The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories

THE MAN WHO HATED FLIES By Charles J. Benfleet

I first knew Hugo Latymer when he was a newly-appointed assistant housemaster and I, a mere ten years his junior, was in my final year at school. He took the Upper Sixth for Chemistry, but the main appeal of his classes was the way he could be side-tracked into talking about virtually anything else under the sun. Most of all I enjoyed the lengthy discussions on quasi-scientific subjects — telepathy, telekinesis, spiritualism and the like.

After I left we still used to see quite a lot of each other as I had taken a position with a firm in Horsham and so within easy reach of Cranleigh. Before long he ceased looking on me as Benfleet, C. J., but rather as Charles and we established a fairly regular routine whereby I dined with him once a year and returned his hospitality at similar intervals.

Hugo was in no sense a crank nor, indeed, am I (or so I firmly believe) but it seems to me wrong to accept modern science as the be-all and end-all of our understanding of the Universe. Many of the ideas that were scorned in their day have now become accepted and it is not so very long ago that men were put to death for believing that the Earth revolved around the Sun. No, we both believed that Man has only just begun to understand the great, universal Truth as a small child might take its first, tottering steps.

As the years went by Hugo became Housemaster and got married. I, too, married and with our greater responsibilities our meetings became less frequent. Dinners were supplanted by letters and occasional phone calls. Hugo's success as Housemaster earned him the offer of a Headmastership in India which, after some prompting by his wife, he accepted.

After the first year, when his new surroundings and experiences had prompted him to correspond quite frequently, our letters became fewer and farther between and, up to a short while ago, I had not heard from him for nearly a year.

Then, one Friday, an envelope with the familiar handwriting dropped through the letter-box. The letter bore, though, an English stamp and I tore it open eagerly.

'Dear Charles,' I read, 'You will be surprised to see that I am back once more in dear old England. I have managed to take the lease of a small cottage only a mile or two from the School. Though small it will be adequate for me now that my dear wife has passed away.

I feel only guilt that I agreed to go to India for it was there that Constance contracted the disease that was to prove fatal. The anguish her illness and my great sorrow since have conspired to prevent me from writing to you earlier.

There seemed no reason for me to stay on after Constance's death; indeed the bungalow held only sad memories for me, so I decided to return and live out my days close to the school where I found such happiness in the past.

'My sojourn abroad was, I now know, a mistake and has brought me not only great unhappiness but ill health too. Dirt and disease were only too prevalent out there. Financially I am fortunate to be reasonably independent so do not have to seek a position of any sort but, nevertheless, I would dearly love to restore my connections with the School be it only in some part-time or occasional capacity: which is all, I fear, that my present health would allow.

'But enough of my tribulations. Charles, I long to see you once again. Can you find the time to come to supper? Any day at all would be fine for me — just drop a line to let me know. The telephone is not yet installed so I cannot suggest ringing.

'As ever, Hugo.'

Anita and the children were enjoying a late holiday at her sister's home in Kingswear and would not be back until the Sunday evening so I thought I would take advantage of my temporary grass-widowerhood by calling to see Hugo on the morrow, Saturday. To avoid any possibility of a letter not being delivered in time, I sent a telegram advising him to expect me at about seven in the evening.

Saturday turned out to be dank and foggy. The local train that clanks wearily from Horsham to Cranleigh and on to Guildford was late but, even so, it was only 7.1' when I was knocking on the door of the gaunt and rather unlovely building that was Hugo's new home.

Seldom have I seen so great a change in any man. He seemed to have shrunk a full six inches and to have aged three times faster than the calendar would have conceded. His skin, too, had taken on an ashen, sickly hue.

I hid the shock I felt as best I could, allowed him to hang up my coat and followed him to a roaring fire which did much to dispel the chill from my bones and the oppressive gloom of the rather drably furnished room. The thin film of dust on the less accessible surfaces showed that much in the way of housekeeping was either beyond him or no longer of consequence.

The room served as both dining-room and drawing-room for a table was already laid out for supper. After a few minutes of rather stilted conversation, during which I extended my condolences for his wife's death, he excused himself and disappeared briefly, returning with two bowls of steaming hot soup.

On that chill night the soup was doubly welcome and served to melt the barrier that had formed between us after so long a separation. Over the cold meats that followed, and the apple pie, the clock turned back and we were once again the close friends that we had been in the years gone by.

A decanter of port had been standing on a side table. Hugo unstoppered it and passed it to me saying I have not lost my taste for this, you see, nor for a good cigar to accompany it!

'Now tell me, Charles, you must, from time to time, have pondered the mystery of death. We all of us do as the years weigh more heavily upon us. What do you think happens to us after death? To the essential "us", to the Ra of the ancient Egyptians, to the soul, if you prefer to call it that?'

'Well, that's quite a question to throw at me out of the blue.

I suppose that, basically, it seems both wrong and illogical that we should each exist for a mere drop in the ocean of time and then, suddenly, cease to exist, completely, utterly and for ever.

