The Haunting of Toby Jugg (36 page)

‘I would give a lot to be able to do that,’ I sighed. ‘I have often wondered if anything could be done for me by faith-healing.’

‘This is much more than that,’ he smiled, ‘and far more potent, as it brings into play certain ancient laws which are entirely unknown to the ordinary faith-healer. But I was telling you of some of the feats that the human will can perform when properly directed. Quite apart from the use of hypnotism it can put thoughts and impulses into other people’s heads. It can attract women and dissipate their moral scruples, so that they surrender without even realising that they are acting entirely contrary to their original intentions. Given certain aids and great concentration of will, one can foresee glimpses of the future.

‘By similar means one can also see what is going on through walls or at a distance. That is how I found out that you were preparing to escape with Deb’s help, and was able to come down to the hall just as you were leaving. I should have found out that you were about to escape with Taffy too, if I had had my mental eye on you; but that night I was occupied with other matters. By projecting the will one can influence people through their dreams, and one can also ill-wish them. As a last resort one can even cause them to decline and die. Those are only some of the weapons possessed by the members of the Brotherhood; and it is prepared to use them all in order to overcome such opposition as it encounters.’

I was silent for a moment; my brain whirling with the appalling thoughts he had conjured up. At length I said:

‘Hypnotism, faith-healing, thought-reading and other mental processes where the operator imposes his will face to face with the subject, are recognised by the medical world and explainable by the direct human contact that takes place. But to see what is happening at a distance, to influence people’s dreams, to be able to ill-wish them and send them death, are surely powers which can be acquired only through God or the Devil.’

He shrugged. ‘That is an old-fashioned way of putting it.’

‘Perhaps it is,’ I muttered. ‘But you don’t deny it; although you have always told me that you do not believe in either.’

‘One may reject the teaching of the Bible, yet accept the fact that forces outside this world govern everything in it.’

Suddenly Helmuth stood up; his tawny eyes gleamed with a strange light and his foreign accent became more marked as he went on:

‘The secret of willing down power, or, if you prefer it, setting great supernatural forces in motion on one’s own behalf, has been known to the initiate from time immemorial. Generation by generation it has been handed down, and today this priceless knowledge is the greatest asset of the Brotherhood. To become an initiate one must take the oath of obedience, subscribe to certain tenets of faith and master various complicated rituals. Those rituals are the jealously guarded secret of the chosen few; but, once you have become adept at them, you can operate the forces
which we term Supernatural, because they are beyond all normal experience; and, through them, achieve your ambitions and desires. Such power is infinitely greater than any that wealth alone can bring, and in the name of the Brotherhood I offer it to you.’

I collected my wits as quickly as I could, and said: ‘To become one of such a gifted company would be a great honour; anybody could see that. But the whole thing is so astonishing—so extraordinary—so, well, so utterly fantastic by all ordinary standards, that I am still very much at sea.’

He grinned at me. ‘Yes. It is hardly surprising that you should feel a bit bowled over on first learning the magnitude of the powers that the Brotherhood possesses. But now that you know the truth about it, if there are any questions you want to ask, fire away.’

Controlling my voice with an effort, I replied: ‘You have already answered the one that interests me most: that about the possibilities of getting back my health. But there is one other thing I would like to know. To put it bluntly, what is it going to cost for me to become a member?’

‘I thought I told you yesterday.’ He raised the well-marked dark eyebrows that contrast so strangely with his mane of white hair. ‘In that way it is the same as joining a Religious Order. You would make over to the Brotherhood everything you possess. But there the resemblance ends; because the fact that you had done so would always be kept secret, and you would not be required to take a vow of poverty; so for all practical purposes you would continue in the full enjoyment of your fortune.’

‘Isn’t that a bit too much to ask?’ I protested rather meekly. ‘I mean, there can’t be many new initiates who have more than a few thousand to make over; so why should the Brotherhood require the whole of the Jugg millions to accept me?’

