London Tales of Terror

Edited by Jacqueline Visick

This book was in my teenaged collection of horror stories, back in the 1970s.  Where it went, I have no recollection, although I do remember being rather underwhelmed at the time by the stories contained therein - my palate having, of course, become seared by the red hot chilli peppers Herbert van Thal had been serving up.  

Three of the titles (Various Temptations, Harry and Mrs. Manifold) I had already encountered in the PBoHS collections.  But looking today at the other titles chosen by Ms. Visick, the only story I can recall anything about from back in the day, is Grahame Greene's A Little Place off the Edgware Road.  Which I have to say, I did enjoy when I first read it as a pup.  

And also, that oh so evocative sounding place name Pimlico from the blurb on the back of the book.  (Or "Plimco", which I managed to misread it and mis-pronounce it for a period).

I am not quite sure if the stated editor here - Jacqueline Visick - is/was a real person, or another of those pseudonyms which abounded in horror publications in the 1960s and 70s.  She does not appear to have contributed anything else to the genre, although, I note there was a book entitled "Planning a Town Garden" published in 1978 attributed to the same name.  So who knows?

Whomsoever the editor was, they did write an introduction to the volume, which I am going to reproduce here.  Should anyone feel their copyright is being infringed, let me know and I shall delete the passage forthwith.

I cannot think of anything more likely to dampen the icy pleasure of reading a good anthology of horror stories than a pretentious preface.  I have read doggedly through several.  The worst plumb the depths of pedantic prose, determined that the reader shall be left in no doubt as to where the fine line between "horror" and "terror" should be drawn.

   London Tales of Terror has no such literary pretensions, although it has gathered together the work of some outstanding writers.  It probably mixes "horror" with "terror" with appalling abandon and disregard for such refinement.  But that does not matter as long as it is enjoyed.  I hope it will give the kind of pleasure tinged with uncertainty which makes you aware of night sounds and shadows you had not noticed before.  Things which make you snap the light on - just to make sure.  Things which will make you laugh, a little too loudly, next morning.                                                                                                               

                                                                                   Jacqueline Visick

In between each of the stories, the editor had written a short (a page and a half, at most) account of "LONDON HAUNTINGS and FAMOUS LONDON MURDERS".  I have not reviewed these, but included precis in appearance position for completeness.

VARIOUS TEMPTATIONS

By William Sansom

Ronald Raikes is wanted for questioning by the police in connection with a series of murders.  Scouting for victim number five, he enters the house of Clara, a rather plain and equally lonely young woman.  

Encountering the girl in her bed, rather than adding her to his tally he, for reasons he himself cannot quite fathom, chooses to ply her with a sanitised version of his life story.  Clara, yearning for any sort of excitement in her drab life, falls for the yarn and agrees to offer Raikes shelter.

Fast forward two weeks and the couple are, rather improbably, planning their wedding.  It is also Raikes' birthday, so Clara dolls herself up for the occasion.  But the sight of the prettified Clara seems to reboot Raikes’ brain back into full throttle mode.

William Sansom’s writing appeared in a number of the early PBoHS collections, but I recall my teenage self not caring for them much.  Too wordy, with too little action, I felt at the time.  Re-reading them now, I can appreciate Sansom’s fine eye for detail and his occasionally evocative descriptive prose.  But still....  

Clara really is an odd individual.  Early in the story, her profession is given as an “invisible seamstress”; Sansom, I think, commenting upon her apparent social anonymity with this neat play on words.  She later ponders that the serial killer at least felt deeply enough for his victims to be compelled to act in the way he did.  This presumably in contrast to the utter indifference she generally engendered in males. 

Even after accepting his marriage proposal, she still harbours suspicions that Raikes may be the murderer, but buries them lest they turn out to be true.  All of which leads to the nagging impression that the dismal outcome to the proceedings was what she had subconsciously desired all along.

St James's Palace

Relates the circumstances of a couple of hauntings recorded in St James Palace.  One sighting had the ghost of the long dead Duchess of Mazarin (one of King Charles II many mistresses) dropping in to let her former friend Madame de Beauclair know they will soon be reunited.

