19 Tales of Terror
Page 1
THE
NIGHTTIME
SIDE
It has been said that there is a dark side
of every mind, where seeds of madness lie,
needing only a certain tum of events to
bring them to wild riot.
AE. the sudden lightning flash in the blackness of a stormy night reveals unknown
details of the landscape-clear, stark, and
terrifying-so do the stories in this book
light up, illumine the weird, nighttime side
of men's minds.
These strange adventures, told by master
storytellers, will live with you long after
you have finished reading them.
This exciting book is neither lightly put
aside nor easily forgotten.
And it is not for the faint-hearted.
EDITED BY
Whit and Hallie Burnett
TALES OF
TERROR
BANTAM BOOKS • NEW YORK
19 TALES OF TERROR
A BANTAM BooK
PUBLISHED }ANUARY 1957
Z11d pri11ti11g
The selections i,; this anthology are copyrighted, and they may not �
re)>roduced in any form without the consent of the authors, thetr
publishers. or their agents. The copyngbt notlces are hsted below:
Copyright N'otteea and AcknOtDlrdgm.enta
RETURN OF THE GRIFFINS by A. E. Shand�llng, reprinted from Story 1t 128 by penntaaloD
of Stury Maga�ln�. Ine. COJ)yrlKht, 103� by Story Ma��tA7.1ne, Inc.
TH� �r�Jfss��/·��· ��/V���:�e�";��·�����INt:� r:�� !� 1M�fnt�:Ah�ln3Yo�fs�0l������
right. 1938 by J�hn Steinbeck.
THE TWO HO't"fi.ES OF RF:LlSH
l.ord Dunaany, reprinted from Fe-bruary 1936 lswe of
Story by Jlermlsalon of Story
Inc. and Sydney A. Sanders Literary Agency.
PA�jJ�.:�t1.f��:t:����r./����o�a�:�:��iJ0fi."um the .July/Au�tu�t 1U45 luue ot Stnry by per-
mission or Story Mag�tzlne, Inc. and Harold Ober Asaoelat�s. CopyriJt"ht, 1945 by .Stnry
LO�g;!,oz.JU�.;:,!i)�·AGO from The Mixture Aa Before,
W. Somerfilet MRutrhlllm, reprinted h)'
permlaslon or Duuhl�day & Company, Inc., A. P.
& Son, London and William Heine•
mann, Ltd., l,nmlon. Copyright, 1030 by W. SomerH(>( Mnu•-!h&m.
THE CAT h:v Glorln l'
Random Hou�1·, Int.
THE FOOT OF THE GLST by Robt.>rt W. Cochrnn, reprinted from July /AuR"U�t 1 D:'i8 I�Mue of Story by permission of Story Mngazine, Jne., and Mrs. ROh£'rt W. Cochran. CnpyriR'ht,
1938 by Story Mnf[azlne, Jne.
J AM EOGAR by .Jerry Wc�·ler. reprint� from Story if 2 puhtl!';he-d by A. A. Wyn, lne .. b)'
pennlsslon or A. A. Wyn. Inc., New York and the author. Copyright, 1952 hy Whit Hurnett and Hallie Hurn<'tt.
THE CAL.I�JNG CARDS by lvnn Bunln, reprinted from .Story Vol. XXXII, Number 128 by
permlftMion or Story Mn�-:"nzlnes. Inc. and Boris G. de Tanko. Ue Tanko Publishers. Inc.,
New York, N. Y. CopyriR"ht, 1948 by Story Magazine. Inc.
-
THE NIGHT OF THE GRAN RAILE MASCARA by WhiL Burnett, reprinted by pennlsslon of
the author. Copyrl:;:ht. 1034 by Smith and Haas.
THE SCRF.EN by May Sarlor., reprinted from Harper's Bazaar by permlaslon or the author.
Copyrh:ht, 1 !1!53 h:v H�nrAt MaJ,!';�zlnes, lne.
TO�T.�J.;':N� ht'i'":""�F;.�!�o:'�?"�tl�f_r�Jn���-m& Tt',�m�!��� i':.� .. ·:� o::���to;��=e�Y & A��
burg, l.tt1., London. Cnpyrls:ht, 1 fl40 by AnRUs Wilson.
THE SAI.AMANOF.n by WllllaiTI B. seabrook. f'e'prlnted fr�rn the March /�:pril 1944 huoue of
Story hy permission of Ann Walkins, Jn('. CuT'Yri�ht. 1044 hy Story Magazine, Inc.
THE MUfiDF.R
for Parent� ON
hy .JEFFERSON
nornLhy
STREF.T
Cnnfteld hy by Dorothy
permlRRion Canfteld
nf
FIRh�r.
Harcourt,
reprinted
Rraee 11nd
from FahleB
Company, lne.
Cnpyrls:ht. 1037 hy Harcourt, Rrace And ComJ'Iany, lne.
