Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

On Friday, when I searched the shelves for a book on Hypnotism, I already knew that they held one of the most astounding collections of junk that any room calling itself a library could ever have contained, but quite how astounding I did not realise until I started to go through them systematically. The explanation is that when my grandfather wanted to refill the shelves he contracted with a bookseller in the Charing Cross Road to do the job at a flat rate and, irrespective of size, he refused to pay more than ten shillings a foot!

Naturally, the bulk of it consists of out-of-date encyclopaedias, the collected sermons of long dead divines, books of dreary personal reminiscences that their garrulous authors must have paid to have printed, fifty-year old novels of incredible dullness, and publishers' remainders of all kinds. But, by a piece of exceptional good fortune, I found a bulky volume called Hypnotism, its History, Practice and Theory, by J. Milne Bramwell, which, for this array of mainly nineteenth century trash, bears the comparatively recent date of 1903.

It could not have been out long when it was condemned to make one among the seven or eight hundred feet of books that cover the walls of this room; so no doubt its presence here is due to the fact that its title page is missing and its cover loose; but, luckily, its 470odd pages of text are intact and they contain a wealth of information, so, thanks to Dr. Bramwell, I am gradually getting a grip on the theory of this fascinating subject.

Reverting to my grandfather. It was not unnatural that a man so entirely absorbed in the great commercial structure that he had created should wish to found a dynasty, and many years before his death he laid plans to ensure that his heir should enjoy the same undisputed authority over his Empire as he had himself.

So that his heir should not be compelled to part with the controlling interest in any of the companies at his death, in order to raise the vast sum necessary to pay death duties, he devoted a considerable part of his income to insurances which would cover them; and as soon as my father showed that he had inherited his father's talent for business he was given one directorship after another, so that long before he died he was openly recognised as the heir apparent.

That my father should have turned out to have all the makings of a worthy successor must have been a great joy to the old man; he was far from being so fortunate in his second son. Father entered the business on leaving Cambridge, and was already an important executive in it by the time the First World War broke out, so he was considered too much of a key man to be allowed to volunteer for one of the services; but Uncle Paul was nearly ten years younger, and went straight into the war at the age of eighteen.

It may have been that which unsettled him and made him later unfitted for a business career. But I don't think he would ever have been capable of controlling a big organisation. He is much too lazy and pleasure loving, and no amount of training can give a man a first class brain if he hasn't got the right type of grey matter to start with.

Anyway, grandfather evidently decided that he was a hopeless bet, and preferred to take a gamble on me to carry on the dynasty should anything happen to my father. As I was only a few years old when his last will was drawn up, he went to considerable pains to protect my interests in the event of both my father and himself dying while I was still a minor; and the arrangement he decided on was that a Board of seven Trustees should be formed, which would have the following powers:

(1) To appoint such of its members as it considered most suitable to directorships of the Jugg companies, for the purpose of representing the interests of the Trust.

(2) Elect new Trustees to fill any vacancies which might occur on the Board through death or retirement, and to create additional Trustees should this be considered desirable.

(3) To invest all profits accruing to the Trust during my minority, either in taking up further shares in the Jugg companies, or in acquiring holdings in other concerns which it was planned ultimately to bring within the Jugg organisation.

(4) To appoint one of their number as my Guardian, who would undertake to give me the personal care of a parent, and be responsible to them that my education should be designed to fit me for taking my place as the head of the Jugg Empire in due course.

It will be seen that the old man's scheme, while sound enough in its broad principles, did give the Trustees certain opportunities to feather their own nests at my expense if, at any time, the Board included two or three dishonest members who got together and were clever enough to pull the wool over the eyes of the others. The Trustees were, no doubt, purposely given no direct remunerations, as the old man felt that they would be more than adequately paid for their trouble by the fees they would get from sharing out the sixty odd directorships between them. That is fair enough; but the clause empowering them to invest profits in concerns which it is planned 'ultimately to bring within the Jugg organisation' opens the way for all sorts of double-dealing.

The Jugg interests are now so varied that an unscrupulous Trustee might buy up the shares of pretty well any business that looked like going on the rocks, and, after nursing it for a year or two, make a very handsome profit if he had enough backing on the Board to be sure of selling it to the Trust.

I have wondered, more than once, if that is how Harry Iswick has succeeded in making so much money during the past ten years. He owes his place on the Board to the fact that he was my grandfather's confidential secretary; and so, apart from my father, knew more than anyone else about the old man's affairs. I remember Julia telling me that, in those days, he used to live in a little semidetached house out at Acton, but now he has a flat in Grosvenor House, a big place at Maidenhead, and just before the war he had bought himself a villa in the South of France. He has not yet been nominated by the Board as their representative director on any of the larger companies, so I should not think he collects more than two thousand five hundred a year in fees, and he certainly could not live in the way he does on that.

Of course he is a clever little devil, and his position on the Board gives him access to all sorts of information out of which he could make money more or less legitimately: so he may be reasonably honest. In any case grandfather must have thought him so, as, in selecting the original Trustees, the old man would naturally have picked only men he believed that he could trust. The others he chose were Lord Embledon, Sir Stanley Wellard and Mr. C. J. Roothamall men who had been closely associated with him in business for many years; two partners of the firm of Bartorship, Brown and Roberts and one partner from the firm of Smith Co. The former were his chartered accountants and the latter his solicitors. In both cases the Trusteeships were really vested in the firms rather than individuals, so as to ensure that they would retain permanent representation on the Board. The accountants nominated Mr. Alec Bartorship and Mr. Charles Roberts; the solicitors, Mr. Angus Smith.

Since the inception of the Board there have been several changes. Mr. Rootham retired in 1934, after having persuaded his colleagues to accept his son, Guy Rootham, as his successor. Mr. Bartorship retired in 1935, and his firm nominated his nephew, Claud Bartorship, to take his place. Sir Stanley Wellard died suddenly in September 1939, and as, in the excitement of those first few weeks of war, the more likely candidates for this desirable vacancy appear to have been too occupied to press their claims, Helmuth succeeded in getting himself appointed; mainly, I believe, owing to the influence exerted on his behalf by Harry Iswick and Uncle Paul.