that,” Willy said.
I rose to my feet and held the jar up to the light. “I don’t believe we’re permitted to own pets here. Did you ask our landlord before bringing these little guys home?”
“I’m writing a paper on Francesco Redi. I need them for an experiment.”
I returned the jar to him and felt the immediate need to wash my hands. “What kind of experiment?”
Willy rolled his eyes. Those of us of lesser intelligence tended to insult his self-assessed superior intellect with silly questions. “Redi is often considered the founder of modern parasitology. Prior to a paper he published in 1668, it was believed maggots generated spontaneously. He proved they actually came from the eggs of flies. For my paper, I plan to document the life cycle from fly to egg to maggot.”
“By capturing flies in a jar?”
Again, the rude rolling of the eyes. “A living experiment. I purchased a slab of cagmag beef from the butcher and set it out on the porch yesterday, but someone—or something—absconded with it.”
“I would bet on the something over the someone,” I retorted. “There are a number of dogs wandering these streets; any one of them would be grateful for such a hearty meal.”
“Mind you, this specimen was so scrappy the old Trinity cooks would not even feed it to the students. I had placed the beef in a wooden crate with lateral slats running half an inch apart. Nothing should have been able to reach inside. Nothing but flies. But this morning I found the beef gone yet the crate inviolate. I can only imagine how a dog got it out.”
“You still haven’t explained the need for a jar of flies,” I said.
Delany gave the jar a little shake. “The beef was expensive, and I don’t have the funds to replace it. Then I got to thinking: If enough flies died in a jar, would they lay eggs that would in turn become maggots in order to devour the bodies of the dead?”
I felt that slight pain behind my left temple that always seemed to surface when I got too wrapped up in a conversation with Willy. “So you wish to perpetuate insect cannibalism?”
Willy’s face lit up like that of a child with his nose pressed to the window of a candy shop. “Yes! Fascinating, don’t you think?”
“How long does it take for a fly to lay an egg which then can evolve into a maggot?”
Willy peered into the jar. One of the flies hung upside down from the lid, nervously jerking about in circles. “There may already be eggs. It takes about four days for an egg to hatch and go from the larva stage to an actual fly. I’m hoping to capture a complete cycle.”
I thought about this for a moment. “I see a flaw in your plan. A fly in the ointment, as it were.”
Willy frowned. “Flaw? Of course not; my plan is sound.”
“Have you stopped to wonder what is killing all the flies?” I tapped on the lid of the jar. “You failed to punch holes in the lid for air. How can they devour their brethren when they cannot even breathe?”
Willy tilted his head, contemplating this revelation. “No, there is enough air. They’re fine.” His eyes began to track another fly on the windowsill, and he crossed the room. I took advantage of this development as an opportunity to take my leave before I lost another ten minutes of my life to his nonsense. I found our other flatmate, Herbert Wilson, sitting on the front porch. Herbert was a rather large boy—at least two inches taller than me, and I’m a rather tall fellow in my own right.
Herbert grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to the side. “Is he still filling that jar?”
“Very keenly so, yes,” I told him.
Herbert let out a soft chuckle and pointed to a crate next to the stoop. “Last night, after he put a perfectly good slice of beef in that box, I took it out and hid it in the hanging corner cupboard. Tonight, I’m going to put it back in his box.”
“Good-bye, Herbert,” I