The 4th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories (1969)

THE DOLL

By Francis King

A 12-year old girl has disappeared, and the police have been tipped off that it may be worth their while to investigate a chap called Reynolds, who is known to visit the park where the children from the "special school" play.

Rather than speak to Reynolds, the Police (for some reason) chose to interview the man's employer.  Who is able to provide a watertight (and true) alibi.

How is it then, that Reynolds is later able to guide the officers to the site where the girl's body has been buried?

I had encountered Francis King's work in Pan20 with School Crossing, and had rather enjoyed the author's slightly off-kilter writing style.  

And this story certainly felt like the first really contemporary entry to the Fontana series.  Certainly, encountering the word "knickers" seemed a bit of a culture shock, after the largely dated language of the classic stories which mostly made up the three previous Fontana volumes.

So - what has gone on in this tale?  Well, my take is that Reynolds truly had nothing to do with the murder, but that subsequent to his fondness for repeatedly burying and then  exhuming a doll during his childhood, he somehow acquired a degree of clairvoyance which allowed him to "know" where the body of the girl had been buried.

But, I rather think the mischievous Mr. King left things deliberately vague.

THE IDIOTS

By Joseph Conrad

Returning from military service, Jean-Pierre discovers the family farm has been neglected, so sets about putting things to tights.  He begins by finding a wife, Susan, who soon produces two sons, twins. 

But both children prove to be "simple".  When a third son turns out the same, Jean-Pierre turns to religion.  And when a fourth child, a daughter, is similarly afflicted, he turns to alcohol.  Meanwhilst, the locals jeer, pity and wonder what is wrong with Susan.

During a drunken argument, Susan kills Jean-Pierre with a pair of scissors, before drowning herself in the sea.

This story was reputedly Conrad's first attempt at writing, and was completed whilst on honeymoon!  The narrative truly is as unremittingly bleak as my short precis suggests.

The idiots of the title are not Jean-Pierre and Susan's four unfortunate children (who are barely mentioned in the text) but, of course, the narrow-minded, bigoted, superstitious neighbours whose scorn and petty whisperings indirectly destroy the married couple.

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO SUCK

By R. Chetwynd-Hayes

The Shadow (some light-fearing vampiric entity) is, as the title asserts, looking for something to suck.  Specifically, a "flesh and blood being" with a powerful life force and "strong vibrations".

It finds what it is looking for in the shape of Jerry Wilton's young wife Jane.  Unfortunately for The Shadow, Jane has been born with some sort of psychic gift, which means she can sense the creature's presence.

Not to worry.  The Shadow knows eventually the flesh and blood beings switch off all the lights, and go to sleep.  

OK - let's address the elephant in the room first: that title.  It must represent either one of the most salacious double-entendre ever penned....or the tackiest piece of attention- seeking ever perpetrated by a well-known author.  Either way, I think it is just great.  

On The Shadow itself, we receive no back story, and it generally spends its time lurking in dark forgotten corners.  We are given a brief insight into its thought processes by the author and, whilst it appears no intellectual giant, it is smart enough to outwit Jerry, and steal his prize.

Not that I minded too much, for Jane was such a contrary character.  Initially fiercely standing her ground when attempting to convince Jerry both of her psychic powers, and the fact something has just sucked at her leg.  She later simperingly acquiesces to Jerry's bland reassurances with "You certainly explain things away very cleverly".

The final scene, where The Shadow having "sucked the goodness out" of Jane, has turned into some thirty foot long pink worm, was memorably gross.  Although I was disappointed at how easily Jerry was able to kill the thing, by the simple act of switching on his bedroom light.

For I rather hoped Jerry was going to discard his husk of a wife, and take up instead with the pink, "soft flesh, the satin skin" of that which The Shadow had become.

Now that really would have made an interesting tale. 

THE HEAD

By Edith Nesbit

Theatre agent, entrepreneur and all round shyster Morris Diehl has found himself stranded in rural Derbyshire, after his carriage lost a wheel.  Fed up waiting for his coachman to return with help, he strides off across the muddy fields in the direction of a distant light.

Which he finds belongs to a lonely farmhouse tenented by the reclusive and slightly eccentric April Vane.  Diehl eventually persuades Vane to allow him to stay for the night, but the host first insists he show his visitor "the reason why I never sleep in the house".

The author of this one, Edith Nesbit, enjoyed a bit a dual writing career for, in addition to producing harmless, adult stories such as this, she also penned that sinister children's yarn The Railway Children.  (All that smoke, and those creeping trees still give me the willies). 

