At the pier they got out, but so empty was the train that they were forced to linger on the platform until Karswell should have passed ahead of them with his porter on the way to the boat, and only then was it safe for them to exchange a pressure of the hand and a word of concentrated congratulation. The effect upon Dunning was to make him almost faint. Harrington made him lean up against the wall, while he himself went forward a few yards within sight of the gangway to the boat, at which Karswell had now arrived. The man at the head of it examined his ticket, and, laden with coats, he passed down into the boat. Suddenly the official called after him, ‘You, sir, beg pardon, did the other gentleman show his ticket?’ ‘What the devil do you mean by the other gentleman?’ Karswell’s snarling voice called back from the deck. The man bent over and looked at him. ‘The devil? Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,’ Harrington heard him say to himself, and then aloud, ‘My mistake, sir; must have been your rugs! Ask your pardon.’ And then, to a subordinate near him, “Ad he got a dog with him or what? Funny thing: I could ‘a’ swore ‘e wasn’t alone. Well, whatever it was, they’ll ‘ave to see to it aboard. She’s off now. Another week and we shall be gettin’ the ‘oliday customers.’ In five minutes more there was nothing but the lessening lights of the boat, the long line of the Dover lamps, the night breeze, and the moon.
Long and long the two sat in their room at the ‘Lord Warden.’ In spite of the removal of their greatest anxiety, they were oppressed with a doubt, not of the lightest. Had they been justified in sending a man to his death, as they believed
they had? Ought they not to warn him, at least? ‘No,’ said Harrington; ‘if he is the murderer I think him, we have done no more than is just. Still, if you think it better– but how and where can you warn him?’ ‘He was booked to Abbeville only,’ said Dunning. ‘I saw that. If I wired to the hotels there in Joanne’s Guide, “Examine your ticket-case, Dunning,” I should feel happier. This is the 21st: he will have a day. But I am afraid he has gone into the dark.’ So telegrams were left at the hotel office.
It is not clear whether these reached their destination, or whether, if they did, they were understood. All that is known is that, on the afternoon of the 23rd, an English traveller, examining the front of St Wuifram’s Church at Abbeville, then under extensive repair, was struck on the head and instantly killed by a stone falling from the scaffold erected round the north-western tower, there being, as was clearly proved, no workman on the scaffold at that moment: and the traveller’s papers identified him as Mr Karswell.
Only one detail shall be added. At Karswell’s sale a set of Bewick, sold with all faults, was acquired by Harrington. The page with the woodcut of the traveller and the demon was, as he had expected, mutilated. Also, after a judicious interval, Harrington repeated to Dunning something of what he had heard his brother say in his sleep: but it was not long before Dunning stopped him.
THE FLY
by George Langelaan
The Fly, which was produced by Twentieth Century Fox in 1958, has been described as the first horror movie to create an authentic science fiction monster. Certainly, it is another landmark film in the history of monster movies, and, although budgeted as a relatively minor production at $350,000, was so successful at the box office – making over three million dollars in the first two years of its release – that it has, to date, inspired two sequels and one complete re-make.
The story concerns a scientist, working on the transmission of atoms from one place to another, who decides to pursue final confirmation of his theory by trying the experiment on himself. However, he is unaware that a small fly has got into his machine with him – and the results are a hideous travesty of nature: a man with the head and foreleg of a fly, and a fly with the corresponding human features! The impact of the movie, starring Al Hedison as the experimenter, Patricia Owens as his wife and Vincent Price as another scientist, was heightened by Cinemascope and colour. The screenplay also marked the writing debut of a man destined to become a leading director and then later a best-selling international novelist: James Clavell.
The basis of The Fly was a short story written by George Langelaan (1910–1979), a French-born English writer who had led an adventurous life of travel up to the time of World War II, at which point he was engaged on various espionage missions in occupied Europe. For this work he underwent facial plastic surgery; and it was this experience that gave him the germ of the idea for his short story, which first appeared in Argosy magazine in 1957.
Predictably, the success of The Fly as a movie put Twentieth Century Fox in something of a quandary: how could they make a sequel to a picture at the end of which both the fly and the unfortunate scientist with the insect’s head had been destroyed? Their answer: Vincent Price, as the scientist who had watched his predecessor’s experiments, would carry them on himself in The Return Of The Fly. Although this 1959 sequel, scripted and directed by Edward L Bernds, was not as outstandingly successful as the first picture, Twentieth Century Fox nevertheless embarked on a third movie, The Curse Of The Fly, which Harry Spalding scripted and Don Sharp directed in 1965. Sadly, Brian Donlevy came across as a rather less convincing meddler with the powers of nature, and this effectively brought the series to an end.
The fame of the original movie remained undiminished, however, and in 1986 the same company decided to re-make it, taking advantage of all the advances in studio technology to create even more spectacular special effects. In fact, the picture far outshone its predecessor in terms of pure horror, and the gradual transformation of Jeff Goldblum, the scientist, from man into fly tested even the strongest nerves. Here, though, for all those who have never read it, is the excellent story which gave birth to the saga of The Fly.
