_II. -- "Q." A Psychic Pstory of the Psupernatural_
I CANNOT expect that any of my readers will believe the story which
I am about to narrate. Looking back upon it, I scarcely believe it
myself. Yet my narrative is so extraordinary and throws such light
upon the nature of our communications with beings of another world,
that I feel I am not entitled to withhold it from the public.
I had gone over to visit Annerly at his rooms. It was Saturday,
October 31. I remember the date so precisely because it was my pay
day, and I had received six sovereigns and ten shillings. I
remembered the sum so exactly because I had put the money into my
pocket, and I remember into which pocket I had put it because I had
no money in any other pocket. My mind is perfectly clear on all
these points.
Annerly and I sat smoking for some time.
Then quite suddenly--
"Do you believe in the supernatural?" he asked.
I started as if I had been struck.
At the moment when Annerly spoke of the supernatural I had been
thinking of something entirely different. The fact that he should
speak of it at the very instant when I was thinking of something
else, struck me as at least a very singular coincidence.
For a moment I could only stare.
"What I mean is," said Annerly, "do you believe in phantasms of the
dead?"
"Phantasms?" I repeated.
"Yes, phantasms, or if you prefer the word, phanograms, or say if
you will phanogrammatical manifestations, or more simply
psychophantasmal phenomena?"
I looked at Annerly with a keener sense of interest than I had ever
felt in him before. I felt that he was about to deal with events and
experiences of which in the two or three months that I had known him
he had never seen fit to speak.
I wondered now that it had never occurred to me that a man whose hair
at fifty-five was already streaked with grey, must have passed
through some terrible ordeal.
Presently Annerly spoke again.
"Last night I saw Q," he said.
"Good heavens!" I ejaculated. I did not in the least know who Q was,
but it struck me with a thrill of indescribable terror that Annerly
had seen Q. In my own quiet and measured existence such a thing had
never happened.
"Yes," said Annerly, "I saw Q as plainly as if he were standing here.
But perhaps I had better tell you something of my past relationship
with Q, and you will understand exactly what the present situation is."
Annerly seated himself in a chair on the other side of the fire from
me, lighted a pipe and continued.
"When first I knew Q he lived not very far from a small town in the
south of England, which I will call X, and was betrothed to a beautiful
and accomplished girl whom I will name M."
Annerly had hardly begun to speak before I found myself listening with
riveted attention. I realised that it was no ordinary experience that
he was about to narrate. I more than suspected that Q and M were not
the real names of his unfortunate acquaintances, but were in reality
two letters of the alphabet selected almost at random to disguise the
names of his friends. I was still pondering over the ingenuity of the
thing when Annerly went on:
"When Q and I first became friends, he had a favourite dog, which, if
necessary, I might name Z, and which followed him in and out of X on
his daily walk."
"In and out of X," I repeated in astonishment.
"Yes," said Annerly, "in and out."
My senses were now fully alert. That Z should have followed Q out
of X, I could readily understand, but that he should first have
followed him in seemed to pass the bounds of comprehension.
"Well," said Annerly, "Q and Miss M were to be married. Everything
was arranged. The wedding was to take place on the last day of the
year. Exactly six months and four days before the appointed day (I
remember the date because the coincidence struck me as peculiar at
the time) Q came to me late in the evening in great distress. He
had just had, he said, a premonition of his own death. That evening,
while sitting with Miss M on the verandah of her house, he had
distinctly seen a projection of the dog R pass along the road."
"Stop a moment," I said. "Did you not say that the dog's name
was Z?"
Annerly frowned slightly.
"Quite so," he replied. "Z, or more correctly Z R, since Q was in
the habit, perhaps from motives of affection, of calling him R as
well as Z. Well, then, the projection, or phanogram, of the dog
passed in front of them so plainly that Miss M swore that she could
have believed that it was the dog himself. Opposite the house the
phantasm stopped for a moment and wagged its tail. Then it passed
on, and quite suddenly disappeared around the corner of a stone
wall, as if hidden by the bricks. What made the thing still more
mysterious was that Miss M's mother, who is partially blind, had
only partially seen the dog."