With a wave of his hand he brushed the question aside. ‘My dear Toby! The amount that an initiate can contribute in worldly wealth does not enter into the matter. Some who have practically nothing of a cash value to offer are accepted on account of their intelligence, or the promise they show in some other direction. You cannot expect an exception to be made for you in the rules
of a foundation that has existed unchanged for countless centuries. It could not be considered even if you were the King of England.’

‘I see,’ I said, still very humbly. ‘I only enquired because of my grandfather.’

‘What has he to do with it?’ Helmuth frowned.

I endeavoured to look as worried as I could. ‘He made all this money; and he went to extraordinary lengths to leave his fortune to me intact—even to spending a considerable portion of his income during the latter part of his life in insuring against death-duties. In view of that I am wondering if I really have the right to part with the control of it.’

Helmuth took the scruple I had raised quite seriously. ‘I see your point,’ he said. ‘But I am sure that, on consideration, you will feel that he would approve your surrendering the lesser power that his wealth can give you for the greater power that has now been placed within your grasp. Anyhow, the last thing I would wish is to influence you into doing anything against your conscience. There is no immediate hurry. Think it over, and we’ll talk about it again tomorrow.’

So I succeeded in stalling him without arousing his suspicions. To fight for a little time seemed the only possible line that I could take. Had I refused point blank I would not even have gained these few hours to prepare myself to face a renewal of his hostility. But at last the naked truth is out. Helmuth
is
a Satanist.

Friday, 12th June

Yesterday was, I think, the blackest of the many black days that have fallen to my wretched lot since I arrived at Llanferdrack. After I had written out the conversation I had with Helmuth the previous night—as near word for word as I could remember it—I spent practically the whole of the rest of the day turning over in my mind the terrible implications of his admissions about the Brotherhood.

Actually, except for what little sleep I got, I had been doing that ever since he left me; but as the day wore on my speculations plumbed ever grimmer depths. However, to record them would
be pointless, as I have since seen Helmuth again, and he has come out into the open.

He came up here soon after tea, and Sally was still with me; so for about ten minutes the conversation was general. She remarked that although there must be thousands of books in the library she could not find a thing worth reading there. Upon which he laughed, told her about how old Albert Abel I had bought them for so much the yard, then added:

‘But I have plenty of good modern books in my study. You had better dine with me again one evening; we’ll go through them afterwards and you can see which you would like to borrow. My evenings are rather fully occupied at present, as I am getting out some special figures in connection with the estate; but how about Sunday?’

Sally accepted with obvious pleasure. Shortly afterwards she left us, and while her high heels were still echoing on the stone stairs Helmuth grinned across at me.

‘What a splendid specimen of the female
Homo sapiens
; and what an interesting contrast to Deborah Kain! Such a simple, healthy young animal is certain to possess all the normal urges, but it will be amusing to see how deeply they are overlaid by middle-class inhibitions.’

I did not reply. I’ve done my best to warn Sally, and if she still persists in sticking out her neck, that is her affair. I had far too much reason for acute anxiety on my own account to give it further thought at the moment; and, anyway, there was nothing I could do about it.

‘Your mind is obviously on graver issues,’ he remarked. ‘What decision have you reached as a result of our talk yesterday?’

I took the only line I had been able to think of, and said as tactfully as I could that, while I greatly appreciated all he wished to do for me, I could not square it with my conscience to hand over my grandfather’s fortune to anyone.

He stood up, thrust his hands in his pockets and began to pace up and down. Without inviting any comment from me he went on talking for a long time, and this is what he said:

‘You are being very foolish, Toby; and I don’t think that you can have yet fully appreciated your position.