* * *
Telephones and telephone bells have always made me uneasy. Years ago, when they were mostly wall fixtures, I disliked them, but nowadays, when they slither round into every nook and corner, they are a downright intrusion.
At the office, the sudden ringing of the telephone annoys me. It means that, no matter what I am doing, in spite of the switchboard operator, in spite of my secretary, in spite of doors and walls, some unknown person is coming into the room to talk right into my very ear, confidentially – and that whether I like it or not. At home, the feeling is still more disagreeable, but the worst is when the telephone rings in the dead of night.
The truth is that I am struggling against panic, fighting down a feeling that a stranger has broken into the house, and is in my bedroom. By the time I manage to grab the receiver and say, ‘Ici Monsieur Delambre. Je vous écoute,’ I am outwardly calm, but I only get back to a more normal state when I recognise the voice at the other end and when I know what is wanted of me.
This effort at dominating a purely animal reaction and fear has become so effective that when my sister-in-law telephoned me at two in the morning, asking me to come to her, but first to warn the police that she had just killed my brother, I asked her quietly how and why she had killed André.
‘But, Francois. . . I can’t explain on the telephone. Please call the police and come quickly.’
‘I think I had better see you first, Hélène.’
‘No, call the police first; otherwise they will start asking you awkward questions. They’ll have enough trouble as it is to believe that I did it alone. And you ought to tell them that André
– André’s body – is down at the factory. They may want to go there first.’
‘Did you say that André is at the factory?’
‘Yes . . . under the steam-hammer.’
‘Under what?’
‘Don’t ask so many questions. Come quickly, François. Please understand that I am afraid. . . that my nerves won’t stand it much longer.’
It was only after hanging up that I realised I also was afraid. This was the very thing I had somehow always feared whenever the telephone rang, and now at last it had happened. I had listened to and answered the call much as I would have any other business call.
It was only now, after hanging up, that I was beginning to realise the full impact of all I had heard.
Throwing away the cigarette I must have lit mechanically while talking to Hélêne, and perspiring freely, I fumbled with trembling fingers to dial the number of the local Commissariat of police.
Have you ever tried to explain to a sleepy police officer that your sister-in-law has telephoned to say that she has killed your brother?
I repeated my explanation, but he would not let me.
‘Oui, monsieur, oui, I hear. . . but who are you? What is your name? Where do you live? I said, where do you live?’
It was then that Commissaire Charas took over the line. He at least seemed to understand everything. Would I wait for him? Yes, he would pick me up and take me to my brother’s house. When? In five or ten minutes.
I had just managed to pull on my trousers, wriggle into a sweater, and grab a hat and coat, when a black police-car, headlights blazing, pulled up at the door.
‘You have a night-watchman at your factory, Monsieur Delambre? Has he phoned you?’ asked Commissaire Charas, letting in the clutch, as I sat down beside him and slammed the door of the car.
‘Yes . . . No . . . That’s odd! Though of course my brother could have entered the factory through his laboratory where he often works late at night... all night sometimes.’
‘Is Professor Delambre’s work connected with your business?’
‘No, my brother is, or was, doing research work for the Ministère de l’Air. As he wanted to be away from Paris and yet within reach of skilled workmen who could fix up or make gadgets big and small for his experiments, I offered him one of the old workshops of the factory, and he came to live in the first house built by our grandfather on the top of the hill at the back of the factory.’
‘Yes, I see. Did he talk about his work? What kind of research was it?’
‘He rarely talked of it. I suppose the Air Ministry could tell you. I only know that he was about to carry out a number of experiments he had been preparing for some months, something to do with the disintegration of matter, he told me.’
Barely slowing down, the Commissaire swung the car off the road, slid it through the open factory gate, and pulled up sharp by an agent who was apparently expecting him.
I did not need to hear the policeman’s confirmation. I knew now that my brother was dead, it seemed that I had been told years ago. Shaking like a leaf, I scrambled out after the Commissaire.
Another policeman stepped out of a doorway and led us towards one of the shops where all the lights had been turned on. More policemen were standing by the hammer, watching two men setting up a camera. It was tilted downwards, and I made an effort to look.
It was far less horrid than I had expected.
Though I had never seen my brother drunk, he looked just as if he was sleeping off a terrific binge, flat on his stomach across the narrow line on which the white-hot slabs of metal were rolled up to the hammer. I saw at a glance that his head and arm could only be a flattened mess, but that seemed quite impossible; it looked as if he had somehow pushed his head and arm right into the metallic mass of the hammer.
Having talked to his colleagues, the Commissaire turned towards me. ‘How can we raise the hammer, Monsieur Delambre?’
‘I’ll raise it for you.’
‘Would you like us to get one of your men over?’
‘No, I’ll be all right. The switchboard is here. It was originally a steam-hammer, but everything is worked electrically now. Look, Commissaire, the hammer has been set at fifty tons, and its impact at zero.’
‘At zero?’
‘Yes, level with the ground, if you prefer. It is also set for single strokes, which means that it has to be raised after each blow. I don’t know what Héléne, my sister-in-law, will have to say about all this, but one thing I am sure of: she certainly did not know how to set and operate the hammer.’