JOHN DUFFY•s AROTHER hy Flann O'Brien. reT'rlnteod from July/AUJrUSt 1941 Issue of
Story hy permhualon of SLory Maga7.lne, Ine. ami the aulhnr. Cnpyrl�ht, J 941 by Story
Mnllazint>. Inc.
FORF.VF.R FT.ORTD.o by Frllcla Glzycka, reprinted from Story Jt3 publl!�thed by A. A. Wyn,
lnr". hy Jlerml�slon of A. 1. Wyn, Inc. ancl Mdnto�h. and Otis. Jne. Copyright, JD!;3 by Whit Rumett and HaJile Rumptt.
TH:ie��·�.NPnr.o�� ·��r:;:;�!1n;1�1ev:��de�CR�.f.r1t'��� :�mth�t��th�r� £��!!.';���- btoftv��
Whit Rurne-tt anrt Hollie Rurnett.
TH���'.'n���� �n��.,.�� �t�. ��t�a;��·�::����� ���. ��o� �:ci til��U::r�C:��itht
1952 by Whit Burnett and Hallie Burnett.
©Copyright, 1957, by Whit and Hallie Burnett. All Rights Reserved.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 57-5191
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc. Tts
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
vii
Return of the Griffins, A. E. Shandeling
1
The White Quail, John Steinbeck
1S
The Two Bottles of Relish, Lord Dunsany
26
Paul's Tale, Mary Norton
38
Lord Mountdrago, W. Somerset Maugham
44
The Cat, Gloria Neustadt Biggs
65
The Young Man with the Carnation, Isak Dinesen
78
The Foot of the Giant, Robert W. Cochrlf"
95
lAm Edgar, Jerry Wexler
101
The Calling Cards, Ivan Bunin
113
The Night of the Gran Baile Mascara, Whit Burnett
118
The Screen, May Sarton
127
Totentanz, Angus Wilson
133
The Salamander, William B. Seabrook
149
The Murder on Jefferson Street, Dorothy Canfield Fisher 154
John Duffy's Brother, Flann O'Brien
184
Forever Florida, Felicia Gizycka
189
The Blond Dog, Louis Clyde Stoumen
203
The Childish Thing, John Metcalfe
219
FOREWORD
TIIIS IS a book of the hidden, stradge, at times
horrifying side of man's nr.ture. These stories for a momen
t
pull aside the curtains of the mind, and reveal dread lightning
in the inscrutable dark.
They are stories of what happens when the night side of
the mind takes over. The result may be a simple but terrifying
delusion--or a hideous crime.
What happens in these stories is clear enough, but why
did these people think as they did, act as they did? How can
a man come to believe that he has fulfilled a glorious destiny
by killing the beautiful girl he loves? Why does a man destroy
himself in terror of a beast that exists only in his "heatoppressed brain?"
The truest record of the human heart, said Chekhov, is
found in fiction. If he were writing today he would find in
fiction the truest record of the human mind as well-the record
of increasingly intensive probings into the vaguely sensed
feelings, the fears, and the passions of man's sinister side,
the side that ranges back into the jungle mists of time.
Some of you will be satisfied to know what happens in these
strange tales. Some of you will want to know why. And there
will be some, perhaps, who will know that they will never
know, exactly, the reascn. If fiction is truth, it is also art.
In art there is an element not quite revealed, not quite there,
not exposed, but lying half hidden, enigmatic, in the stone.
There is a music that sings on in us, unheard by others, a
strange music which we ourselves, in the clangor and tumult
of the times, hear only faintly-if at all.
-THE EDITORS
A. E. SHANDELING
RETURN O F THE GRIFFINS
GUNAR VRIES, emissary to the United Nations Conference in New York from the European Democracy
of S--, sat on the edge of his bed in his hotel room, removing his shoes and socks.
He had declined to be present that evening at a party given
in his honor by a wealthy expatriate, telephoning his regrets.
In his stead be had sent his aide, a handsome young man who,
besides being secretary and translator, was also a composer of
symphonies; instructing him to confine himself to seduction and
to the piano. As for Gunar Vries, he had had his supper sent up
and after the tray was removed had locked his door and set
himself to his writing: his daily personal letter to his president,
in which he imparted observations too detailed to be made by
phone, and letters to the members of his family, his wife Alice
and his son Theodore at the Technological University. When
he had signed his name for the third time, the night was late.
He was removing his second sock when the bed moved. He
grasped the blankets to keep from being thrown, believing that
an earthquake had struck. But the bottles did not slide from the
dresser, no particles of ceiling fell, the chandelier did not sway.
Only the bed moved. Then · through his lifted knees he saw
emerging from beneath the bed the head of an eagle, but three
times the size of an eagle's head, and stretching out for a grip
of the rug, an eagle's claw. Then followed a lion's body. So the
lion had an eagle's head. Or the �agle had a lion's body.
When the creature emerged completely, Gunar saw that it
had also two wings, great eagle wings, that now it stretched one
at a time across the floor. The wing roots crackled, and the
feathers swept across the rug with a swishing, rushing sound.