The second has the spirit of Ernest, Duke of Cumberland's valet being seen in his own bed with his throat cut.  The unfortunate chap having been earlier found dead in suspicious circumstances, with not a little suspicion having fallen up the Duke himself as the perpetrator.

CONFESSION

By Algernon Blackwood

A Canadian soldier, O'Neill, is in London being treated for WWI shell-shock.  As part of his recuperation, he is being allowed to travel across central London to visit a young woman for tea.

All is going fine, until he emerges from South Kensington tube station into a London pea-souper.  

This tale which may or may not involve murder, ghosts and a time-slip has a story-line occasionally as impenetrable as any thick London fog.  

I think what happened (and this is only my interpretation, I have read others online), is most of what O'Rielly experienced is a fantasy.  His underlying PTSD, allied to his mental and physical disorientation in the fog summoned up a dream sequence in his mind, recalling an incident many years previously when a young lover of his was murdered by her jealous husband.

O'Reilly, who was also an intended victim missed his rendezvous with the killer (perhaps being lost in another fog), and had borne the guilt since.

But then again, Blackwood often liked to leave his readers guessing.

The Overbury Scandal

In which Sir Thomas Overbury was murdered by Frances, Countess of Essex and her paramour Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, in order that the pair would be free to marry.

Both were found guilty and confined to the Tower.  But the sentence of death was never out carried out, and the couple were eventually pardoned by King James I & VI.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR ALEX

By John Keir Cross

An unnamed narrator has been searching in vain throughout London for a human skeleton, to present to his medical student cousin Alex as a birthday gift.  

He is finally pointed in the direction of a musty Pimlico side-street shop run by one "W Hare".

Being a Scot familiar with the story of Burke and Hare - Edinburgh's "resurrectionists" - I found I knew where this one was going fairly early on.  Not that the fact detracted from this wonderfully and evocatively written yarn.

The nuts and bolts of how William Hare was still plying his trade 150 years after his heyday is deftly sidestepped by the author, as is exactly how the unfortunate Alex (SPOILER ALERT) ended up being her own birthday gift.  But none of this really matters.

Just enjoy the ride, readers.

Hampton Court

As King Henry VIII's favourite residence, it is perhaps not surprising the ghosts of two of his wives are reported to have been seen seen padding around the place after their deaths.  

Jane Seymour, who died in 1537, a few days after giving birth, and Catherine Howard who was beheaded in 1542.  

GONE IS GONE

By Joan Fleming

Comfort and Clowd are partners in a successful antiques business.  But Comfort loathes his partner, not least for his profligate ways, and is inwardly joyous when Clowd finally succumbs to a progressive wasting disease.

On the evening following the funeral, Comfort is assiduously cooking the firm's books to ensure Clowd's widow does not inherit half the firm, when he receives a phone call.

Fleming's writing style is easy on the eye, and I enjoyed this one up until the dull denouement.  Which, whilst I would not say I saw coming, did come as a bit of a damp squib.  

The Bravo Poisoning Case

When in 1876 Charles Bravo, a 30-year old barrister died in agony, foul play was suspected - specifically, poisoning with "emetic tartar".  Both Bravo's wife Florence and their housekeeper Mrs Fox came under suspicion but, despite an exhumation and a post-mortem examination, insufficient evidence was unearthed to charge either.   

TIME-FUSE

By John Metcalfe

Frumpy Ellen Moody is a lady of many transient fads: Unitarianism, Theosophy, Taoism and the like.  Spiritism is her latest dalliance, but when she sees her friend Eddie Fisk who claims to be a medium, make a vase of flowers disappear she is convinced there is something to the business.  

And to prove to herself that "with enough faith one could do anything", she picks up a handful of red hot coals from the fire.  Feeling no pain she rubs the coals over her face and neck to no effect.

She decides she will display her new-found powers at Eddie's next seance.  

I know that horror stories will often house an element of fantasy or the supernatural, but this one really did not do it for me.  I suppose, as a (retired now) scientist, it was the basic physics which irked me.  I could just about believe that through some form of mind-over-matter, Ellen could touch hot coals without feeling any pain.  But to be able to do so without any damage to skin tissue just seemed nonsensical.

