The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley Read Free Book Online Page A

have no idea. Perhaps he moved first; or it may be that my heart, having temporarily stopped, started again, so that in an automatic reaction I let out a terrified yell. As I screamed and jerked myself away I caught just a glimpse of him, still crouched almost double, gliding swiftly up the stairs.
    I use the word ‘gliding’ because when I was questioned afterwards I could not recall having heard his footsteps, or, indeed, any noise at all. Had I been older that would certainly have struck me as queer, since the dark outline of the figure had been squat but bulky, and, even if he was wearing rubber-soled shoes, a heavy man could hardly take a flight of stairs at the run without his footfalls being audible. At the time, and for long afterwards,I simply assumed that any noise he made must have been drowned by the sounds of my own wild flight.
    Scared out of my wits, I bounded towards the half-landing, swerved round the bend of the stairs and literally flung myself down the lower flight to arrive sprawling in the hall, still gasping and yelling.
    Almost simultaneously, like a scene in a French farce, three of the doors opened. Julia came running from her sitting-room, Uncle Paul from his study with a friend of his who happened to be with him, and Florrie, the little housemaid, from the dining-room, where she was laying the table for dinner. To complete the party, Cook arrived a second later from the kitchen still clutching a saucepan.
    As they picked me up I shouted: ‘There’s a man upstairs! A burglar! A burglar!’
    Then, trembling with shock and excitement, I burst into tears and flung myself into Julia’s arms.
    The two men armed themselves with golf clubs and went upstairs. The women remained clustered about me in the hall anxiously listening for sounds of strife, but the only ones that reached us were the faint opening and shutting of doors.
    Uncle Paul and his friend seemed to be away a long time, but at last they rejoined us. They said that they had searched every room, looked under all the beds and in all the cupboards, but they had not found the burlgar, and as far as they could judge nothing had been taken or disturbed; so I must have imagined him.
    ‘But I saw him!’ I cried, repudiating the suggestion with indignation. ‘He’s a horrid, bald old man! He glared at me through the banisters and I thought he was going to spring at me. If he’s not there now he must have got out on to the roof.’
    Their attempts to reassure me were in vain. I flatly refused to go to bed until further search had been made. The burglar could not have come down the back stairs because there weren’t any, so I feared that he must be lurking somewhere and might come creeping into my room while the grown-ups were having dinner.
    To quiet my fears the attics and roof were searched; but without result. The moon had risen and in its light there was no placeon the sloping tiles of that small, square house where a man could have remained hidden. As the gaps between the roof of The Willows and those of the houses on either side of it were far too wide for any man to jump, the only other possibility was that the burglar had got out of one of the second-floor windows and shinned down a drainpipe. I insisted that he must have done so and was, perhaps, hiding outside, waiting to return when we were all asleep.
    Julia made the two men go out into the garden with torches. There were flower-beds all round the house and anyone coming down a drainpipe must have landed on one, but there was not a footmark to be seen on any of them.
    My tears had long since dried, but I was still very excited and nothing could shake my conviction that I had seen a murderous-looking thug crouching on the stairs. However, nothing more could be done about it, so I allowed myself to be taken up to bed while Florrie got a special supper that Julia ate with me; then she read me to sleep.
    Next morning, of course, the whole affair was gone into again, but no fresh light