The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish by Tim Flannery, Dido Butterworth Page A

had a report
on giant rats to complete.
    Mordant seemed to find the diminished company not to his liking. As the assistant
taxidermist stood up he got out his wallet with a flourish, and winked at Nellie.
‘There’s a few treasures in here, love. How would you like to be paid?’ There had
been no tab. Nellie looked confused as she peered into the open wallet. Mordant snapped
the wallet shut and turned to Archie. ‘Welcome back to the happy ship HMAS Museum ,
Archie. Consider this my homecoming present.’
    Archie, concluding that there was something seriously awry with Mordant, was about
to rise too when Sopwith laid a hand on his arm. ‘How about staying for another’un,
Archie? I’ve a few things I need to tell ye.’
    Archie got in first. ‘How could Cecil Polkinghorne have disappeared? It beggars belief,
Eric! I still remember the first day I came to work. There was the director in the
centre of the long table, sipping his tea, with the curators lined up on either side.
Polkinghorne was immediately on his right. It looked like Michelangelo’s Last Supper .’
    ‘Aye, those were the days!’ enthused Eric. ‘The institution’d be a far better place
if the director had continued taking tea with his staff, rather than locking himself
up in that great office of his.’
    Mind you, it hadn’t all been fun working with Polkinghorne, Archie recalled. When
they were alone in the collection, the older man would sometimes become rather too
excited, especially when he was explaining the process of mummification and how the
bowels were removed with a hook via the anus. The salivary spraying was one thing,
but the way Polkinghorne would stand rather too close, his hands groping about as
if trying to insert a hook into his young cadet, was quite another. Nothing untoward
ever happened, but in those first few years Archie sometimes felt that it might.
    ‘Could it have been anything else?’ Archie asked Sopwith. ‘Could he have…offended
somebody?’
    ‘Laddie, take my word for it! There’s summat suspicious—mighty suspicious—about Polkinghorne’s
vanishing. I saw the man on that very day. He was not happy; had a falling out with
the director, they say.’
    ‘But not bad enough to top himself, surely?’
    ‘This place is mighty changed, Archie. And so is our director. He’s become angry
and domineering. And he’s rifling the collections for their treasures. After Polkinghorne
went, he shipped off the two best mummies to America, to be sold. I tell ye Archie,
there’s summat mighty rum goin’ on.’
    Beer disappeared down Sopwith’s throat like water in desert sands, especially as
the cry ‘last round’ rang out. To his shock, Archie realised that it was nearly 6
p.m.—way after closing time at the museum. He was more than a little unsteady on
his legs as he meandered back to his office. It had been a momentous first day back.
    The sun had sunk low by the time Archie left the museum, but it was still stinking
hot and the road reeked of molten asphalt. Dithers’ rooms were only a few hundred
yards away, behind the museum, and Archie decided to go on foot. His trunk had been
delivered to the museum, and he struggled to get it across Yurong Street and into
the cash and carry, where he bought some biscuits as a gift for Dithers. He was covered
in sweat as he dragged it along the street and up the narrow stairs of the boarding
house to Dithers’ room.
    The white walls and ceiling were stained yellowish-brown with tobacco smoke. A narrow
barred window, which was nailed shut, ornamented the far wall. ‘Put your trunk down
there, Archie,’ Dithers said, pointing to a tiny clear space at the foot of one of
two narrow beds that took up much of the room. He was absent-mindedly puffing on
a durry while reading a scientific publication on the diversity of Australian bats,
and seemed not to notice the heat. Archie could reach the space indicated only by
stepping around and over piles of dirty clothes and books.