‘According to the last vetting by your doctors you are likely to remain a helpless cripple for a long time to come, if not for life. Added to which you have recently developed mental trouble, of which I will speak later. I have offered you a very good chance of being able to walk again within the next few months, and a definite cessation of what we will term your “hallucinations”. Moreover, I have shown you that in ten or fifteen years at the most everything points to a Socialist Government depriving you of all but a fraction of your millions, and I have suggested a means by which, in spite of that, you may continue to enjoy all the benefits of wealth. Yet you pigheadedly refuse to accept my proposal.

‘Now, I should like you to understand one thing clearly. No man can serve two masters; and I do not regard you as my master. My whole allegiance is given to the Brotherhood and all it stands for. I had hoped that while serving them I might also help you. But since you will not see reason I must proceed to carry out the project that I have in mind; even though it will result in what virtually amounts to your destruction.

‘This project is no new idea conceived within the last few weeks. It was considered and approved by the Brotherhood many years ago while you were still a small boy; shortly after you came to Weylands. It was decided that, as soon as you came of age, the great fortune which is still being held in Trust for you must come under the Brotherhood’s control; and I was selected to carry out the plan to secure it. That is why I have devoted so much of my life to you.

‘By running away from Weylands and joining the R.A.F. you temporarily upset our calculations; because had you not done that you would have been initiated on leaving, at the end of nineteen-thirty-nine. Like all our other scholars, life at the school had prepared you to accept initiation without question. Your mind had been conditioned to do so by the elimination of all moral scruples and primitive taboos. You would have thought the ancient mysteries fascinating, the rituals exciting, and the whole conception a perfect outlet for your abilities and ambitions. Had things panned out according to our original plan you would have been a member of the Brotherhood for two-and-a-half years now; and on the twentieth of this month you would have handed
over your fortune without the least hesitation or regret. But Fate decreed otherwise.

‘If it had not been for your being shot down when you were we might have had some difficulty in getting you into our hands again; but, even if I had not succeeded in doing so, I think you may take it as certain that some of your old school friends would have appeared upon the scene, and sooner or later manœuvred you into a position from which you would have found no escape but to join us.

‘As things are, your crash brought you back to me with three clear months in which to work upon you before you attained your majority; so it turns out in the end that not a day will be lost in the Brotherhood assuming control of your money.

‘When you arrived here, it did not take me long to see that life in the R.A.F. had undone a great part of the work that had been put in upon you during your school years. Many of the petty little ideals and outworn shibboleths of your brother officers had proved contagious. It would have taken years to argue you out of all of them, even if that had proved possible at all now that your mind has attained maturity and no longer has the plastic quality of youth. So I had to adopt other measures.

‘You have no doubt heard the expression “conditioning” as applied by the Gestapo’s treatment of prisoners from whom they wish to extract confessions, and so on. I am told that they plunge them into baths of ice-cold water, and tap their muscles gently for an hour or two each day with rubber truncheons. Well, during April and May, although the methods I employed were not of a violent nature, I have been conditioning you.’

‘You filthy bastard!’ I burst out; but he ignored me and went on:

‘The object of the “conditioning” was, of course, to create a situation, and to bring you to a frame of mind, in which you would agree to sign certain papers on your birthday, and accept initiation into the Brotherhood as soon as that can be arranged.’

My temper snapped, and I shouted: ‘I’ll do neither! I’ll be damned if I’ll make my money over to a lot of Devil-worshipping crooks!’

He smiled sardonically. ‘You may beg to be allowed to before
I am through with you. But by then it may be too late. Your state may be such that the Brotherhood would no longer consider it desirable to have you as a member.’

‘Then you’d have cut off your nose to spite your face,’ I retorted, ‘for in that case they wouldn’t get my money.’

‘Oh yes, they would!’ His smile broadened to a grin. ‘At least, they would be able to control the use to which it is put; and that is really all they wish to do. It is to your
mental
state that I was referring, and if it had deteriorated to that degree you would be judged unfit to inherit. The Board of Trustees would then continue to administer your affairs; and it would not take me very long so to arrange matters that the Board’s future decisions were in accordance with the wishes of the Brotherhood.’