Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

And I am tied here; unable to help or comfort her; unable even to lift a finger in her defence. I only wish I had the means to kill Helmuth. I'd like to shoot him in the stomach and watch him writhing in agony on the floor. But I haven't yet got that gun. Great-aunt Sarah passed the panel near my bed without stopping, and I had to rap hard on it to call her back. The poor old nitwit had forgotten all about my request; but she promised to bring me a gun tonight. I only hope this second time of asking impresses it more strongly on her mind.

In the meantime I am tied here. I can do nothing against Helmuth unless he is stupid enough to come within my reach. I have no means of finding out how things are with my poor, sweet Sally. I cannot even send her a message.

Later

While I still have the sanity to do so, I wish to record that this, my twenty-first birthday, has been the most ghastly day of my whole life.

For years I have always visualised it as a day of joy, gaiety and rejoicing. Not for myself alone, but for the many thousands of people who are concerned in it. I saw it as a carnival of flowers, music, dancing, wine, and toasts to the long continued prosperity of everyone man, woman and child who are connected with the Jugg enterprises. I expected many gifts, but I meant infinitely to surpass them by what I returned to my people in bonuses, special grants and unexpected pensions.

The war, and my having been rendered hors de combat, rendered the broad picture impossible of full realisation; but it might still have been a day of smiles and happiness. Instead it has been rendered a nightmare through that fiend Helmuth.

As it was, after my long hours of full and hideous wakefulness all through the night, I dozed a little in the midmorning. But for the rest of the day my mind has never ceased to be harrowed by thoughts of Sally.

I have had no word from her, and Konrad could, or would, tell me nothing. I dared not ask him to take a message to her from me, as he would have carried it straight to Helmuth; and I still feel that it is imperative to conceal our friendship.

Just after I had finished my dinner Helmuth came in. Again, I did not dare challenge him openly about her; but I asked him at once what had prevented her from being on duty for the whole day.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, and gave his maddeningly sphinx like smile. 'Our evening did not go quite so smoothly as I expected. She had a fall, in which she bruised herself and hurt her ankle. That's what has kept her in bed today; but it is nothing serious, and she will soon be about again. Anyhow, we have more important things to talk of this evening.'

That told me nothing. I did not believe his story of her having had a fall, for an instant; although she might easily have been badly bruised during the sort of attack in which I had good reason to believe she had been the victim. My hands clenched spasmodically beneath the sheets, and I had to lower my eyes to prevent his seeing the blazing anger in them. To have disclosed my feelings about her might have led him to suspect that I have told her what is going on here, and that she believes me. If he thought that it would bring her into grave danger.

He shook his mane of white hair back, and went on: 'Had we not decided to postpone the celebration of your birthday till next month, I should have come up earlier to offer you my congratulations on attaining your majority. But I have been particularly busy all day making arrangements for the ceremony on the twenty-third; so I thought I would leave it till this evening to bring you my unofficial birthday greetings. You will have read the document that I brought you yesterday. It remains only for you to sign it. Then we will hold a little private celebration. I have told Konrad to bring up a bottle of Champagne that has been on the ice for a couple of hours, when he comes to take away your dinner tray.'

On that score I was, at last, able to let myself go. Taking the document from my bedside table, I said:

'I haven't read this and I'm not going to. As for signing it, I'll see you damned first, you filthy, bloody Communist!' Then, exerting all the strength in my hands, I tore the tough paper through and through and flung the pieces at him.

He went pale with anger and snapped: 'I have another copy, and you shall sign that, yet. How did you know that I am a Communist?'

Throwing caution to the winds, I shouted: 'Your wretched cat’s-paw, Deb, told me. When she was here on Thursday I put her in a trance again; and I got the whole disgusting truth out of her. You are a Commissar, acting under orders from Moscow, and you have been trying to get my money to finance a Communist revolution in Britain.'

His rock like, leonine face broke into a fiendish grin that showed his eye-teeth gleaming ferociously, and his perfect colloquial English suddenly took on the heavy foreign accent that now reappears only when his emotions get the better of him. With all the fervour of a fanatic he flung at me:

'You miserable young fool! Since you know so much you may as well know the rest. I am a Communist, yes; but only for a purpose. That you may the better appreciate all that you have lost by rejecting my offer to make you a member of the Brotherhood I will reveal to you the shape of things to come.

'Socialism is the easy slope which opens natural citadels to capture by Communism. The suppression of freedom which goes with all control of industry, and the nationalisation of public services, is the royal road to Totalitarianism. It gags and binds all individual opposition, while placing all power in the hands of a small group of politicians and highly placed civil servants. Then, it requires only secret infiltration of Communists into those key posts for the fruit to be ripe for the picking.

'In this country, when the word is given a coup d'etat will take place overnight The troops, the police, the B.B.C. and every department of State will be brought under control within a few hours. And the stupid British are so law-abiding that they will never question the orders of their legal superiors until it is too late.

'But to provoke a situation in which this country will accept a Communist coup d'itat without a general uprising it will be necessary first to discredit the Socialist Government. Strikes, sabotage and the skilful manipulation of money will be used to bring about industrial and financial chaos. The Jugg millions are required by us to assist in that. The deterioration in the standard of living will condition the people to accept a stronger form of Government as their only hope. The ground for the coup d'etat will be so carefully prepared that, when it does come, the average British citizen will regard it only as a welcome break from the tyranny of an outworn semi dictatorship by the Trades Unions, and not even suspect that by it his country has finally lost the last shadow of independence.

' Britain will become a bond slave of Moscow, and the unorganised masses will be powerless to lift a finger to prevent it. A few scattered individuals officers, judges, politicians, professional and business men, and Trade Union leaders may realise what is happening, and that it is the end for them. But we shall know how to deal with such reactionaries. The opening of their mouths will be the signal for us to close them for good. It will all be very quiet and orderly, as suits this country. A few hundred people will be removed from their homes by night, and the opposition will be left leaderless.

'But that is not all. That is not the end; it is only a stage in the programme of the Brotherhood. Communism is the perfect vehicle for the introduction of the return of Mankind to his original allegiance. It already denies Christianity and all the other heresies. It denies the right of freewill and the expression of their individuality to all those who live under it. Communism bows down only to material things; and my real master is not Stalin but the Lord of Material Things; Satan the Great, the Deathless, the Indestructible.