Annerly paused a moment. Then he went on:
"This singular occurrence was interpreted by Q, no doubt correctly,
to indicate his own approaching death. I did what I could to
remove this feeling, but it was impossible to do so, and he
presently wrung my hand and left me, firmly convinced that he would
not live till morning."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "and he died that night?"
"No, he did not," said Annerly quietly, "that is the inexplicable
part of it."
"Tell me about it," I said.
"He rose that morning as usual, dressed himself with his customary
care, omitting none of his clothes, and walked down to his office
at the usual hour. He told me afterwards that he remembered the
circumstances so clearly from the fact that he had gone to the
office by the usual route instead of taking any other direction."
"Stop a moment," I said. "Did anything unusual happen to mark
that particular day?"
"I anticipated that you would ask that question," said Annerly,
"but as far as I can gather, absolutely nothing happened. Q
returned from his work, and ate his dinner apparently much as
usual, and presently went to bed complaining of a slight feeling
of drowsiness, but nothing more. His stepmother, with whom he
lived, said afterwards that she could hear the sound of his
breathing quite distinctly during the night."
"And did he die that night?" I asked, breathless with excitement.
"No," said Annerly, "he did not. He rose next morning feeling
about as before except that the sense of drowsiness had apparently
passed, and that the sound of his breathing was no longer audible."
Annerly again fell into silence. Anxious as I was to hear the rest
of his astounding narrative, I did not like to press him with
questions. The fact that our relations had hitherto been only of a
formal character, and that this was the first occasion on which he
had invited me to visit him at his rooms, prevented me from
assuming too great an intimacy.
"Well," he continued, "Q went to his office each day after that
with absolute regularity. As far as I can gather there was nothing
either in his surroundings or his conduct to indicate that any
peculiar fate was impending over him. He saw Miss M regularly, and
the time fixed for their marriage drew nearer each day."
"Each day?" I repeated in astonishment.
"Yes," said Annerly, "every day. For some time before his marriage
I saw but little of him. But two weeks before that event was due
to happen, I passed Q one day in the street. He seemed for a
moment about to stop, then he raised his hat, smiled and passed on."
"One moment," I said, "if you will allow me a question that seems of
importance--did he pass on and then smile and raise his hat, or did
he smile into his hat, raise it, and then pass on afterwards?"
"Your question is quite justified," said Annerly, "though I think I
can answer with perfect accuracy that he first smiled, then stopped
smiling and raised his hat, and then stopped raising his hat and
passed on."
"However," he continued, "the essential fact is this: on the day
appointed for the wedding, Q and Miss M were duly married."
"Impossible!" I gasped; "duly married, both of them?"
"Yes," said Annerly, "both at the same time. After the wedding Mr.
and Mrs. Q---"
"Mr. and Mrs. Q," I repeated in perplexity.
"Yes," he answered, "Mr. and Mrs. Q--- for after the wedding Miss M.
took the name of Q--- left England and went out to Australia, where
they were to reside."
"Stop one moment," I said, "and let me be quite clear--in going out
to settle in Australia it was their intention to reside there?"
"Yes," said Annerly, "that at any rate was generally understood. I
myself saw them off on the steamer, and shook hands with Q, standing
at the same time quite close to him."
"Well," I said, "and since the two Q's, as I suppose one might almost
call them, went to Australia, have you heard anything from them?"
"That," replied Annerly, "is a matter that has shown the same
singularity as the rest of my experience. It is now four years since
Q and his wife went to Australia. At first I heard from him quite
regularly, and received two letters each month. Presently I only
received one letter every two months, and later two letters every six
months, and then only one letter every twelve months. Then until
last night I heard nothing whatever of Q for a year and a half."
I was now on the tiptoe of expectancy.
