Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

In fact, my own experience is that being a chronic invalid is about the best inducement one can have to practice self-discipline. Anyone in my position is entirely dependent on others, and therefore faced with two alternatives. Either they can allow their disability to become the centre of their thoughts, and on that account make life hell for themselves and everyone in frequent contact with them, or they can school themselves to ignore their misfortune as far as possible, and, by the exercise of endurance, patience and tact, at least secure the willing and cheerful service of those who are looking after them.

To adopt the latter course is just plain common sense, so I take no particular credit for having done so; but it needed a certain amount of willpower and is, I think a further proof that there has been no deterioration in my mental faculties.

But what chance is there of the Trustees believing that? I mean, if I write and tell them that I want to be moved from Llanferdrack because whenever the moon is near full an octopus tries to get in at my window? Naturally they will think I am gaga; and who could blame them?

They would send a bunch of brain specialists and psychoanalysts down here to examine me; and before I could say Jack Robinson I should find myself popped in a mental home to be kept under observation. For airing fancies far less lurid than that of being hunted over dry land by an octopus plenty of people have been carted off to those sort of places; and once in it is not so easy to get out again. No, thank you. I am not going to risk that. Not while I have a kick left in me.

(Laughter!) Hollow laughter as they say in Parliamentary reports caused by the simile I used inadvertently. Its inappropriateness must be an all-time high, in view of the fact that for the past ten months I have not been able to so much as waggle my big toe.

Later

An extraordinary thing has happened. This morning I decided that I would go fishing. It is the only sport in which I can still indulge, but I haven't had much luck so far. I have caught only a few bream and perch, and what I am after is one of the big pike; so today I thought I would try the far end of the lake, and I made Deb wheel me round there.

Deb is hardly what one would call an 'outdoor' girl, and she always looks awkward sitting on the grass reading one of her highbrow books. So, when she had settled me and wedged stones under the wheels of my chair so that it couldn't move, I said to her:

"There's no need to stay here if you don't want to. Why not walk back to the garden and sit in the summerhouse? You'll be much more comfortable there, till it's time for you to come and fetch me in for lunch.'

She thought that a good idea, so off she went. The drive approaches the Castle at that end of the lake and crosses a small stone bridge from which I was fishing. Deb had been gone only about ten minutes when I spotted the postman coming up from the village. I called to the old chap and asked him if he had any letters for me. He had one, and gave it to me as he passed. It was from Julia.

It was written from Queensclere and dated the 10th of May yet Helmuth told me only last night that Uncle Paul had taken her up to Scotland a week ago!

More extraordinary still, it said not a word about any plan for going there, or that she was feeling done in from war strain; and it made no reference whatever to any of my recent letters to her. In fact, while acknowledging that she was hopelessly erratic about letter writing herself and excusing her slackness on the plea that she had so much to do, she reproached me with having all the time in the world on my hands yet leaving it for so long without letting her hear from me.

For the rest, there were several pages in her firm, round hand recounting the excitements of the last local air raid, a battle with the War Agricultural Committee owing to her refusal to have the lawns ploughed up, and an unauthorised visit to Dover, with one of the officers billeted at Queensclere, to get a peep through a telescope at the activities on the nearest bit of Hitler's Europe.

After skimming through all this light-hearted chatter I only pretended to go on fishing, and sat there with my brain revving round like a dynamo, right up till lunchtime.

It was by the merest fluke that I had intercepted the postman this morning. I have never even seen him before, and it is the first time since my arrival that I have been down to the far end of the lake. Had I not been there when I was I think it extremely unlikely that Julia's letter would ever have been delivered to me; and that belief is supported by the fact that in it she mentions another letter of hers, written about April 25th, which I have never received.

One thing is now beyond dispute. Somebody has prevented all the letters that I have written to Julia in the past six weeks from being posted; and evidently whoever it is fears that if I receive one from her it might give away the fact that she is not getting mine; so, in order to prevent my suspicions being aroused, my, inward as well as my outward correspondence with her is being deliberately held up.

But why? And by whom?

Either Taffy or Deb take such few letters as I have for the post, and bring me the few that I receive. But neither of them has any reason to interfere with my private affairs, of which they know next to nothing; and both of them have well paid jobs with which they seem fully contented, so why should either risk the sack for a thing like monkeying with my mail?

It must be Helmuth's doing. That is borne out by the fact that he lied to me last night. Why, otherwise, should he have spun me that yarn about Julia having had a breakdown and Uncle Paul taking her to Scotland? It can only have been because he knew the contents of the letters I had written to her, and felt that the time had come when I must be provided with a reason for her failure to respond to my urgent appeals, so that I should not yet get the idea that someone was preventing them from reaching her.

In all the years that I have spent in Helmuth's charge I have never before had the least cause to suspect him of tampering with my correspondence; yet it seems impossible to doubt that he has been doing so for the past month.

It did occur to me that Julia might have used Queensclere notepaper, although actually writing from Mull, but the envelope bears the Queensclere postmark of the 11th; so it was written on Sunday and posted there on Monday. Obviously, then, Julia must have still been there last weekend; yet Helmuth distinctly said last night: 'I had a letter from your Uncle Paul today 1 , and 'a week ago he took her [Julia] up to Mull '. The only possible explanation for such a lie is that he is double crossing me for some purpose of his own which he wishes to keep secret.

What can that purpose be? There is only one theory which would account for his secretly sabotaging my communications with Julia. He knows from my letters to her that I have implored her to come down and make arrangements for me to be moved from Llanferdrack, and he wants to prevent that.

Yet he must also know from my letters the reason why I want to be moved. He knows that I am being haunted, or rather as his cold, materialistic mind would assess my outpouring that I imagine myself to be haunted. But his putting it down to my imagination does not detract in the least from the agony of fear that it arouses in me, and I told Julia that, in no uncertain terms. Yet, instead of taking such steps as he could for my relief, Helmuth is doing the very opposite, and deliberately preventing Julia from coming to my assistance.

Why, in God's name, should he wish to add to, and prolong, my sufferings? I can only suppose that it is because he derives some strange, sadistic pleasure from them. That would account for the queer, searching, speculative look with which I have often caught him regarding me during his evening visits, this last month or so. I can hardly believe it possible yet what other explanation for his extraordinary conduct can there be?