Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

'Yes, Toby,' she said. 'I promise. And whatever I think I won't give away what you have been doing. I'd like to read the biographical part especially, as it may help me to help you to get well more quickly if I know more about you. If there are over three hundred pages of it, though, it is going to take a long time to read, so perhaps I had better take them downstairs and start on it now.'

I asked her to get me the albums, extracted the pages I have written in the last few days so that she should not read the entries in which I have confessed my love for her, and gave her the rest.

Looking rather sweetly serious, she took them off with her, while I settled down to make this record of our conversation.

Was I, perhaps, inspired to start this journal before I even knew of her existence, so that she should one day read it? The workings of Providence are sometimes very strange; but perhaps Sally is the 'honest person' who will see the truth through the web of lies that Helmuth has spun, and set me free.

Thursday, 18th June

Anyone can imagine the state of suppressed excitement in which I awaited Sally's verdict this morning. Her face told me nothing when she came in shortly after Konrad, to help me with my morning toilet.

As soon as we were alone together for a moment, I asked her if she had read it all, and she nodded

'Fortunately your writing is pretty legible, except in a few parts which were evidently written when you were overwrought, so I managed to get through it; but it took me till two in the morning. Konrad will be coming up with your breakfast in a moment, though; so I think we had better wait to discuss it until we are out on the terrace.'

So I had to contain my impatience for another hour; but as soon as we were comfortably settled in our corner of the battlements, she said:

'It is an extraordinary document, Toby. I was tremendously impressed; but honestly, I don't know what to say about it.'

"The point is,' I said a little abruptly, 'having read it, do you consider that it is the work of a man who is sane or insane?'

'Honestly, Toby, I can't answer that.' Her voice held an unhappy note. 'Whether you imagine things or whether you don't, there can be no doubt about it that you have been through absolute hell. I cried in places, I simply couldn't help it.'

I think that is the nicest thing she has ever said to me. It almost made having gone through it all worth while, to have touched her heart like that. But the third day of Helmuth's absence was nearly up; he will be back by this time tomorrow, so the paramount need for action forced me to say:

"Thanks for your sympathy, Sally. I'm very grateful for that; but as I am situated it is not enough. I'm afraid I have placed you in a rotten situation. I wouldn't have done so from choice, but I had to; because I am a prisoner here and you happen to be my gaoler, and there is no one else to whom I can appeal for help.

'If I am still here when Helmuth gets back I am going to be sunk for good, You know that, from what you have read of his threats to me. If you consider that those threats are entirely the product of my imagination you will be fully justified in ignoring my plea. But if you feel that there is even a grain of truth in them you are now saddled with a very weighty responsibility. By helping to detain me here against my will you are not only aiding and abetting a criminal conspiracy, but doing something which you know to be morally indefensible.'

She took that very well, and agreed in principle that I was right; but she continued to declare that as she had nothing but my written word to go on it really was impossible for her to judge whether I had invented the more fantastic parts of my story or not. So for an hour or more we argued the matter, passing from the general to the particular, as I strove to convince her that every episode recorded was cold, hard fact.

There were two points in my favour. She had known a girl who had been at Weylands, so had some idea of the amoral principles that are inculcated there which helped to lower Helmuth's stock and she was not at all sceptical about ghosts or the more usually accepted supernormal occurrences. Moreover, she admitted that my whole conception of the motive for a conspiracy was built up on sound logic. But she simply could not swallow the fact that Black Magic is still practised today, and that Helmuth has been employing Satanic power with the object of reducing me to a gibbering idiot.

'All right, then,' I said at last. 'Let's leave the Brotherhood, and the Great Spider, and the question of Helmuth being a servant of the Devil, out of it. If I can prove that he has told you a pack of lies, and slandered me outrageously, in connection with one particular episode, will that convince you that he has an ulterior motive in keeping me here, and induce you to help me get out of his clutches?'

After a moment she nodded. 'Yes. If you can do that, it would satisfy me that he really is plotting to get hold of your money, and whether he is using occult power to aid him, or not, becomes beside the point. Either way it would be up to me to do what I can to protect you from his criminal intentions. But I don't see how you are going to prove anything.'

'I may be able to,' I replied; 'but I shall need your help. Getting you to read the journal at all only arose through your running into Deborah Kain in the village yesterday, and because I wanted you to know my side of that particular story. If you will go down to the village again, and get her to come up here, I'll find a way to make her tell the truth; then you'll see if it is Helmuth or I who has been lying.'

'I can find her easily enough, because I know that she is living with the Gruffydds; but whether I can persuade her to come up here is quite another matter.'

'If you tell her that Helmuth is away until tomorrow, so there is no chance of her running into him, I think I can guarantee that she'll come back with you,' I said with a smile. 'I will write a little note for you to give her, and when she has read it I shall be very surprised if she does not agree to play.'

'You mean to hold some threat over her?' Sally frowned suspiciously.

'I do,' I admitted. 'But only to get her up here. After that you shall see for yourself that I won't use threats on her to get the truth.'

Turning my chair, I wheeled myself back into my room, got a sheet of notepaper and wrote on it:

My Dear Deb,

I am anxious to ask you a few questions, and it is of the utmost importance that I should put them to you at once; so would you be good enough to accompany Nurse Cardew back to the Castle.

In view of all you told me of your early life and political persuasions I am sure you will agree that it is much better that I should have this chat with you than to have to ask Mr. Gruffydd to come up to see me.

I addressed the envelope, then wheeled myself back to the terrace and showed the letter to Sally. When she had read it she said:

'I remember, now, all that business about her being a Communist, that you got out of her when you had her in a hypnotic trance. You're threatening to tell her fiancй. That is blackmail, you know!'

'My dear Sally!' I exclaimed impatiently. 'I don't care if it is theft, forgery, arson, and all the other crimes in the Newgate Calendar. I'd commit the lot to get out of here; and since you insist on my proving my words before you will help me to escape, it is you who are driving me to commit this one.'

'I'm sorry, Toby.' Her voice had become quite meek. 'You're right about me forcing you into this; but I've got to know the truth, and the sooner the better. It is nearly twelve o clock now, and it's a good bet that she'll be at the Gruffydds' house at lunchtime. If I borrow a bicycle from one of the servants and start right away, I shall be down in the village well before one. I'll have a snack myself at the teashop, then if all goes well pick her up afterwards and be back here soon after two.'