‘Perhaps it was set that way last night when work stopped?’
‘Certainly not. The drop is never left at zero, Monsieur le Commissaire.’
‘I see. Can it be raised gently?’
‘No. The speed of the upstroke cannot be regulated. But in any case it is not very fast when the hammer is set for single strokes.’
‘Right. Will you show me what to do? It won’t be very nice to watch, you know.’
‘No, no, Monsieur le Commissaire. I’ll be all right.’
‘All set?’ asked the Commissaire of the others. ‘All right then, Monsieur Delambre. Whenever you like.’
Watching my brother’s back, I slowly but firmly pushed the upstroke button.
The unusual silence of the factory was broken by the sigh of compressed air rushing into the cylinders, a sigh that always makes me think of a giant taking a deep breath before solemnly socking another giant. The steel mass of the hammer shuddered and then rose swiftly. I heard the sucking sound as it left the metal base, and thought I was going to panic when I saw André’s body heave forward as a sickly gush of blood poured all over the ghastly mess bared by the hammer.
‘No danger of it coming down again, Monsieur Delambre?’
‘No, none whatever,’ I mumbled as I threw the safety switch and, turning round, I was violently sick in front of a young green-faced policeman.
For weeks after, Commissaire Charas worked on the case, listening, questioning, making out reports, telegraphing and telephoning right and left. Later, we became quite friendly and he told me that he had for a long time considered me as suspect number one, but had finally given up that idea because not only was there no clue of any sort, but there was not even a motive.
Hélêne, my sister-in-law, was so calm throughout the whole business that the doctors finally confirmed what I had long considered the only possible solution: she was mad.
My brother’s wife never tried to defend herself in any way and even got quite annoyed when she realised that people thought her mad. This, of course, was considered proof that she was indeed insane. She owned up to the murder of her husband, and proved easily that she knew how to handle the hammer; but she would never say why, exactly how, or in what circumstances she had killed my brother.
The night-watchman had heard the hammer all right; he had even heard it twice, he claimed. This was very strange, and the stroke-counter, which was always set back to nought after a job, seemed to prove him right since it showed the figure two. Also, the foreman in charge of the hammer confirmed that after cleaning up the day before the murder, he had as usual turned the stroke-counter back to nought. In spite of this, Hélène maintained that she had used the hammer once only, and this seemed just another proof of her insanity.
A guard had been put on André’s laboratory, and the next day half a dozen officials came down from the Air Ministry. They went through all his papers and took away some of his instruments, but before leaving they told the Commissaire that the most interesting documents and instruments had been destroyed.
The Lyons police laboratory, one of the most famous in the world, reported that André’s head had been wrapped up in a piece of velvet when it was crushed by the hammer, the brown velvet cloth on which his meals were served in his laboratory when he could not leave his work.
After only a very few days in prison, Héléne had been transferred to a nearby asylum, one of the three in France where insane criminals are taken care of.
My nephew Henri, a boy of six, the very image of his father, was entrusted to me, and eventually all legal arrangements were made for me to become his guardian and tutor.
Héléne, one of the quietest patients in the asylum, was allowed visitors, and I went to see her on Sundays. Once or twice the Commissaire accompanied me and, later, I learnt that he had also visited Hélène alone. But we were never able to obtain any information from my sister-in-law who seemed to have become utterly indifferent.
She rarely answered my questions and hardly ever those of the Commissaire. She spent a lot of her time sewing, but her favourite pas
time seemed to be catching flies which she invariably released unharmed after examining them carefully.
Hélène had only one fit of raving – more like a nervous break-down than a fit, said the doctor who had administered morphia to quieten her. It occurred when she saw a nurse swatting flies.
The day after, Commissaire Charas came to see me.
‘I have a strange feeling that there lies the key to the whole business, Monsieur Delambre,’ he said.
‘I do not follow you, Commissaire.’
‘Do you believe she is really mad?’ he asked.
‘My dear Commissaire, I don’t see how there can be any doubt. Do you?’
‘I don’t know. In spite of all the doctors say, I have the impression that Madame Delambre has a very clear brain.
even when catching flies. Do you know if your brother ever experimented with them?’
‘I really don’t know, but I shouldn’t think so. Have you asked the Air Ministry people? They knew all about his work.’
‘Yes, and they laughed at me.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘You are very fortunate to understand anything, Monsieur Delambre. I do not, but I hope to some day.’
‘Tell me, Uncle, do flies live a long time?’
We were just finishing our lunch and, following an established tradition between us, I was pouring a drop of wine into Henri’s glass for him to dip a biscuit in.
Had Henri not been staring at his glass gradually being filled to the brim, something in my look might have frightened him.
Like most children of his age, Henri had a knack – almost a genius – for asking the very questions that no one could answer.
This was the first time he had ever mentioned flies, and I shuddered at the thought that Commissaire Charas might quite easily have been present. I could almost hear him saying, I don’t know, Henri. Why do you ask?
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