‘What’s to stop them breaking a window to get in?’ ‘Nothing,’ George said flatly. ‘You’re not too bad at underrating intelligence yourself. I don’t know whether the Deepings are dangerous to the rest of us...

‘I can’t even make a guess about the details. But pretty obviously, whether it’s infection, or possession, or multiple hysteria, the process itself is contagious. There has to be, at the least, a laying on...

This aimless slamming away at disconnected points was not, Selby felt, advancing their understanding of the situation; the reverse, if anything. There had to be a logical explanation, but it would need working out, step...

He awoke, hearing a sound that he could not place at first, but metallic, familiar. Of course – the door handle being turned. The door opening. Footsteps. Not just of one person; two at least....

The silence between them, with this consideration, became awkward. He tried to think of something to say that would be suitable, but the words and phrases spun emptily in his mind, at once banal and...

They reassembled in an atmosphere of gloom. Mandy was going about the house, lighting the oil lamps. They had seemed attractive at first, but now Douglas was more conscious of their inadequacy, of all the...

‘Hypnotism,’ Grainger said, ‘is mesmerism, cleaned up and cut down to size. The point about mesmerism was that it involved what was called rapport – operator’s and subject’s minds all tangled up with each other,...

They came readily enough to his call. Diana skied up hard on the heels of Grainger, with Elizabeth trailing some twenty yards behind. She was glowing from the sharp air and the exercise and looked,...

‘Your clothes are over there, Steve. Would you like me to leave you to get washed and dressed? I’ll go down and see about rustling up some breakfast for you.’ ‘No!’ The edge of fear...

When she awoke it was to the guilty realisation that, having dozed off like that, Ruth might have herself woken, and seen the glass on the table between them. This was the first part of...