Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

The results of my effort were lamentably poor. Helmuth had clearly been in a highly suspicious mood on his return, but having found everything as he had left it, and particularly Sally having told him of my attempt to bribe her, must have done a lot to reassure him. So the best I could hope for was that if nothing occurred to cause him to take special precautions, we might have a decent chance of making our escape tonight.

The devil of it is that he will come up this afternoon, or evening, for his answer. I am determined not to give in, but if I defy him there is the dreadful possibility that he may carry out his threat to employ the Great Spider.

God knows how I will ever bring myself to face that fearful Satanic beast, and the touch of it may well drive me insane. But Helmuth must know that, and such a possibility seems to be the only card that I have left. If he does drive me insane he will have burnt his boats as far as the short, easy way of getting control of the Jugg millions is concerned. He will get hold of them in the long run, but that will take a considerable time, and an immense amount of skilful intrigue would be required before he could oust the Trustees that might oppose his plans, and achieve absolute control of the Board. Whereas if he can get me to sign a power of attorney he will have achieved complete victory by a single stroke of the pen. So I must play on that. The Sabbath, at which I take it the Brotherhood mean to celebrate a full-scale Black Mass in the chapel here, is not to take place until Tuesday five nights hence so I must temporise to the utmost of my ability in the hope of winning another two or three days' grace.

If only I can get him to postpone extreme measures until Sunday or Monday, Sally may be able to get me away before then. But there is no guarantee that he will not issue an ultimatum to me this evening; and as I lay in the dark last night, realising that in another twenty-four hours I might have to face the Great Spider, the thought alone was enough to make me sweat with terror.

It was casting frantically about in my mind for a means to defend myself that made me think of Great-aunt Sarah. What effect, if any, a bullet would have on a supernatural beast I have no idea, but I do know that I would feel considerably more courageous with a firearm in my hand if I am called on to face it.

I doubt if there is a pistol in the Castle, unless Helmuth keeps one somewhere, and, even if he does, it would be impossible to get hold of that; but there must be several shotguns and ammunition in the gunroom, and it occurred to me that I might get Great-aunt Sarah to bring me one tonight.

In consequence, when I heard her going down the staircase in the wall behind my bed, I rapped on the panel and called her in. After making polite enquiries about the progress of her tunnel, I told her what I wanted her to do for me, and thank God, without even asking me what I meant to do with a gun up here, she readily agreed to my request.

This is a great comfort, as if I don't need the gun tonight I can hide it behind the back of my bed; then I'll have it handy and, in the last event, I'll be able to fill Helmuth full of lead.

Later

It rained this morning, so Sally and I were not able to go out on to our terrace as usual; but we had a long talk here in my room. I gave her a full account of Helmuth's conversations with me during the few days before he went away as I did not let her have the latter pages of my journal when she read the rest of it, because they contained several passages referring to my love for her so she is now up to date with the whole situation and, thank goodness, she no longer doubts any part of what I told her.

She was, once more, sweetly sympathetic about the hell I have been through, and when I had finished, she said:

'You must have done something pretty frightful in one of your previous lives to be landed with a packet like this; but at least you have the consolation of knowing that you are paying it off, and that whatever happens now you will go forward with a much cleaner start in the future.'

I looked at her in surprise. 'Do you honestly believe that this is what the Hindus call Karma; and that there really is something in Reincarnation?'

'Why not?' she smiled. 'It is the only creed which provides a logical explanation to any and every human experience; that is, if you believe that the power which created the world, and us, is both intelligent and just and if you don't believe that, then the whole scheme of things does not make sense.'

'Not to believe it would be to argue that God is an inferior being to men,' I replied; 'so one must.'

'Then if He is intelligent He would not permit the destruction of His property by wars, starvation and disease, pointlessly or allow us to be the victims of all the other ills that inflict us in this life, needlessly but only for our own ultimate good as a part of a great pattern. And if He is just, He would not condemn anybody to suffer for all eternity because they had failed to make good in the infinitesimal fraction of a second, which by comparison is all that anyone gets in even the longest of human lifespan. However much evil might have been crammed into that single life the punishment would still be out of proportion to the crime; and that is not justice.'

I nodded. 'You're certainly right there. Do go on.'

'You will remember the famous bit in the Bible about the "sins of the fathers" and God venting His wrath on those who had displeased Him "even unto the third and fourth generation". Well, what could be more flagrantly unjust than punishing innocent children for the faults of their grandparents?'

'Yet it happens, in the form of syphilis,' I murmured.

'Of course it does; and lots of children are born with T.B., although there is no taint of sin about their grandparents having caught that. But it doesn't follow in the least that because a child starts life with an hereditary disease it is through God seeking to revenge Himself upon someone who may already be dead. To accept that puts God on a par with a criminal lunatic. But look at it a different way and you'll see that the disabilities with which many children are born result from a just and logical process.'

'Oh, come, Sally!' I cocked an eyebrow at her. 'You're going to find it difficult to make a case for that.'

'Not at all,' she replied quietly. 'I believe that in the course of ages the real meaning of the Bible text became obscured and was then lost altogether. I think it was originally a warning that people who led evil lives would have to pay for it "unto the third and fourth generation" of their own personalities. That is, if you take it that each time our spirit is reborn in a new body we inherit the mental and physical disabilities and, of course, all the good things too that are due to us as a result of the good or ill that we did in our previous lives. If, in one life, a man forces some poor girl into prostitution with the result that she contracts syphilis, and in the next he is born with it himself, you wouldn't consider such a punishment either illogical or unjust, would you?'

'You've certainly made your case,' I smiled. 'But does the punishment always fit the crime?'

'Always. It is never a fraction more or less than you deserve.'

'How about my back; what do you think I did to deserve that?'

'It may be that you were due to learn patience as a cripple; or simply that the Nazi was paying off an old score, because long ago you had broken his back with a battleaxe, or something.'

Then will I have to break his again in some future life, to punish him in his turn? It seems a stupid game to go on playing tit for tat like that through all eternity.'

'Oh no. You will be given the chance; and if you care to take it you will be in the clear, as you are entitled to give back what you get. But not a fraction more, mind. And if you are wise you will refrain from taking your revenge. It is by suppressing one's anger, and turning the other cheek, that one achieves spiritual progress.'