‘Oh, be your age; and stop talking hot air about your professional honour! You won’t have any honour of any kind left if you have much more to do with Dr. Helmuth Lisický.’
Her blue eyes blazed, and she retorted: ‘If you were not, one—a cripple; two—my patient; and three—suffering from erotomania, I would slap your face.’
Wednesday, 17th June
I have blotted it again. Last night I decided that since there seems no possible chance of securing Sally’s conscious aid, I must attempt to hypnotise her, and force her into helping me unconsciously. The idea was intensely repugnant to me, but desperate ills call for desperate remedies; and if ever a man was desperate, I am.
This morning, after we had been out on the terrace for about ten minutes, I tried the trick that had worked so well with Deb. I said that I had got a fly in my eye, and asked her to fish it out.
In an instant she rounded on me, called me an ‘unscrupulous young brute’ and proceeded to flay me with her tongue. I suppose that before Helmuth sacked Deb he got out of her particulars of how I had gone to work in her case. Anyhow he had told Sally about it the first night that she dined with him and warned her to be on her guard in case I attempted the same trick on her. Worse, he inferred that I had not only used the hypnotic control that I succeeded in acquiring over Deb to force her to help me to escape, but had used it before that to secure her unwilling cooperation in indulging my immoral aberrations.
Of course I hotly denied it; but that got me nowhere; and I don’t wonder now that Sally takes such a dim view of me. She said that she would have thrown up the case and gone back to London days ago if she had not realised that when these fits seize me I am not responsible for my actions. So all I have succeeded in doing is to strengthen her conviction that I am an erotomaniac, and, this morning, made a most despicable attempt to make her my unwilling victim.
By this afternoon Helmuth will have been gone two days; and that is just half the period of grace that I have been granted. I have shot both my bolts with Sally, and have not another round of any kind left in the locker.
Later
It was Sally’s afternoon off and she went down to the village; but there is nothing much to do there, so after tea she came up to sit with me. She was in a much more pleasant mood and, without exactly apologising, she inferred that she was sorry about having flared out at me as she did this morning. She said that I am so normal most of the time that she is apt to forget that my mind is unbalanced, so goes off the deep end when these occasional evidences of my malady occur, instead of calmly ignoring them. So I think her early return to keep me company was partly a gesture of the amende honourable variety.
I accepted it as such only too willingly, and after we had talked of trivialities for a bit, she said:
‘I met your ex-nurse, Deborah Kain, in the village post-office this afternoon.’
‘Did you?’ I exclaimed. ‘I thought she had gone back to London.’
‘No. I gather that she is engaged to the village schoolmaster, a man named Gruffydd, and is staying with him and his mother.’
‘What did you think of her?’ I asked.
Sally smiled. ‘Rather a flashy type, isn’t she? I mean not at all the sort of person one would expect to find in these parts; or anyhow, not dressed the way she was. Her off-smart clothes, silk stockings, high heels and hair-do might have looked all right in Oxford Street, but they were a bit startling for Llanferdrack. I had no idea who she was until she came up and introduced herself. I suppose somebody had pointed me out to her as your new nurse. She asked me how I was liking it up at the Castle.’
‘And what did you say to that one?’ I smiled back.
‘Oh, I was very non-committal,’ Sally shrugged. ‘I’m quite good at minding my own business, and other people’s. I said that Helmuth was charming and you were a pet—which is by no means true all of the time—and asked her why she had chucked up such a pleasant job. That shook her rather; but she took refuge in the fib that, although she had liked both you and the Doctor immensely, when she had become engaged her fiancé had insisted on her leaving so that they could be together more often.’
We laughed a lot over that, as it was so absurdly far off the facts; but it suddenly occurred to me that Sally did not know the real truth about Deb’s relations with Helmuth and myself—only a small part of it, with a number of entirely false additions given her by Helmuth. I knew that it was useless to give her my own version, as she would never believe me, and only get in an ill-humour again from supposing that I was once more attempting to blacken Helmuth in her eyes. But there was one way which, if it did not entirely convince her of the respective parts we had played, might at least arouse doubts in her mind about Helmuth’s veracity.
‘Sally,’ I said, ‘can you keep a secret?’
She nodded.
‘I mean really keep it,’ I went on. ‘To me this one is of vital importance. I want you to give me your word that in no circumstances whatsoever will you disclose it to Helmuth or anyone else without my permission.’
‘I’ll give you my word, then,’ she agreed. ‘All this sounds very mysterious.’
