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

was thrown upon it, and with the approach of Christmas I ceased to think about it any more. It was not until nearly eleven years later that there came a sequel to this strange affair.
    One day just as I was leaving the mess at Biggin Hill, after lunch, a trim-looking W.A.A.F. came up to me and said: ‘Hello, Master Toby! Don’t you remember me?’
    She was rather a pert-looking blonde of about thirty, and her face was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her.
    ‘I’m Florrie Meddows,’ she said. ‘I was housemaid at The Willows when you were a little boy. My, sir, how you’ve grown! But I would have known you anywhere. How’s Mr. and Mrs. Jugg; in the pink, I hope?’
    Of course, I recalled her then and we talked for a bit of old times. After a while she asked: ‘Did you ever see any more spooks at The Willows?’
    ‘Spooks!’ I echoed. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
    ‘Why, ghosts, of course. Surely you remember the night when you scared us all stiff by insisting that you had seen a ghost?’
    ‘You’re mixing me up with someone else,’ I laughed. ‘I’ve never seen a ghost in my life.’
    She shook her head. ‘No, it was you all right. You came yelling downstairs fit to wake the dead. But I remember now, you thought it was a burglar; and I suppose your aunt, not wanting to frighten you, never told you different.’
    At that the whole episode came back to my mind as clearly as though it had happened only the day before. ‘I’ve certainly always thought it was a burglar,’ I agreed in great surprise. ‘Whatever makes you think it was a ghost?’
    ‘Well, a human being couldn’t have flown out of the window,’ Florrie countered, ‘or disappeared like that without leaving a single trace, could he? Besides, your uncle and aunt may not have let on to you about it, but they were nuts about Spiritualism. There was hardly a night when they had friends down from London that they didn’t go in for table-turning, wall-rapping, and all that. It wasn’t none of my business, and Cook and me just used to laugh about it, thinking them a bit cranky, till the night you gave us all such a fright. That made us think very different, knowing what we did; and we were both so scared that we gave notice first thing next morning. We’d have sacrificed our money and left there and then if it hadn’t been for letting Mrs. Jugg down over Christmas, and her promising not to hold any more séances while we were in the house. If it was a burglar you saw, Master Toby, then I’m a policeman and Hitler’s my Aunt Fanny. No good ever comes of calling on the spirits, and it was through them doing that some horrid thing started to haunt the house.’

Friday, 8th May
    Another quiet night, although rather a restless one, owing to Julia never having turned up yesterday evening, as I hoped she would. Perhaps she decided to put off her visit till today and then stay over the weekend.
    Fortunately, I became so interested in writing the account of my ‘burglar’ that I continued at it after dinner, and that occupied my mind enough to prevent my fretting over her non-appearance until Deb settled me down for the night.
    I had better finish it off now. Actually, there is little more to tell; and I find it difficult to doubt that Florrie Meddows’ explanation of the vanishing without trace of the figure that I saw must be the true one.
    People do not tell children ghost stories or give them books about ghouls and vampires to read. Tales of witches who turn princes into frogs and giants who carry off princesses—yes; but anything to do with the after-life or the supernatural is taboo. Therefore, at the age of eight-and-a-half I can scarcely have known what the word ‘ghost’ implied, hence my immediate assumption that the thing I saw was a man.
    It is this, I think, that gives the occurrence peculiar and outstanding weight as proof that astral bodies are at times visible to humans. Everyone else in that house knew what was going