The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish (12 page)

‘Can't be sure without more tests, of course, but it looks very much like fugu poisoning.
The active substance is found in the liver of toadfish. Quite a common species in
the Pacific. Only the Japanese make a habit of eating it. Sometimes the sushi knife
touches the liver—that's all it takes to see a diner off. Ran across a few cases
in Tokyo during the international pathology conference in '26. The only question
is, was it accidental or deliberate? I'm sorry, Vere, but the police will have to
be called in.'

‘Don't suppose it could have been alcoholic poisoning?' asked Griffon. ‘He was our
crapulous curator, after all.'

‘Don't think so, old chap. By the look of his lungs the poor old fellow asphyxiated.
Toadfish toxin destroys the nerves. The victim remains conscious while the lungs
fill with fluid. Can't cough it up—or move, so they die slowly of suffocation. Terrible
way to go, really.'

‘I see. But can you give me a day or so to try to sort things out at our end? I'm
sure there's an innocent explanation for all of this. I'd appreciate the chance to
question certain staff. Besides, it wouldn't reflect well on the museum, having the
police about the place just now, with all the fundraising that's needed for the new
gallery. I think you can trust a Christ's College man to play with a straight bat,
Leo.'

‘Of course, Vere. Take your time, and I'll keep things on ice here, so to speak,'
Upton said, looking dubiously at Sopwith.

Two hours later Giles Mordant, Archie Meek and John Jeevons found themselves standing
to attention in front of the director's desk. Vere Griffon's eyes burned like coals.
Between stroking the back of his head and staring at the ceiling, he
quizzed them
about the hours leading up to Sopwith's death with all the zeal of a prosecutor who'd
scented blood.

‘Jeevons. You saw and heard nothing on the night in question, even though you had
the third watch? Is that right?'

‘That's right, sir. Quiet as a mouse, the place was.'

‘Are you saying you saw nothing of Sopwith that night? I hope for your sake that
you weren't sleeping on the job! It will go very badly for you if you're lying.'

Jeevons flushed crimson.

‘So how in the hell did Sopwith get into the museum without alerting the guard room?'
Griffon fulminated.

‘I think I can help there, sir,' volunteered Mordant. ‘I met Sopwith that night.'

‘Did you, Giles? Pray tell more.'

‘Drunk as a skunk he was, sir, if you'll forgive the expression. He'd come up William
Street, fair swaying, mumbling that he had to see Mr Meek's collection. Said he'd
heard about it from someone at the Maori's Head, and couldn't wait until morning.

‘I did tell Holdfast that if he saw Sopwith, to let him know about the seashell,'
Jeevons volunteered.

‘Anyway, sir,' Mordant continued, ‘I'd been working late on the model of Piltdown
man, that stone-age coot, for the new exhibition. So I walked back to the museum
with him and let him in through the taxidermist's entrance.'

‘The taxidermist's entrance?' repeated Griffon. ‘It's the only way into the building
without passing the guard room. You know, Mordant, that it should only be used for
moving large mounts. And removing your, er…effluvia.'

‘I know, sir. But I felt sorry for the old fella. He seemed so
keen to see the treasures,
as he called them.'

Archie was astonished. So Mordant had taken Sopwith back to the museum. He knew that
Giles was lying about wanting to help the old man. His hatred of the curator, who
frequently ordered him to clean rotting seashells, was plain for all to see. Archie
got the feeling that Giles was telling the director something he wanted to hear.
He thought back to that day at the Maori's Head when Mordant had so vehemently contradicted
Sopwith's assertion that Polkinghorne's disappearance was suspicious.

‘Meek,' barked Griffon. ‘You claim that you were sorting the pickled fish you brought
back, and that you went home when you finished at eight o'clock? Can you prove that?'

‘No, sir,' Archie replied dismally, recalling Dithers' absence.

‘The jar on which Sopwith had, let us say, quenched his thirst, contained a small
coral trout, did it not? An entirely innocuous fish, I believe. But Mordant tells
me that the jar was labelled “giant toadfish”. Do you think it possible, Meek, that
you might have switched the fatally poisonous toad fish with the coral trout? Moreover,
did you remove the toad fish's liver before pickling it? If not, its toxins could
have leached into the preserving fluid, where they would have remained until our
poor deceased colleague drank it.' Vere Griffon's voice had become almost triumphant.
‘It would have been a simple mistake, Meek, in your tired state, to swap the fish.'

Vere Griffon was now looking at Archie as if beseeching him to accept the explanation.
But Archie was as certain as he had ever been about anything that he'd not swapped
the fish, or the labels. He'd always been extraordinarily careful to keep label
and
specimen together. The collection would have been useless without such care. But
how could he convince anybody of that? Was it possible that the yangona had addled
his brain a little?

Wearily, he conceded. ‘It
could
have been the case, sir. But I have no memory of
it.'

Vere Griffon's face broke into a great smile—the first of that magnitude Archie had
seen on his director.

‘Needless to say that none of what we've discussed today shall leave this room. Thank
you, gentlemen. I'm sure the authorities will deal with this expeditiously.'

And indeed Griffon was right, at least in this respect. Within days the state pathologist
brought down his verdict: ‘Death by misadventure'. Despite the finding, and to Vere
Griffon's intense irritation, the worst of the city's newspapers portrayed Sopwith's
death as a sort of Agatha Christie mystery. For a few days gossip about ‘the murder
in the museum' flourished, but then the hysteria died down and the matter seemed
forgotten. Just one loose end needed tidying up. Vere Griffon made another trip to
the morgue, to see his old friend, Dr Leopold Upton.