The creature slouched to the center of the room, its forelegs
I
Z • Nineteen Tales of Tenor
lifting stiffiy, like a bird's legs, but in co-ordination with its hindlegs, that moved in the indolently potent manner of a lion.
Still heavy with sleep, the monster fell over on its side and
gently lifting its wing, turned its head under and with closed
beak nuzzled along the feathery pocket, in this way nudging itself to wakefulness and woe again. Then lifting its head, swinging it around and up, the creature looked straight at Gunar Vries. The eagle part took prominence-the curved beak, hard
as stone, the thick encasing of golden feathers over its head,
touched with red at the breast and extending down its forelegs
to the very toes. Lion ears protruded through the feathers but
were laid sleekly back. Its eyes burned ruby bright in the semidarkness.
"Change of climate," it explained, "makes me sleepy."
Before he had entered politics, more than twenty years ago,
Gunar Vries had been professor of ancient Greek civilization
at the University of Afia, capital of S-. His past enabled
him to recognize the creature. "Griffin?" he asked. "Is that your
name?" He had several cats on his farm and a trained falcon,
and spoke always with tenderness and respect to them, as now
he spoke to this great creature.
"Yes," replied the griffin, "and of the pure strain. If you're
wondering about the Sphinx and her woman's face, one of us
became enamored of a virgin of your species; though I can't
see what he saw in her."
The griffin spoke its own language, like no other in the
world, and yet a concoction of them all, with archaic Greek
like a warrior's chariot rumbling and shining through. It was
like everything unspoken that a word cannot be put to and that
is comprehended more readily than the spoken among men of
different languages .
. "You've been away several years," said Gunar, covering his
bare feet again with shoes and socks. "What did you do in the
time?''
"Took ourselves to the mountains of India," replied the
griffin. "Sat in the sun, on the thresholds of our caves, or caught
the Arimaspi, one-eyed men who seek gold in the mountains,
ate them in a shrugging fashion, already gorged with our prowess. I might ask the same question of you. What didn't you do?
By Apollo! Procreated not individuals but nations. Took the
lid off a water kettle, and what steams out but ships and cities.
Times have changed."
The creature's breath began to fill the room, an overly warm
breath, smelling of raw meat, the rich, dark, stinging smell of
blood clots and liver.
Gunar Vries had his trousers on and his gray hunting shirt
that he wore evenings by himself, but he was cold. He turned
Retum of the Griffins • 3
the radiator higher. "I presume," he said, standing with his back
to the heat, "that you wandered down alone?"
"Only one of the vanguard," replied the creature, preening
its breast.
Now Gunar Vries was fully aware of the monsters' significance. They were in their time sacred to Apollo, whose chariot they drew, and as Apollo was the prophetical deity,
whose oracle when consulted delivered itself in enigmas, the
word griffin, too, meant enigma. And because he was fully
aware of this, he preferred not to seem aware.
The emissary rubbed his hands together briskly to make
them wa1111. "What's the occasion?" he inquired.
The feigned innocence did not escape the griffin. The creature picked it apart like picking the tortoise from the shell. A hissing contempt came from its nostrils and partially opened
beak. For a moment there seemed to be a geyser in the room.
"Emissary to the UN," it replied
, "a conference called to
promote the flowering of humanity, and all the time the delegates hard put to it to breathe with the possibility of atomic dust in the air no more than five years from now. And you
want to know the occasion! Can you think of a time when the
world faced a greater enigma?"
Gunar Vries was indeed concerned for humanity. It was
something he traveled with in addition to his aide and his portfolio. Yet now it seemed to him that it was humanity in the abstract he had been carrying around-the formalities, the rules and regulations, the paperwork of a conference, humanity
carefully composed and delivered with dignity. At the griffin's
words, humanity suddenly became a third party in the room,
and Gunar shivered with life, he shook convulsively as children
do in excitement.
The monster slunk around the room, which became small as
the cage in which a circus lion is confined. When it came to the
desk it turned its head with ponderous grace and ran its eyes
over the letters. Gunar Vries stirred indignantly and stepped
forward, but on second thought was stricken with shame for
his disrespect and stopped still. The griffin turned away, but in
the turning managed to drop the nictitating membrane of its
eyes, and the perusal became an act of idle curiosity. It padded
away languidly, disdainfully, dragging one wing, and the emissary, hearing a strange clicking noise along the floor, looked down and saw for the first time the full length of the creature's
talons. At each step they were nicking small holes in the rug.
The creature sat down by the window, and the t�sseled end
of its tail lifted and fell. There was a feminine restlessness in the
way its feathers quivered, and at the same time a great seething
of male energy that propelled it forward even as it sat still.
4 • Nineteen Tales of Terror
"Lift the window for me," it said, "and let me out on the ledge.
Isn't there a park across the street?"
The emissary drew up the venetian blind and opened the
window. The night entered, cold and fragrant with grass. The
lamps in the park were almost pure white, as if encrusted with
snow, and shone up through the delicate branches of the trees.
People were sitting on the benches, talking and glancing up at
the lighted windows of the hotel, where many dignitaries were