a wonderful collection, sir, and I've already drafted a very comprehensive
report.'

‘A collection?' said Vere Griffon, his voice betraying a flicker of interest.

‘A collection, sir. Of everything found on the Venus Isles, from the plants, worms,
fish and insects to the artefacts made by the islanders. I've even got a set of spirit
masks and a headhunting canoe, though the Venus Islanders were most reluctant to
part with them.'

‘Perhaps the prodigal has redeemed himself,' Vere Griffon murmured under his breath.
His expression softened to the extent that Archie felt he could return to the most
urgent issue.

‘Sir, the Venus Island Fetish is a most delicate artefact.' Moving closer, he could
see now that several of the skulls were tinted orange rather than their original
smoked-brown colour.
They were, he decided, beginning to lose their patina, perhaps
because of exposure to sunlight. Then he spied a small object lying on the floor
beneath the mask. He bent down and picked it up. It was a human incisor. Archie slotted
it carefully into an empty socket on one of the discoloured skulls. The fit was perfect.

The skull that had lost the incisor had terrible buck teeth—the worst he'd seen since
Cecil Polkinghorne had waved him off at the docks five years earlier. Despite the
fit, Archie couldn't reattach the tooth in its socket. Without adhesive it would
simply fall out again. So he placed it in his pocket, intent on returning with some
glue.

‘Would you allow me to care for the fetish while it's here, sir? Otherwise its pigments
will fade, and bits will drop off—'

‘Balderdash!' Vere Griffon shot back. ‘Bumstocks inspects it weekly. He may be only
a taxidermist, but he's more than capable of basic maintentance.' The director composed
himself and continued. ‘We must do all we can to engage the board of directors, and
surrounding them with treasures from the collection keeps their minds on what's at
stake. Their personal donations are all that's keeping us above water at present.'

Vere Griffon sat up and cleared his throat. ‘My dear Archie, you've been away a long
time. And you do seem quite lost. But you need to get a grip, man.' Griffon smiled.
‘I've put together the best collection of curators in the colonies in this institution,
and it's vital that we all pull together. We cannot have dissent, or disloyalty.
Not now. Go to your office and take up your work. I'm afraid that we've had to move
you into a rather smaller one. But I think it will do for the time being.'

Dryandra Stritchley ushered Archie out the door.