‘My dear fellow, thank you for handling poor Sopwith's demise so…sensitively. It
was a great consolation to us all, at this delicate time, to know that the police
wouldn't be traipsing through the place, alarming board members and donors. Not to
mention staff. But I'm afraid that there's one other thing. Sopwith's solicitor came
to see me the other day about the old man's will. It seems that Eric wasn't at all
keen to leave the museum. In fact, it was his express wish that his skull be donated
to the institution he had served for so long. I often heard him joke that the place
was full of native skulls, but with “ne'er a
Caledonian to be seen”, as he put it.
I thought he was being morbidly jocular, but his will indicates that he meant it.
The old fellow has no close kin. I suppose he thought of the museum as his home.'

‘Hmm. An unusual request,' replied Upton thoughtfully. ‘Unusual, but not unheard
of. Descartes' skull, you know, resides in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, along with
those of a goodly number of curators who have served that fine institution. And,
of course, in this state of New South Wales, many people donate their bodies to the
university's anatomy department.'

‘So donating one's skull to a museum is possible,' ventured Griffon, ‘in a legal
sense, I mean.'

‘I think so. But there are practical things to consider. For example, the delicate
matter of defleshing.'

‘I've thought of that,' Griffon responded. ‘Our taxidermy department is more than
capable of doing the final cleaning, but it would be a great kindness if somebody
here could do the decapitation and skinning. Not quite right, I feel, to ask a colleague
to do that sort of thing.'

‘I'll get an assistant onto it, but it might take some time. As you can see, it's
pretty much full house here, and tonight looks to be inclement. I expect to take
receipt of at least a dozen corpses by morning. Pneumonia and starvation, you know.
And that means that this gurney will be needed.' Upton's hand came down on the stainless
steel trolley on which Sopwith lay. ‘Until we can get to the job, your curator may
have to go into the freezer.'

‘Probably best not to say anything of this in public, old chap, given the run we've
had in the papers. And it might unsettle
the staff if they hear about Sopwith's somewhat
unconventional return to the workplace.' Griffon gave a faint smile.

‘Of course, Vere. We must lunch at the club, say what? Next Tuesday is the seafood
spread. All the great and the good will be there. Care to come along?'

‘Very kind of you, Upton. See you at midday on Bligh Street.'

Griffon walked back to the museum. It was decent of Upton to have accepted his word
on Sopwith's will, he thought. Otherwise he'd have had to explain how it was that
he had entirely forgotten to bring the document with him.

Chapter 10

The letter was written in elegant Latin script and signed, with a flourish,
Professore
Virgil Giglione, Curatore Principio dell'
Archeologia, Musei Vaticani
.

‘The bloodsucker,' Vere Griffon fulminated. ‘This is extortionate! Three Tasmanian
tigers—and in good condition! Doesn't the man know they're next to impossible to
come by these days? We've had a standing order for a
Thylacinus
in with the Hobart
zoo for years, and it's still unfilled.
And
fifteen Aboriginal crania. In perfect
condition, he dares say! It would take the morgue years to supply such a number,
especially if he insists on full-bloods. And getting them out of the collection will
only cause trouble with the curators. My God! The list goes on and on. Look here:
a desert rat-kangaroo! Well, the only place
that's got one of those is London, and
they're not giving it up, I can assure our dear professor Lily!
And
a Sepik River
canoe and mask. And look at this: the man's got the gall to ask for the Bathurst
meteorite! Dr Doughty would have
my
stones if I tried to wrest that from her! And
all of this in exchange for a few mouldering, stuffed goats! My God, this is impossible.
Just impossible.'

‘Director,' Miss Stritchley interjected rather firmly. ‘Do you think that Mr Abotomy
might assist us in obtaining some of the exchange specimens? After all, this was
his idea, and he has a very large run up country. All kinds of rare creatures doubtless
abound on it.'

Dryandra! Where would he be without her? Vere Griffon promptly dictated a letter
to Abotomy, inviting him to the museum to discuss the Giglione goat acquisition.
‘Miss Stritchley,' he said, addressing her with unusual warmth, ‘I think we've done
enough today. How about a sweet sherry, and a moment with the Meissen? You deserve
it.'

Vere Griffon opened the door to a sort of alcove at the rear of his desk. Behind
it was a small room. Then another door belonging to a massive walk-in safe. It had
been installed at great expense in the early days, when enormous gold nuggets were
commonly exhibited at the museum. The director turned the lock, opened the heavy
metal door, and ushered Miss Stritchley in.

Along one wall of the safe—more properly a strong room—stood a wine rack filled with
bottles of Bordeaux and Burgundy, while in the middle stood a simple wooden table
with two chairs. Elegantly placed on the table were a decanter and two sherry
glasses.
Beyond that, and occupying the rest of the table's length, were a dozen exquisite
porcelain vases, teapots and figurines. They had been arranged with great thought.

Griffon filled the glasses. He and Dryandra savoured the excellent vintage.

‘This damn country might have the finest clay,' Griffon said, ‘but it will never
produce Meissen or anything near it. In Europe everybody knows their place. Even
the forest is cultivated to perfection. Just look at that,' he said gesturing at
a vase. ‘Bavaria in spring. How glorious! Australia is as ugly as sin by comparison.
Flat, dry and as pathetic as the naked blacks that once roamed it. And it's still
ruled by felonry rather than gentry. What a lot of galoots I've inherited here! I
swear, Dryandra, I will bring my collection of curators to culture, order and discipline,
even if it kills me.' The pair communed in companionable silence, admiring the diminutive
painted figurines in their wigs and tricorn hats, yearning for a Europe that existed
only in their imaginations.