And as for the fact that Ellen's subsequent loss of faith when Eddie was exposed a fraud, resulted in the heat somehow being retrospectively applied to her skin causing terrible burns.  It all just seemed not a little bit silly.

Although the title of the story perhaps suggest this outcome was always in the post. 

I found rather more intriguing the shadowy character of Eddie's killed-in-the-War brother Morris.  Was he in some way manipulating, or at least involved in, the events, from the Other Side?  

 

Eaton Place

In June 1893, Admiral George Tyron was leading a fleet of Royal Navy battleships in manoeuvres off the coast of Africa, when he gave "an order that cost the lives of himself and three hundred and fifty eight officers and men".  

At the very moment he was going down with his ship, his apparition appeared back in London at a party being held by his wife.  

A LITTLE PLACE OFF THE EDGWARE ROAD

By Graham Greene

Craven is having "one of his bad days", and is attempting to throw off his black mood by walking the streets of London's West End.  When it begins to rain, he takes shelter in a small cinema showing silent movies.

A figure arrives who, although the place is mostly empty, sits down next to Craven and starts to chat.  From the newcomer's sticky hands and odd conversation, Craven begins to suspect the chap may have recently been involved in a violent murder.  A suspicion confirmed once the house lights come up, and Craven sees the red smears on his own hands.

He dashes outside and, finding a phone box, dials 999.

Here Greene paints a unforgettably bleak picture of a societal outcast and loner struggling with mental illness.  The unfortunate Craven finally pushed over the edge, when his worst fear is confirmed: that there is in fact Life After Death.

The Siege of Sidney Street

Two Latvian emigres to London, Fritz Svaars and Josef Solokov, were members of an anarchist group who had been up to no good in 1911.  Both were cornered in a property in Sidney Street.  A lengthy gun battle ensued, which the police ended by the simple expedient of burning the house (with occupants) to the ground.

A PLEASURE SHARED

By Brian Aldiss

Serial killer Cream has been self-righteously ridding London's streets of those "useless females" whom he deems "a blot on the community with their dirty habits".  Disposal of his work has always posed a bit of a problem...until circumstances conspire to present him with an ally to share the business.

Fine fun this one; Aldiss penning the tale with his tongue firmly in his cheek.  With the reader being left to ponder whether the shrewish Flossie Meacher is going to end up becoming Mrs. Flossie Cream, or just another addition to the foul-smelling corpse collection in the cellar.

Or, maybe both.

The Tower of London

As the site of so many executions over the years, the Tower of London has seen, perhaps not unexpectedly, its fair share of ghostly sightings.  Not least those of Ann Boleyn and Edward and Richard; the Princes in the Tower.

THE OLD MAN

By Holloway Horn

Knocker Thomson is, as the author assures us, "not a desirable character".  A bit of low grade fraudster and swindler, he is also a great horse-racing man.

So, Knocker is naturally initially sceptical, then more than a little delighted when the old man of the title accosts him in the street offering him a copy of tomorrow night's evening paper.  With all of the following day's racing results therein.

After a successful day at the races, Knocker is returning home with pockets bulging, when he happens to glance at another of the articles in the newspaper.

An eminently readable, if utterly predictable, hunk of hokum this one.  Which sticks out slightly amongst the rest of this collection with the down to earth slang used throughout. 

My initial thought was that the name Holloway Horn sounded like a slightly naughty pseudonym, but I did find a date of birth for her online (1886).  Although another website suggests the name was actually a nom de plume used by a group of Argentinian writers: Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Silvina Ocampo, who had invented Horn's biography.  Which sounds so incredibly unlikely, it must be true. 

Jack the Ripper

Between August and November 1888 five women were brutally murdered and their bodies mutilated in the Whitechapel area of London.  They were, and indeed still are, for no-one was ever convicted, believed to have been victims of a single killer, known as Jack the Ripper.

SPOONER

By Eleanor Farjeon

Cousins Molly and Bill grew up together, both obsessed with the game of cricket.  They drifted apart, as is often the way with children, as they reached adulthood.  But they still remained in touch.

When Bill dies at the age of 61, after being hit by a vehicle Molly, now 63, is surprised to have been left Bill's cottage in St Johns Wood. 

