Farewell to the Dancing Man Ch. 30-32

"Speak for yourself," Peter hugged Cynthia, "We will never go back to that."

Cynthia kissed him. "I hope not."

Rebecca looked at her parents with a satisfied expression. "Please don't."

Cynthia and Peter hugged her to them.

Fliss grabbed Jason by the hand. "I get the impression that we are interlopers in this sickening display of domesticity. Let's leave them alone, would you like to come with me to my place for a drink, or something?"

*

Author's note on Farewell to the Dancing Man.

The inspiration for this story came as a result of two observations I made many years ago when I was a plumber in Sydney. The first was when I was pumping out a septic tank after connecting a house to the sewer. There were bones (not human) in the bottom of the tank that showed no bacteriological degradation from being there. I figured, as one would, that the perfect place to dispose of a body would be to put it in a septic tank, there would be no smell associated with a decomposing corpse and after a short period of time the bacteria would have totally degraded the soft tissue. Placing the body in the tank would not be a major undertaking for a determined murderer.

The second came from my observation of the behaviour of funnel web spiders, the most lethal of the world's spiders. I used to catch them for the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory which was seeking to produce an antivenin (Yes I was the plumber that caught 27 in a short trench). When this story was set little was known about the Sydney funnel web spider (Atrax Robusta) and it had long been assumed that the bite of both male and female were equally lethal. I had noticed that the male seemed more aggressive than the female and that, when disturbed (one got really pissed when I shook the jar that he was in) seemed to produce much more venom.

It was because of these observations that in this story William Pearson, fortuitously for him, chose to use a male spider on his victim and Cynthia Swain to copy her father's choice.

Since that time more is known of the Sydney funnel web and its habits. Its habitat is a small area of the East Coast of Australia stretching from Nowra in the south to Newcastle in the north and Lithgow in the west. Other funnel web species are common around the east coast but are not lethal to humans.

They tend to live in broken ground (rockeries) or under logs and are particularly active when their habitat is disturbed. The female will spend most of her time down a web lined burrow waiting for some unfortunate beast to touch one of her trip lines. The male tends to wander freely, especially during the mating season. If disturbed it is extremely aggressive and assumes its strike pose with needle sharp (up to 8mm long) fangs pointing forward. These fangs will easily penetrate a finger nail and will inject on average 140mg dry weight of venom and it is this venom (Atraxatoxin) that is interesting. Atraxatoxin is a presynaptic neurotoxin and this is lethal to humans, other primates, new-born mice and nothing else. There is a protein in this toxin (MW4854) that is the active ingredient.

When bitten there is none of the stinging sensation associated with other insect stings and antihistamines have no effect on reducing the pain caused by the penetration of the skin by the fangs. Unless appropriate first aid is quickly administered, compression bandage to the whole of the bitten limb combined with immobilisation, the funnel web antivenin, and large doses of sedative (usually benzodiazepine) and an anticoagulant, death is almost certain and very painful. The venom attacks the synapses and can cause loss of autonomic function. Another of the symptoms is extreme hypertension that can lead to severe and lethal brain swelling.

With the timely administration of first aid followed by treatment and hospitalisation recovery time can vary depending on speed of administration and location of the bite, but can be up to a month. If first aid is not commenced within 15 minutes the prognosis is significantly reduced.

Traditional methods of finding an antivenin didn't work because the Atraxatoxin doesn't affect sheep or horses that were commonly used to develop antibodies, and it wasn't until the individual components of the venom were separated in a centrifuge (after this story was set) that an antivenin became possible. Since then there have been no fatalities from funnel web bites.

CM