"Last night," said Annerly very quietly, "Q appeared in this room, or
rather, a phantasm or psychic manifestation of him. He seemed in
great distress, made gestures which I could not understand, and kept
turning his trouser pockets inside out. I was too spellbound to
question him, and tried in vain to divine his meaning. Presently the
phantasm seized a pencil from the table, and wrote the words, 'Two
sovereigns, to-morrow night, urgent.'"
Annerly was again silent. I sat in deep thought. "How do you
interpret the meaning which Q's phanogram meant to convey?"
"I think," he announced, "it means this. Q, who is evidently dead,
meant to visualise that fact, meant, so to speak, to deatomise the
idea that he was demonetised, and that he wanted two sovereigns
to-night."
"And how," I asked, amazed at Annerly's instinctive penetration into
the mysteries of the psychic world, "how do you intend to get it to
him?"
"I intend," he announced, "to try a bold, a daring experiment,
which, if it succeeds, will bring us into immediate connection with
the world of spirits. My plan is to leave two sovereigns here upon
the edge of the table during the night. If they are gone in the
morning, I shall know that Q has contrived to de-astralise himself,
and has taken the sovereigns. The only question is, do you happen
to have two sovereigns? I myself, unfortunately, have nothing but
small change about me."
Here was a piece of rare good fortune, the coincidence of which
seemed to add another link to the chain of circumstance. As it
happened I had with me the six sovereigns which I had just drawn as
my week's pay.
"Luckily," I said, "I am able to arrange that. I happen to have
money with me." And I took two sovereigns from my pocket.
Annerly was delighted at our good luck. Our preparations for the
experiment were soon made.
We placed the table in the middle of the room in such a way that
there could be no fear of contact or collision with any of the
furniture. The chairs were carefully set against the wall, and so
placed that no two of them occupied the same place as any other
two, while the pictures and ornaments about the room were left
entirely undisturbed. We were careful not to remove any of the
wall-paper from the wall, nor to detach any of the window-panes
from the window. When all was ready the two sovereigns were laid
side by side upon the table, with the heads up in such a way that
the lower sides or tails were supported by only the table itself.
We then extinguished the light. I said "Good night" to Annerly,
and groped my way out into the dark, feverish with excitement.
My readers may well imagine my state of eagerness to know the
result of the experiment. I could scarcely sleep for anxiety to
know the issue. I had, of course, every faith in the completeness
of our preparations, but was not without misgivings that the
experiment might fail, as my own mental temperament and
disposition might not be of the precise kind needed for the
success of these experiments.
On this score, however, I need have had no alarm. The event
showed that my mind was a media, or if the word is better, a
transparency, of the very first order for psychic work of this
character.
In the morning Annerly came rushing over to my lodgings, his face
beaming with excitement.
"Glorious, glorious," he almost shouted, "we have succeeded! The
sovereigns are gone. We are in direct monetary communication
with Q."
I need not dwell on the exquisite thrill of happiness which went
through me. All that day and all the following day, the sense
that I was in communication with Q was ever present with me.
My only hope was that an opportunity might offer for the renewal
of our inter-communication with the spirit world.
The following night my wishes were gratified. Late in the evening
Annerly called me up on the telephone.
"Come over at once to my lodgings," he said. "Q's phanogram is
communicating with us."
I hastened over, and arrived almost breathless. "Q has been here
again," said Annerly, "and appeared in the same distress as before.
A projection of him stood in the room, and kept writing with its
finger on the table. I could distinguish the word 'sovereigns,'
but nothing more."
"Do you not suppose," I said, "that Q for some reason which we
cannot fathom, wishes us to again leave two sovereigns for him?"
"By Jove!" said Annerly enthusiastically, "I believe you've hit it.
At any rate, let us try; we can but fail."
That night we placed again two of my sovereigns on the table, and
arranged the furniture with the same scrupulous care as before.
Still somewhat doubtful of my own psychic fitness for the work in
which I was engaged, I endeavoured to keep my mind so poised as to
readily offer a mark for any astral disturbance that might be about.