So, down to London Molly goes with her cat Spooner.  But the cat appears spooked by something in Molly's new home.  

A gentle ghost story, I suppose this could be described.  Perhaps not surprisingly, from an author responsible for the drippy lyrics to the hymn Morning Has Broken.

I know the game of cricket united the cousins, but the author does overdo the cricket-isms just a touch.  We are told Molly believes she is "the visiting team on the (housekeepers') home ground", but that "I and Spooner are batting on a good wicket".

And I found the casual way Molly brushed off the damage having been done to her clothing by, she knew not what, all very unrealistic.  She just seems to think "poltergeist?", then shrug the incident off.

The ending is slightly ambiguous - or, at least, I found it so.  Was it the case that the spirit of Bill's dog Jack (who had been killed with Bill in the same accident) could only find peace once the cross had been replaced on his grave in Bill's garden?

Or had Jack's spirit somehow entered that of Spooner, so the dog could participate in the game of garden cricket Molly decided to play on what would have been Bill's birthday?

Is the final line quote from the dog's cross of import?  I assume it just tells us Jack had been named after a famous cricketer.  Or is it more significant than that?  It does appear a rather ominous closing line.

Ham House

This entry relates the tale of the redoubtable and voraciously ambitious Lady Dysart who resided at Ham House, Richmond, where she died in 1698.  Her gout-ridden ghost may still be heard disturbing "the night-time peace of Ham House" we learn.    

MRS. MANIFOLD

By Stephen Grendon

Portly Mrs. Manifold runs the Sailors’ Rest boarding house in London’s Wapping.  Rumour has it she did away with Ambrose, her philandering drunk of a husband some years ago back in Singapore.  So she is perhaps understandably concerned when a guest going by the name of Amb. Manifold signs the register.

I loved this one, with its cast of well-written characters and tight action all taking place within the fog-bound lodging house.  The old place put me in mind of The Admiral Benbow Inn and, with all those sea shanties in the air, one almost expected Long John Silver to come hobbling in. 

The lady of the title is a formidable lady indeed, but she is ultimately outwitted by her husband – that rarest of things, I should imagine, a ghost with a wicked sense of humour.

"Peter" Crippen

In 1910 Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen poisoned his wife Belle, so he could be with his younger lover Ethel le Neve.  Whilst they were fleeing to Canada onboard a liner, police discovered Belle's torso in the basement of Crippen's house.

The Canadian authorities were contacted by wireless telegram, and Crippen was arrested upon his arrival in Canada.

SOMEONE IN THE LIFT

By L.P. Hartley

Six-year old Peter and his parents are, due to a "domestic crisis", having to spend the Christmas period in a hotel.  As their rooms are on the fourth floor, the family generally take the lift.  

Whenever the lift arrives, Peter is convinced there is someone already inside it.  There never is.  But what is even more puzzling is, the fact Peter only sees the figure when he is with his mother - never when his father is present.

Then the lift breaks down.

A typically ambiguous yarn from L.P. (The Go-Between) Hartley this one.  On the surface it appears we have a clumsy father failing to notice (perhaps because he is dressed as Father Christmas), that the lift he thinks he is stepping into is not there.  With the result he plunges down the shaft five floors, and crashes through the roof of the lift cab which is sitting in the hotel's basement.  

His body is discovered by Peter who, by the simple act of closing the grille doors, was somehow able to bump the lift back into life once more.

There is clearly a supernatural element to the narrative, with Peter's visions of someone in the lift, a foreshadowing of his father's death.  But it is the dream element to the story which muddies the waters.  

It is that sentence "Dreaming, (Peter) felt adrift in time", after which the reader is left to ponder the possibility the whole final third of the narrative is naught but a bad dream on the boy's part.

Drury Lane and The Haymarket Theatres

Here we are given the details of four ghosts purported to haunt various West End theatres.  Of which the most discerning is clearly the one who may be seen wandering between the stalls of the Theatre Royal - but only when plays enjoying a successful run are being performed. 

THE TRIAL FOR MURDER

By Charles Alliston Collins and Charles Dickens

The ghost of a murdered man contacts one of the jurors at his murder trial to ensure the guilty man is convicted. 