‘No. It’s very down-to-earth, really.’
While I had been speaking the idea in my mind had swiftly developed. I realised that if I was to make this final bid to convince her that Helmuth was a rogue, to give her only the part that Deb had played in the story would be like producing a single slice of a large cake. So I decided to go the whole hog, and went on:
‘Ever since the beginning of May I have been keeping a journal. You must often have seen me scribbling away with one of my stamp albums open on my knees. But I was not making long notes about water-marks, perforations and freak issues, as I pretended; I was entering up my diary, which now runs to over three hundred loose sheets.
‘You believe me to be mad; but you admit that for much the greater part of the time I am perfectly sane, so the great bulk of my writing must have been done when I was normal. My reason for writing the journal was because I believe myself to be the victim of a conspiracy to drive me insane. I hoped that if the conspiracy succeeded, and I was put in a lunatic asylum, some honest person might come across my papers, realise the truth, and take steps to get me out. That is why I have taken considerable pains to prevent anyone here knowing of the existence of this document. You see, they might destroy it; and I regard it as my only remaining lifeline.
‘If you read what I have written you may consider much of it to be the ravings of a lunatic; but it will tell you a great deal about me that you don’t know, and of which independent proof is easily available. It will tell you all about my family and my early life; of the part that Helmuth played in it and of the great financial issues that hang upon the question of my sanity or madness; of the strange school, at which Helmuth was a master, where I was educated, and of how much he has to gain by making people believe that I am mad.
‘If I told you this story myself I’m afraid you would think that I was making great chunks of it up as I went along; but you won’t be able to think that of this account which has been written day by day as a record of events, and of the hopes and fears which have made my life one long battle for these past two months.
‘If I give you these papers will you read them through this evening, and, whatever conclusions you come to, promise faithfully to let me have them back tomorrow morning?’
‘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 se
rious, 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 fiancé. 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 lunch-time. 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 tea-shop, then if all goes well pick her up afterwards and be back here soon after two.’
So off Sally went, and at any moment now I am expecting her to return with Comrade Deborah Kain.
Later
I’ve won! But what a session; and what a revelation! I am writing this now only to fill in time, as, anxious as Sally and I are to get off, it would be madness to make a start until Konrad is out of the way for the night. And our interview with Deb is well worth recording.
When she arrived she was pretty sullen, which was hardly surprising; but she became almost pleasant when I apologised for having troubled her, and said that I only wanted to ask her some questions, to set Nurse Cardew’s mind at rest about certain things which it was suggested had happened here. Then I said:
‘I want you to tell the truth, even if it appears to be unfavourable to myself, and if you do so I give you my word that I will say nothing t
o Owen Gruffydd of what I know about your affairs. Now; while you were here, did I at any time make any amorous advances to you?’
She looked very surprised, gave a quick glance at Sally and said: ‘No. As a matter of fact I thought you were rather stand-offish. You were always quite polite, but you hardly seemed to notice me as a person at all.’
‘Right!’ I said. ‘When Dr. Lisický discovered that on several occasions I had hypnotised you, and had an explanation with you about that which led to your leaving, did he reveal to you, or even suggest, that I had taken advantage of you while you were in a trance state?’
‘No; he never said anything of that kind.’ Her eyes widened as she added: ‘Did you—did you do that?’
‘Certainly not,’ I replied. ‘But he seems to have given Nurse Cardew the impression that I did. Now, about the Doctor himself. Did he make amorous advances to you?’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘He did not.’
Her denial took me by surprise, as it seemed quite pointless in view of all I knew, and the fact that Helmuth had thrown her out bag and baggage.
‘Come, Deb!’ I admonished her. ‘I am not threatening you, and Nurse Cardew will promise not to repeat anything you may say to your detriment; but we want the truth. Dr. Lisický told me that you were his mistress, and you confirmed that to me yourself, while you were in a trance. You can’t deny it.’
She stubbornly shook her head. ‘What I said in a trance you may have put into my mind; and if he said that of me it is because he is a vain and boastful man. He was lying.’
I saw that I was up against it, and there was only one thing to do. I said: ‘All right; I will believe you, if you look me in the face and swear to that.’
She fell into the trap. The second she had her eyes fixed on mine I shot out my right hand, pointed my first and second fingers at them and gave the order: ‘Sleep, Deb! At once! Go to sleep this instant!’
The old formula worked like magic. There was barely a flicker of resistance before her eyes began to glaze and the heavy eyelids dropped over them.
The Haunting of Toby Jugg Page 32