Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

For a moment I found myself completely bewildered. Could he possibly be speaking the truth? Was I, after all, going out of my mind? Were the attacks really no more than figments of my imagination? Had he noticed the early symptoms of madness in me and ever since been loyally striving to prevent anyone else guessing my condition? Had I shamefully misjudged him?

I have not an atom of proof that he is really plotting against me. My whole theory was based on his interference with my mail and, his refusal of all my requests which, in my belief, would have enabled me either to evade or lessen the effect of the attacks. And he had now explained his conduct in both matters.

A little feebly I said: 'Surely you could find an excuse to have me moved to another room without arousing Deb's suspicions that I have gone crackers?'

He passed a hand wearily over his mane of prematurely white hair. 'I'm afraid not, Toby. If only there were another room that was equally suitable I would do so gladly, but as we agreed when we talked of it before, there isn't.'

'At least you could get me a torch,' I hazarded desperately.

'There are none to be had.' His voice took on an impatient note.

'Then get the blackout curtain lengthened. Please, Helmuth, please.' All the snap had gone out of me now and I found that I was pleading with him.

'No,' he said firmly. 'Deb is a shrewd young woman. If that curtain is lengthened now she will realise that you must have insisted on it, and attribute your insistence to the moon having an upsetting effect on you. After that she would need only to pick up another hint or two from your behaviour to guess the truth. Besides, the length of the curtain makes no real difference. What you think you see is nothing but the product of your own imagination, so you would believe you saw it just the same if you occupied a bedroom at the Ritz in London or a mud hut in Timbuktu. All I can do is to prevent others from suspecting your affliction for a time, and in that way give you a chance to recover from it before rumours of your condition reach the Board and bring about a danger of your being certified.'

So, on the face of it, he and I seemed to be dreading that the same grim fate might overtake me; and, if he was to be believed, he was doing his best to save me from it. For a minute or two he went on to reproach me, with what I felt to be commendable forbearance, for having written to Julia so fully about my fears, yet not having said one word of them to him.

I could only repeat that, knowing how busy he was, I had not wanted to worry him. The discussion ended by his urging me to do my utmost to keep my imagination under control; and my promising that I would not write any more letters which would, cause my friends grave anxiety and endanger my own freedom, by giving grounds for the belief that I am going mad.

Later

I am not going to keep my promise to Helmuth.

Last night, after he left me, I was fully convinced that my suspicions of him were unfounded, that I have been the victim of hallucinations, and that he was doing his best to prevent anyone knowing about my mental state so that if it proved no more than a phase I might have a chance to snap out of it without anyone being the wiser. This morning, when I wrote the last entry here, my mind was not quite clear and still partially under the strong influence that he exerts. Now, I am sure that all he said was a pack of clever lies, and am more certain than ever that he is plotting against me.

In order to excuse himself for having held up my letters, he stated his belief that my injury has affected my brain. I did not prompt him to any such theory; he produced it spontaneously entirely off his own bat. That shows which way his mind is working. He knows from my letters that I fear I may be driven insane. He would like to see me insane. So, as a further step towards his object, he tells me that he believes me to be insane already. That, so far, is his sole contribution towards helping me to preserve my sanity.

Let us assume that I have shown signs of mental derangement. What would a true friend, who noticed this and was responsible for me, do? As soon as he was certain that I really was becoming abnormal he would call in the best doctor he could get to advise about my treatment; and, in the meantime, if he realised that any special circumstances were connected with my queerness and tended to increase it, he would at once do all he could to counteract those circumstances. Helmuth has (lone neither of these things, but the exact contrary.

If he does believe me mad he is guilty, not only of denying me such help as he has it in his own power to give, but also of deliberately preventing me from sending out letters which would have led to my receiving proper medical attention. If he does not believe me mad his stopping of my letters is inexcusable, and his suggestion that I am mad a deliberate attempt to make me think that is so. Therefore, whichever way one looks at it, there can be no doubt that he is acting in accordance with a secret design flagrantly contrary to my interests.

The amazing thing is that it has taken me the best part of twenty-four hours to throw off his influence and fully reconvince myself of his enmity. Before, I was going almost entirely on suspicion, but now that I realise the true implications of our showdown I feel that he has convicted himself out of his own mouth. It is an advance of sorts, as it stresses my danger; but, now that time is so precious, those twenty-four hours were a high price to pay merely for a clearing of the mist through which I had already seen the red light glowing.

Sunday, 24th May

A good break this morning. Quite unexpected and very cheering indeed, now that any further possibility of using Taffy to post a letter for me has been ruled out.

1 settled that point quite definitely while I was having my bath last night. Without the least difficulty I put Taffy under, but a moment later he began to blubber and plead with me not to make him do anything contrary to 'the Doctor's' orders. It was just as I feared; Helmuth's treatment of him on Thursday evening has set up such a strong resistance complex in his mind that it would need powers far greater than mine to overcome it; so if I forced the issue his fears would prove stronger than my influence and send him scuttling to Helmuth the moment he was out of my sight.

If I could have got him into a really deep trance I might, perhaps, have overcome his resistance, as I could then have worked on a level of his consciousness so far down as to be still unaffected by Helmuth's prohibitions. But, for one thing. I am still only an amateur hypnotist and, for another, in some types particularly in simple ones, I gather from Bramwell it is often very difficult to get down to the deep levels. Anyway, my efforts to get down to Taffy's failed entirely.

In such a case the only means of overcoming the resistance is to talk to the subject when he is fully conscious, explain the whole matter and endeavour to argue him round. If one succeeds, that is the end of the opposition, and, in my case, it would then be unnecessary to hypnotise Taffy further, as he would do as I wish without.

The snag is that Taffy is far too frightened of Helmuth, and the prospect of losing his job, for me to be able to persuade him to help me with his eyes open. He would, I think, take the risk if I could offer him a good fat wad of cash as a bonus if he is lucky, or compensation if he got the sack; but it would have to be the equivalent of several months' wages, and I have not even a fiver or the means of getting one.

Still, my failure with him last night was more than compensated for by my surprising success this morning. As soon as Deb had settled me in the garden I told her that I had got a fly in my eye, and asked her to fish it out. I had intended only a tentative attempt to test her susceptibility; but the trick worked both more swiftly and more effectively than it did with Taffy. The moment I widened my eyes and projected my will through them that her mind should empty itself and that she should become drowsy her dark eyes became quite limpid, as though they had suddenly gone sightless, and her eyelids drooped languorously.