This story was originally published in 1865 (credited to Dickens alone) as "To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt".  The following year it was collected in Dickens' book "Three Ghost Stories" as "The Trial for Murder".  How and when Charles Alliston Collins came to be granted a co-writing credit I am unsure.

Collins was Dickens' son-in-law and, although a published author in his own right, is better remembered to day (if he is remembered at all) as a painter.

It is a moderately diverting ghost story, without any of the characters (including the ghost himself) painted with anything like the depth of Dickens' general literary observations.  Indeed, what the yarn feels most like, is a satire of the Victorian judiciary system, suggesting the best way to ensure justice was to influence proceedings from beyond the grave.  

Christie of 10 Rillington Place

John Reginald Halliday Christie was a serial killer who between 1943 and 1953 murdered at least eight women (including his wife Ethel) and buried the bodies in and around his house at Rillington Place.  

The house was demolished in 1971, and the area redeveloped.  The exact site of 10 Rillington Place now lies in the gap between flats 9 & 10 on London's Bartle Road.

AUGUST HEAT

By W.F. Harvey

James Clarence Withencroft is an artist who works in pencil.  One stifling summer day he, almost absent-mindedly, produces a fine sketch of a corpulent criminal standing in the dock being sentenced for an unspecified crime.

Out walking later that day, he encounters a man the spitting image of the individual he had earlier drawn.  This person is a monumental stone-mason, and is just completing a headstone for "an exhibition".

The name on the headstone, chosen insists the stonemason at random, is Withencroft's own - with the date of death carved being that day's.

A superb little yarn this one -  a story of the supernatural visiting two artists, compelling each to produce work which foreshadows a tragedy which will end the lives of both men.  At least that is my interpretation, for the ending is so deliciously ambiguous.    

Richmond Palace

Queen Elizabeth I was reportedly seen "pacing to and fro" around Richmond Palace, at the same time as she lay dying in her privy chamber in the palace.

THE DEMON LOVER

By Elizabeth Bowen

We are during the days of the London Blitz here, and Kathleen Drover, a middle-aged married mum of three has returned to her boarded up home in London from the country, to pick up some unspecified "things/objects".

Entering the house she is surprised to find a letter awaiting her.  A letter from her distant past.

Although the title of this one is more salacious than anything which occurs in the narrative, The Demon Lover is a fine, suspenseful yarn for all that.  Beautifully written, but let down a touch (at least I thought so) with a cop out, if admittedly creepy, ending.  One which I felt left a clutch of questions unanswered. 

Given the title of the story and the huge apparent coincidences involved in bringing Kathleen and the letter from her former (believed to be long dead) fiancé together, the reader is pushed towards assuming the supernatural is at play.

But we could equally, I suppose, just have a spurned lover with a long-term grudge, coming back to claim what he sees as his own.        

Adelaide Bartlett

It is 1886 and Adelaide Bartlett is on trial for murder, accused of poisoning her husband Edwin with vast quantities of chloroform.  But she is found Not Guilty, as the prosecution could not show how the chloroform had got into the unfortunate Edwin's stomach, without burning either his mouth nor throat passages.

 

HARRY

By Rosemary Timperley

Inventing an imaginary companion is apparently not unusual for a child without siblings or friends.  But five year-old Christine’s imaginary friend Harry does appear to be exerting rather too much influence over her life for the comfort of her (adoptive) mother.  

A bit of digging into the background of Christine’s birth family begins to reveal some startling facts – but the digger really should have kept a close eye on the time.  

Harry is a disturbing tale of a brother whose devotion to his sister extends beyond the grave.  Two elements raise this one above the routine – first there is the sense of growing helplessness the girl’s mother feels as she learns more and more about Harry.  From her early almost irrational unease to the full blown panic when she realises Christine has been taken, the mounting fear is palpable in Timperley's prose.

Second is the fact we are not totally sure of Harry’s motives.  He may be benevolent, acting out of an overriding yet misplaced desire to watch over his sister, or he may have come (as is hinted in the tale) to forcibly compel his sister to join him in death.

A delightfully creepy yarn.