The Haunting of Toby Jugg (31 page)

I felt the time had come to be really tough; so after a moment’s pause I went on: ‘One way and another you’ve been jolly decent to me, Uncle Paul, and I’m very grateful to you; but you haven’t been ill-rewarded for giving me a home. The Trustees agreed that I should be brought up in the sort of surroundings I should have enjoyed if my father had still been alive. Queensclere and Kensington Palace Gardens were kept on, and you were allowed twenty thousand a year to maintain them as a suitable background
for me. I couldn’t have cost you much more than a twentieth of that, and the rest was yours to play around with as you liked.

‘For thirteen years you have lived like a Prince on my money. You have had your hunters, your racing-stable, your shooting, and trips to Deauville and the South of France whenever you felt that way inclined. I don’t grudge you one moment of the fun you’ve had. All I want to know this afternoon is if you wish it to go on?’

He stared at me, his mouth, under his brushed-up Guards moustache, a little agape. Then he stammered: ‘Is—is this what you meant when you asked me to come down to see you about—about future financial arrangements?’

‘That’s it, Uncle,’ I said. ‘Until quite recently I have always had it in mind that, when I come of age, I would make a settlement to ensure that you and Julia should have everything in reason that you wanted for the rest of your lives. I’d still like to do that; but I’m in a spot. You may think some of my present views a little eccentric, but you know darned well that I am not insane, If anyone has gone a bit haywire it is Helmuth. But you have got to side with either him or me. I am appealing to you now as my legal Guardian; and if you do as I wish you are going to be in clover; not for a few months only but for good and all.

‘If you prefer to shelve your responsibility and leave me in his hands, one fine morning you are going to wake up to find yourself stark naked in the breeze. Because from the moment I
do
get control of the Jugg millions you are going to be right back where you were thirteen years ago; and, as God is my witness, you shall never see another penny of them.’

I suppose it was pretty brutal, and I could never have put it so bluntly if Julia had been with him. Afterwards, I felt an awful cad about it, but not at the time; and it had a most curious effect on him. He hunched his shoulders and almost cowered away from me, as though he was a dog that I had been giving a beating. Then, when I’d done, he gave a slight shudder, and sighed:

‘You mean that, Toby, don’t you? Perhaps old Albert Abel was right to leave you the Jugg Empire, lock, stock and barrel, although you were only a kid. Perhaps, even then, he sensed that
you had something of himself in you and would make a go of it. I believe you will, too, if you’re ever able to get about again. Anyway he was right about me. There was too much money for me to have gambled it all away; but cads like Iswick would have had the breeches off me within a couple of years. They won’t off you, though. When you were speaking just now it might have been your grandfather browbeating some wretched competitor into selling out. I had no idea you could be so hard.’

‘I’m not being hard,’ I countered. ‘I’m only being logical. I’m up against it, and I’m simply using such weapons as I possess; that’s all. I know you’re frightened of Helmuth; everybody is; that’s why I have to go the limit to get you on my side; otherwise I would never have put it the way I did.’

He nodded. ‘I see your point, old man. Lot in it, too. Mind, I don’t believe for a minute that you’re right about Helmuth. He honestly thinks you’ve gone a bit queer, and that the fewer people who get to know about it the better. As he has been stopping your letters, and you couldn’t let us know how you felt about wanting to leave Llanferdrack, I suppose there’s quite a case for your having tried to escape on your own. But that nice young nurse of yours tells me that you’ve created merry hell here more than once, and used the most
feahf’l
language.’

‘True enough,’ I admitted. ‘And wouldn’t you, if you were treated like a prisoner? I’m not even allowed in the garden now; and look at this room. Can you possibly imagine anything more like a cell in the Bastille?’

‘I could get Helmuth to alter all that,’ he offered, a little more cheerfully, ‘but as you say yourself, he’s a tough proposition. I’m afraid it would take a greater nerve than I’ve got to sack him. Even if that were justified, which I don’t think it is. And as the Trustees placed you in his care, I don’t at all like the idea of telling him that I’ve made other plans for you.’

‘You are going to, though; aren’t you?’ I insisted, striving to keep the anxiety out of my voice. ‘Getting him to ease up the prison routine is not enough. I am relying on you to get me out of his clutches at once, and for good.’