The Head does not offer quite the same chills, its prime surprise for the reader being the fact the narrative progresses to a second act, set in London.  For I am sure most first time readers would have been expecting Diehl to come to a sticky end in Vane's cellar.

CHAINS

By Nigel Kneale

Set in 1731, this one has an old sailor showing a slave-trader a collection of second-hand chains he has for sale.  The trader ends up being crushed to death when "twenty fathoms of anchor chain" fall on him from the room's cross-beams.

The old salt casually pockets the trader's purse, before telling the corpse of his seven years spent in chains as a galley slave.

The tale takes the form of a monologue by the old sailor, which works rather well I feel.

The issue left unresolved for the reader to ponder, is whether the chains were set as a trap, and intended to drop on the victim.  Or if there was some supernatural force at play - the old sailor does suggest so, with his talk of chains "sliding and slithering", and "wriggling down like iron snakes".

THE EMPTY HOUSE

By Algernon Blackwood

Jim Shorthouse receives an invitation from his elderly aunt, who enjoys "a mania for psychical research", to spend a night with her investigating the local haunted house, wherein a girl had been murdered a hundred years before.

And sure enough, come midnight, door close themselves, stealthy footsteps are heard upstairs, and a ghostly figure goes tumbling over the landing banister to the stone floor of the hall. 

The character of Jim Shorthouse featured in four of Algernon Blackwood's short stories.  In two of these, A Case of Eavesdropping (Font1) and The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York (Pan3), the character sort of encounters the supernatural by mistake, and has to deal with things using his wits.

By the time of In An Intent to Steal, the character is a seasoned ghost hunter.  But with The Empty House he appears to be taking his early tentative steps as a psychic investigator, relying very much upon his (often equally terrified) aunt to fortify his resolve.  And this exploration of mutual need in times of crisis is a prominent theme running throughout the story.

For it is very much the journey rather than the destination which satisfies the reader with The Empty House.  Blackwood pens some particularly creepy passages - the scene in the drawing room, for example, had me horripilating (© Seabury Quinn) delightfully.  

It is just such a pity the whole business ended with the pair skulking out of the house, rather than turning to face whatever was following them down the stair.

THE FLESH IS WEAK

By Sydney J. Bounds

"Gaunt skeletal" Jonathan Pike believes his bones are out to get him.

A study in hypochondria and monomania this one, with a neat little joke in the final line.  But little else to commend it, I am afraid.

SEVEN FLOORS

By Dino Buzzati

Giovanni Corte has traveled to a sanatorium famed for treating his (unspecified) illness.  The establishment, he learns, is sited over seven floors, with the topmost for the least unwell patients, and the bottom one for those at death's door.

As his condition is regarded as extremely mild, Giovanni is placed on the top floor.  And confidently expects to be leaving cured very soon.

However......

As the reader probably realises fairly early on with this one, the direction of Giovanni's journey through the sanatorium is only going to be a downward one.  

I initially did wonder if there was some allusion to the descent through Dante's Circles of Hell here (even though I knew there to be nine of those).  But on reflection, there is more a Kafka thing going on here I feel, with the protagonist being the victim of repeated administrative blunders and intransigent bureaucracy.  The difference being Josef K had no choice in his ordeal, whereas our hero here did.

Quite why Giovanni didn't just pack his bags and go back home, is never made plain.

NEW MOON

By Malachi Whitaker

Recently widowed Mrs. Mollineaux lives alone in her large house with just a foul-mouthed parrot and her daily charwoman for company.  Her three sons, all in the armed forces, visit infrequently, but send letters and gifts regularly.

Over a period of nine months, she receives notifications that all three have died in action.

Rather than mourn, she pointedly sets about destroying all traces of her former life, and planning a new one.

I enjoyed this one, even if the subtleties of the narrative (both Mrs. M's husband and her sons were cruel-hearted brutes, whom she hated) required a couple of re-reads for me to pick up on the clues squirreled away by the author.

How the heck the yarn found its way into an anthology of horror stories, though, is utterly beyond me.

MESS

By Francis King

15 year-old Roger lives in a rather chaotic household, with his alcoholic mother, his schoolgirl-flashing father, plus his air-brained elder sister and her obnoxious American boyfriend.

And the house is always a mess, so he finally decides to do something about it once and for all.

Loads of interesting stuff going on in this 29-pager, with Roger's solution to the messes (both physical and emotional) telegraphed by an early mention of his "dark brown liquid" in test tubes, his killing-bottle in the kitchen cupboard, and his comment upon his mother's cooking:  "We don't all want to be poisoned".