'I don't, personally, believe in reincarnation here on earth, but I feel that we must go on to another existence, somewhere. Not, of course, to a Heaven, all harps and clouds and long flowing robes, nor, indeed, to a Hell of smoke and eternal fires. If I have a conviction at all it is that the whole of life here, or on any other planet, is part of an experiment in some vast Laboratory and that we each possess a small spark, an infinitesimal subdivision, of the intellect of some Great Experimenter.

'After death we will coalesce and fuse together once more into that one Being. I believe, too, that that Being is what we speak of as God but that, beyond Him, there are other Gods ad infinitum. In other words the Experimenter I speak of is, in turn, part of some even greater, even more incomprehensible Experiment. There is no Supreme Being since we are speaking of Infinity and the Infinite has no beginning and no end, no top and no bottom.'

'You have put it well, Charles, and you seem to have given the matter much thought, as I was sure you had. I am not sure that I agree with your conception of the Infinite: any mathematician could define for you a series that is infinite yet has both definite beginning and end. But that is by the way and, in general terms, I go along with your ideas. You say that, eventually, we shall all be joined in some super-Intellect. This means that, four-dimensionally, we are one now but, living in a three-dimensional world, can only perceive ourselves as discrete entities. The prongs of a three-dimensional fork thrust into a two-dimensional surface show up only as separate points. Therefore, in a sense, I am you and every other living thing, or will be.

'Personally I believe in reincarnation or, if you prefer the technical term, metempsychosis. Such belief is as old as the hills and can be found in the religions of every race. Now how on earth did they all come to the same conclusion, long before they could communicate with each other?'

'You sound very positive, Hugo, but what proof have you?'

'Proof? Evidence abounds, but let me tell you of a case which occurred in India and of which I have some first-hand knowledge. Names and places do not matter but the whole affair is recorded and attested.'

'A young girl of eight or nine, who had always been quiet and somewhat morose, began increasingly to pester her mother to let her go "home" and to speak of her "real" family. The mother, uncomprehending, ascribed this to some complicated game of make-believe. Nevertheless the girl insisted that she was really a married woman with two children and lived many miles away. Her parents could only shake their heads and sigh.

'One day a man called at the house who had business with the father and was admitted by this girl who, at sight of him, claimed that he was her "real" cousin — though he, of course, laughed at such fancy. Finally, to quiet the girl once and for all, her parents agreed to make the journey to this distant village (which none of them had ever visited before) where the girl claimed her "home" to be. Accompanied by the doctor and two learned men who had become interested in the case, they set out.

'On reaching the village the girl became excited and lively, directing them all without hesitation to a certain house outside which three children were playing. She rushed to the two older children, kissing and hugging them and calling them by their names — which proved to be correct.

'Hearing of these strange visitors, the children's father soon arrived. The girl, to his astonishment, embraced him with tears in her eyes. This man told the amazed onlookers that his wife had died some eight or nine years previously when giving birth to their third child — a child that she, of course, never saw.'

'And what of the alleged cousin?'

'Oh yes, he really was the cousin of the dead wife.

'Of course the experts tried to avoid drawing the obvious conclusion, claiming that everything could be attributed to mind-reading or something like that, quite forgetting that mind-reading was something they would deny was possible at any other time.

'Anyway that is but one instance. He broke off abruptly and reached out for a fly-swatter that lay near his chair.

'If there's one thing I can't stand,' he said, lunging wildly after a lone fly that, surprisingly, had not settled in some warm, dark spot for the winter, 'it's flies. Carriers of disease and filth, they are an abomination on the face of the earth. There, got him!

'As I was saying, that was but one instance of the many, many true stories that have been checked and verified. Reincarnation is a fact. After death we live again — not necessarily as another human being or even in the same place — but death is not the end.'

We argued the subject a good deal after that and it was gone eleven before either of us realised that the hour was so late. Transport back to Horsham was now impossible so I accepted Hugo's kind offer of a bed for the night.

The next morning was bright and sunny, full of browns and golds and crisp fallen leaves underfoot. I decided to catch the first bus back to Horsham — there are no trains on a Sunday — in order to prepare the house for Anita's homecoming. I must confess that I had not done even the minimum of housekeeping.

As we parted Hugo said, 'Somehow, Charles, if the power is granted to me, I will prove my beliefs of which I spoke last night.' The words, and the look in his eyes as he spoke them, have haunted me ever since.

Two weeks later Hugo was dead. His solicitors told me the sad news the day before the funeral and also informed me that it was Hugo's wish that I should take as many of his books as might be of interest to me, the remainder of his estate going to a distant cousin who was his only surviving relative.

I naturally attended the funeral — as did quite a number of the school staff. Afterwards I was introduced to the cousin and we went to the cottage — he to view the property that was now his and I to select the books which would then be crated up and sent on to me.

Hugo's library was not large but comprised many rare and valuable books on what, I suppose, most people call the occult. Each was lovingly inscribed with his initials 'HL' and the date.

I reached up for one of the volumes and, as I did so, a huge spider was dislodged on to my shoulder. With revulsion I flicked it off on to the floor and trod on it.

Then I looked up and noticed the web it had been spinning. In the middle, like a delicate piece of embroidery, were the initials HL.

I looked again at the still twitching remains of the spider. As realisation came flooding in I was violently and horribly sick.