‘Yes, old man. I quite see that.’ He stood up and, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, began to pace agitatedly back and
forth, evidently wondering how best he could set about the unpleasant task I had forced upon him. After a few turns, he stopped in his tracks and faced me:

‘Look here, Toby, I can’t tackle Helmuth alone. He’s too fast for me. In any argument over you he’d win in a canter. You know that. You must give me a day or two to get a bit of help for the job.’

‘What sort of help?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘Well, if I called a meeting of the Trustees, exclusive of Helmuth, and they——’

‘No good,’ I cut him short. ‘It would take at least a week to get them together. I can’t wait that long.’

‘All right, old man, all right. But I could have a word with one or two of them and get their backing. Iswick and Roberts are both still in London. Besides, I simply must talk to Julia about it. She’ll be
feahf’lly
upset, as she has always taken such a good view of Helmuth. But she’s much cleverer than I am, and once she realises that you’re dead set on being moved she’ll think of some way of doing the trick neatly.’

I saw that if I forced him to act there and then he would only make a mess of things, so with considerable reluctance I said:

‘Very well then. But the best I can do is to give you forty-eight hours. I hate to put it this way, Uncle, but I really did mean all I said a little while back. So, for your own sake as well as mine, don’t let Iswick, or anyone, argue you round into doing nothing. I’m pretty well at the end of my tether, and if you haven’t got me away from here by the weekend I shall consider that you have deliberately let me down. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, old man.’ Uncle Paul nodded vigorously. ‘You’ve made it as plain as a pike-staff. Not giving me much time to work in, though, are you? I’d meant to stay here the night; but since you’re in such a desperate hurry, perhaps I’d better travel back to London this evening.’

‘I think that would be an excellent idea,’ I agreed. ‘As a matter of fact I meant to suggest it; because as things are I think it would be a very bad thing for you to spend the evening with Helmuth. Seeing that it’s a fine afternoon, he is almost certain to be out at this hour; so if you telephone for a car at once you may be able to
get away without even seeing him. Anyway, I’m sure you’d be well advised to avoid a long session with him tonight. He’s a persuasive devil, and drinking a couple of bottles of Cockburns ‘12 with him after dinner might cost you a five-figure income.’

He laughed, a little weakly. ‘By gad, Toby, you’ve got a darned unpleasant sense of humour; but it’s just like your grandfather’s.’

‘I wasn’t being funny,’ I said quietly.

After that we said goodbye, and he hurried off to order a car, and get his things repacked while waiting for it.

An hour and a half later Helmuth came in. He gave me a searching look and said: ‘What’s happened to your uncle? Why did he rush off like that?’

‘How would I know?’ I replied with a bland smile. ‘He said something about not being able to stay the night because he had urgent business in London.’

A cat-like grin spread over Helmuth’s face and he gave a sudden sardonic laugh. ‘If you think that your Uncle Paul is capable of removing you from my care, you are making a big mistake. Kill or cure, I mean to see this matter through; and you still have a lot to learn about my powers for asserting my will.’ Then he turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

In spite of what he said, there was something in his manner which told me that he was both annoyed, and a little rattled, at Uncle Paul having side-stepped him. And I am pretty confident that I have really scared my uncle into taking action. So, although I’m very far from being out of the wood, I feel tonight that I can at least see a ray of daylight.

Friday, 5th June

I have solved the mystery of the footsteps. Doing so shook me to the core. I break out into a muck sweat when I recall the terror that engulfed me as a result of my curiosity overcoming my fears.

It was the knowledge that the odds are now on my being out of here before the weekend is over that had restored my nerve and tempted me into opening this Pandora’s box. When I heard those steps on the stairs again last night at the usual hour, I plucked up
all my courage and rapped with my knuckles sharply on the wainscoting behind the head of my bed.

The steps halted for a moment, then went on. I rapped again. They halted again; then there came a weird creaking sound.

It is now seven nights since the moon was full, so tomorrow she will be passing into her last quarter. The light she gives is already nowhere near as bright as it was. It does no more than make the grating stand out as a luminous patch in the middle of the wall, and dilute the darkness with a faint greyness. I could barely discern the outline of my bedside table, and the wall beyond it was a solid patch of blackness until, as the creaking sounded, it was split by a long, thin ribbon of light.