Fun can also be had by trying to work out where the story is set.  Doncaster and Bexhill are both mentioned, but the introduction of Lewes Avenue and St. Ann's Well Gardens soon place the action in Hove.  Why then, when wishing himself onto a boat in the Channel, does Roger fantasise of travelling north?  Any vessel off the coast of Hove deciding to travel in that direction would soon end up ploughing into the shingle on the naturist beach*.

Perhaps that was Roger's plan.  For, unless I am much mistaken (and I often am in these things) Roger has a gay relationship with his teacher-friend in the post.  Assuming he gets away with the poisoning, of course.

*Yes, I am aware this beach was officially designated 12 years after the story was written, but it always had a bit of a (ahem) reputation.

YOUNG BLOOD

By Sydney J. Bounds

Joy, and her fellow teen-aged mini-skirted sixties sex-pot friend Maybelle, are off the see their favourite band, The Ghouls, perform.  And Joy ends up getting eaten.

This one sorta feels like a half-hearted attempt to inject some Pan Horror sensibilities into the thus far sedate Fontana series, but fails mainly because the story is rubbish.

In fact, it almost reads like a parody of what such an attempt would read like.  Bounds (almost 50 when he penned this one) drops in such phrases as "way out" and "the dollies raved", as if he had just picked them up from a spluttering 1969 Daily Mail editorial. 

Perhaps he was subtly commenting upon the sort of stuff he was being compelled to write to have his work published, for I rather felt the author's sympathies lay not with the girls or The Ghouls, but with Joy's pipe'n'slippers'n'newspaper loving father.

THE TELEGRAM

By Violet Hunt

Alice Daimer is very much her own lady.  Despite moving in frightfully posh circles, she enjoys "many affairs" and likes living "not exactly in hot water, but in water at least warm".  Although has never been kissed.  (Clearly these were different times!)

He recurring suitor is Everard Jenkins, whom she strings along until her 40th birthday, when Alice decides she will finally marry him.  Mainly for the company.

So she invites Everard over to dinner one evening, with the intention of manipulating another proposal out of him.

But the chap really does not look well.

If one wishes to get a feel for the utterly different worlds being inhabited by the rival Fontana and Pan Horror anthologies at the end of the swinging sixties, one can do no better than compare this yarn (first published in 1911), with such nasties as Punishment by Proxy, A Sharp Loss of Weight and The Fat Thing being served up in Pan10.  Night and (as they say) Day.

That being said, I found The Telegram a diverting enough read, and actually found myself rather liking the selfish and self-centred Alice.  And followed her journey with interest.  Although I cannot quite work out if her journey ended in that hansom cab ride at the end of the tale or not.

I rather hope she lived to a ripe old age, happily single and spending her inheritance.

MATTEO FALCONE

By Prosper Mérimée

Matteo Falcone is a wealthy Corsican sheep farmer.  One morning he sets out with his wife to inspect one of his flocks, leaving his ten year old son Fortunato to look after the farm.

A bleeding and limping figure soon arrives at the house; a bandit with the military on his tail.  Being a resourceful young chap Fortunato extracts from the man five francs, to hide him in a nearby haystack.

But betrays the fugitive to the soldiers, when offered a 30 franc watch by the Adjutant.

At this point, Falcone returns, and is not best pleased with his son, who he asserts is "the first of his race ever to betray a man".

Father and Son and Rifle take a short trip into the maquis.

I could well be wrong here, but I would hazard Matteo Falcone to be the oldest story to have appeared in either the Pan or Fontana collections.  Written in 1829, the narrative with its five well-written and well-rounded main characters, and its shocking ending is rightly regarded as one of the finest early French short stories.

The tale main message is how, in certain communities, the notion of honour and loyalty overrides any laws imposed by authorities.  For Matteo Falcone (if I read things right) is still at liberty and unpunished, a full two years after murdering his son.

~

A few words on Christine Bernard

Font4 represented the final anthology collected by Christine Bernard, before the task was handed over to Mary Danby. 

Internet digging has unearthed Christine was born in London in 1926, the daughter of pianist and composer Anthony Bernard, founder of The London chamber Orchestra.

She was on the staff of Swift comic (a sort of junior edition of The Eagle) in the late 1950s.  Once her short stint (1966-69) with Fontana ended, she took up the post of Senior Editor of Studio Vista paperbacks, before becoming a freelance author.

The lady died just after her 74th birthday in France in 2000.