Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

Later

I think the fates must have decided that I was due for a little something to cheer me up, after the rotten setback I suffered this morning. Anyhow, just before Deb came to fetch me in for tea I caught one of the pike. He is not a very big chap, as they go, only a ten pounder; but I sent a message to Cook asking her to stuff and bake him for dinner, and I've told Taffy to get me up half a bottle of Moselle.

As a matter of fact, I darn' nearly missed him, as when he took the bait my mind was on very different matters. I had been trying to work out the implications of this Taffy business and decide on my next move.

I wish I knew for certain the role that Konrad played. Did he inadvertently arouse Helmuth's suspicions by specifically naming Taffy, instead of just saying: 'Please may I borrow a stamp for one of the servants?' Or was he deliberately responsible for what followed? Perhaps, though, even the unusualness of the request would be enough to set that quick brain of Helmuth's ticking over.

I don't know what the arrangements are about the staff's outgoing mail here, but presumably it goes down to the village in the carrier's cart each morning with that from upstairs, and if the servants are short of stamps they give the carrier the money to get them at the same time as they give him their letters.

Anyhow, as the servants in this part of the world live at such a slow tempo, it would be quite exceptional for any of them to have correspondence that they felt to be of such urgency that it could not wait until morning. That may have occurred to Helmuth, and caused him to ask which of them was in such a hurry to get a letter in the post overnight. Then when Konrad replied 'Taffy Morgan' Helmuth guessed the rest.

On the other hand Konrad is Helmuth's man, body and soul. He looked after him for all those years at Weylands; in fact, he came over from Czechoslovakia with him in 1933 and has been in his service ever since. So it is quite probable that he is in Helmuth's confidence about what is going on here, anyhow to some extent. If so, he probably smelt a rat directly Taffy asked for the loan of a stamp; especially if Taffy gave it away as he very likely did that he meant to go down to the village with the letter there and then. Konrad would certainly have thought that worth reporting if he is acting as Helmuth's spy, and it was easy as winking for him to do so without Taffy suspecting his intention.

I wouldn't mind betting that is what happened; and that Helmuth is using Konrad to keep him informed of any gossip that may go on below stairs which might jeopardise his secret intentions regarding myself. He would then be in a position to think up an excuse to sack anyone who seemed to be getting too inquisitive, before they found out enough to become dangerous to him. The way that servants get to know things is amazing, and Helmuth is too shrewd to neglect taking precautions against the truth leaking out through them.

Konrad would be just the man for such a job. He comes from Ruthenia, the eastern tip of Czechoslovakia that reaches out towards the Ukraine, and he is a typical Slav; big, fair and boisterous, with a hearty laugh that deceives people, until they come to know him well and find out how cunning he is below the surface. He is cruel, too, and there has never been any love lost between him and myself since the day I caught him torturing Julia's pet monkey, at Queensclere.

Helmuth tried to laugh the matter off, and said that I was exaggerating, but Julia was so mad about it that she barred Konrad the house for the rest of that holiday, and instead of continuing to live like a fighting cock with the rest of the servants he had to do the best he could for himself in the village.

One thing emerges from this catastrophe over my letter last night; it will be useless to attempt to get Taffy to take another. Helmuth scared him out of his wits, and as that was due to his having sought to evade the censorship of my mail that Helmuth has set up, his fright will crystallise a definite centre of resistance in his mind.

A hypnotist can make his subjects perform any physical feat that their bodies are capable of enduring and many mental feats which are far beyond their normal capabilities, provided he has their full and by full I mean their subconscious as well as their conscious cooperation. He can also make them do most things to which they are indifferent or even mildly antagonistic according to the depth of trance state in which he is able to plunge them. But if they are strongly opposed to doing something, either on moral grounds or through fear of the consequences, that resistance remains permanently active in their subconscious, and it is next to impossible for the hypnotist to overcome it.

So there we are. Having got Taffy just where I wanted him, it is a sad blow that I should no longer be able to make him perform the one service that is of such paramount importance to me. I may be able to use him in some other way; but I have got to think again about a means of establishing some form of lifeline by which I might haul myself to safety from the menace that, Devil impelled like the Gadarene swine of old, is now rushing upon me.

Saturday, 23rd May

I have had a showdown with Helmuth. Ever since I came to Llanferdrack in the middle of March he has devoted an hour or so to visiting me between tea and dinner, except on the few occasions when he has been away on business.

Now and then we see one another at other times of the day, should we chance to meet in the gardens or the hall; but I am allowed to be up and about in my wheeled chair only between ten and twelve thirty, and between three and five o'clock, and those are the busiest hours of his day; so, should we meet during them, we rarely exchange more than a greeting.

On his evening visits he tell me of the latest problems that have arisen regarding the estate and any news he has had from mutual friends of ours, and we discuss the progress of the war and such books as either of us happens to be reading. His mind is so active and his comments so provocative of new ideas that I have always looked forward to his visits as a mental tonic even when I have felt at times that he was secretly trying to probe my reactions to things about which he would not ask me openly. That is, I looked forward to them up till a week ago; but since I became convinced of the hideous treachery that he is practising towards me I have found it difficult to tolerate his presence in my room.

To let him know what I know or at least suspect him of on a basis of sound reasoning prematurely seemed to me both pointless and stupid; so I have done my damnedest to conceal the change of my mental attitude towards him, and to continue to show the same animated interest in his sparkling discourse as I have done in the past.

But yesterday evening some devil got into me and I was seized with a sudden feeling of recklessness. He was standing in the south bay window with his back towards me, his legs apart, his broad shoulders squared and his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his plus fours. He was wearing a suit of ginger tweed, and I don't know why but country clothes always seem to accentuate his foreignness. In evening dress he looks tremendously distinguished and might easily be taken for the 13th Earl of something, but the dash of Jewish blood that he got from somewhere always comes out when he is wearing country things, and he never looks quite right in them.

As he looked out over the vista of garden, woods and mountains, which seemed more beautiful than ever softened by the evening light, he remarked with a cynical humour which showed that he was not thinking of the view: 'From the past week's communiquйs about the fighting on the Kerch peninsula it is quite impossible to say who holds it now, or even to form an estimate whether the Germans or the Russians are the biggest liars.'