I held my breath and my heart began to thump. I wished to God that I had let sleeping dogs lie, but by then it was too late to do anything except curse myself for a fool.

A bony hand suddenly emerged from the strip of light. I saw it plainly. I cowered back. My teeth clenched in an instinctive effort to check the scream that rose to my throat.

It was a small hand; but the fingers were very long and the knuckles very pronounced. It seemed to claw at the nearest edge of the lighted strip. The creaking recommenced. The strip of light widened. I realised then that a panel in the wainscoting was being forced back. I wondered frantically what frightful thing I had so wantonly summoned to me. Something, I knew, was about to emerge from behind the panel into the room. Was the hand human or the limb of some ghastly, satanic entity, that had its origin in the Pit?

I was so overcome with fear as to what I might see next that I shut my eyes. The creaking ceased and was followed by a rustling sound. Then there was a faint clatter and a shuffling on the floor, only a yard from my bed. My eyes started open and I saw a vague grey figure leaning forward to peer at me. I shrunk away; thrusting out my hands to protect myself and moaning with terror.

Suddenly the figure laughed—a high-pitched, unnatural, eerie cackle. The sound seemed to turn my blood to water. Then its voice came—brittle but human, with a child-like treble note:

‘Why, it’s Toby Jugg. What are you doing up here?’

With a gasp of ineffable relief, I realised that this midnight
visitor was only my poor, old, half-witted Great-aunt Sarah; and that the outer wall of the Castle must contain a secret stairway that she uses for some purpose of her own each night.

‘God, what a fright you gave me!’ I exclaimed, with a semi-hysterical laugh. Then I levered myself up in the bed with my hands, till I was sitting propped against the pillows, to get a better look at her.

She had left her candle on the steps behind the opening of the panel through which she had come. By its light I could see now that she was wrapped in a long pale-blue dressing-gown, the skirts of which trailed on the floor. Her scant hair hung in grey wisps about her thin face, and her eyes gleamed with a bright, feverish light. As I took in the macabre figure that she cut I felt that I had no reason to be ashamed of the panic with which I had been seized at the first glimpse of her. Despite the fact that she entirely lacked the aura of Evil that had made my flesh creep with the coming of the Shadow, she was infinitely nearer to the ghost of tradition, and I am sure that on coming face to face with such an apparition at dead of night plenty of people far braver than I am would have lost their nerve.

Picking up her candlestick and holding the light aloft, so that she could see me better, she repeated in her shrill treble: ‘What are you doing up here, Toby Jugg?’

Since my arrival at Llanferdrack I had seen her only about half-a-dozen times with her companion, in the garden; and, although I had exchanged a few words with the latter, she had never spoken to me herself, so I was surprised that she even knew who I was. Evidently the old girl was not entirely gaga, and as I wanted to find out what she was up to, I said as gently as I could:

‘Dr. Lisický had me moved up here a few days ago, Aunt Sarah. I’m living here now. You don’t mind that, do you? But what are you doing? Why do you go down those stairs every night at eleven o’clock?’

‘To dig my tunnel,’ she replied at once. Then a sudden look of fear came into her eyes and she clapped a skinny hand over her mouth, like a child who realises that it has inadvertently let out a secret.

‘Why are you digging a tunnel?’ I asked quietly.

‘You won’t tell—you won’t tell! Please, Toby Jugg, please! Nettie must never know. She would stop me. He’s waiting for me there. I am his only hope. You won’t tell Nettie—please, please!’ Her words came tumbling out in a spate of apprehension. By ‘Nettie’ I guessed that she meant her old sour-puss of a companion, Miss Nettelfold.

‘I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone,’ I assured her. ‘But now you’ve told me about the tunnel there is no reason why you shouldn’t share the rest of your secret with me, is there? Where does your tunnel go to; and who is “he”?’

‘Why, he is Lancelot, of course.’ Her eyes widened with surprise at my ignorance. ‘Surely you know that she is keeping him a prisoner there, at the bottom of the lake?’