The result showed that it had offered just such a mark. Our
experiment succeeded completely. The two coins had vanished in the
morning.
For nearly two months we continued our experiments on these lines.
At times Annerly himself, so he told me, would leave money, often
considerable sums, within reach of the phantasm, which never failed
to remove them during the night. But Annerly, being a man of strict
honour, never carried on these experiments alone except when it
proved impossible to communicate with me in time for me to come.
At other times he would call me up with the simple message, "Q is
here," or would send me a telegram, or a written note saying, "Q
needs money; bring any that you have, but no more."
On my own part, I was extremely anxious to bring our experiments
prominently before the public, or to interest the Society for Psychic
Research, and similar bodies, in the daring transit which we had
effected between the world of sentience and the psycho-astric, or
pseudo-ethereal existence. It seemed to me that we alone had
succeeded in thus conveying money directly and without mediation,
from one world to another. Others, indeed, had done so by the
interposition of a medium, or by subscription to an occult magazine,
but we had performed the feat with such simplicity that I was
anxious to make our experience public, for the benefit of others
like myself.
Annerly, however, was averse from this course, being fearful that it
might break off our relations with Q.
It was some three months after our first inter-astral psycho-monetary
experiment, that there came the culmination of my experiences--so
mysterious as to leave me still lost in perplexity.
Annerly had come in to see me one afternoon. He looked nervous and
depressed.
"I have just had a psychic communication from Q," he said in answer
to my inquiries, "which I can hardly fathom. As far as I can judge,
Q has formed some plan for interesting other phantasms in the kind
of work that we are doing. He proposes to form, on his side of the
gulf, an association that is to work in harmony with us, for
monetary dealings on a large scale, between the two worlds."
My reader may well imagine that my eyes almost blazed with excitement
at the magnitude of the prospect opened up.
"Q wishes us to gather together all the capital that we can, and to
send it across to him, in order that he may be able to organise with
him a corporate association of phanograms, or perhaps in this case,
one would more correctly call them phantoids."
I had no sooner grasped Annerly's meaning than I became enthusiastic
over it.
We decided to try the great experiment that night.
My own worldly capital was, unfortunately, no great amount. I had,
however, some 500 pounds in bank stock left to me at my father's
decease, which I could, of course, realise within a few hours.
I was fearful, however, lest it might prove too small to enable Q
to organise his fellow phantoids with it.
I carried the money in notes and sovereigns to Annerly's room,
where it was laid on the table. Annerly was fortunately able to
contribute a larger sum, which, however, he was not to place beside
mine until after I had withdrawn, in order that conjunction of our
monetary personalities might not dematerialise the astral phenomenon.
We made our preparations this time with exceptional care, Annerly
quietly confident, I, it must be confessed, extremely nervous and
fearful of failure. We removed our boots, and walked about on our
stockinged feet, and at Annerly's suggestion, not only placed the
furniture as before, but turned the coal-scuttle upside down, and
laid a wet towel over the top of the wastepaper basket.
All complete, I wrung Annerly's hand, and went out into the darkness.
I waited next morning in vain. Nine o'clock came, ten o'clock, and
finally eleven, and still no word of him. Then feverish with
anxiety, I sought his lodgings.
Judge of my utter consternation to find that Annerly had disappeared.
He had vanished as if off the face of the earth. By what awful error
in our preparations, by what neglect of some necessary psychic
precautions, he had met his fate, I cannot tell. But the evidence
was only too clear, that Annerly had been engulfed into the astral
world, carrying with him the money for the transfer of which he had
risked his mundane existence.
The proof of his disappearance was easy to find. As soon as I dared
do so with discretion I ventured upon a few inquiries. The fact that
he had been engulfed while still owing four months' rent for his
rooms, and that he had vanished without even having time to pay such
bills as he had outstanding with local tradesmen, showed that he must
have been devisualised at a moment's notice.
The awful fear that I might be held accountable for his death,
prevented me from making the affair public.
Till that moment I had not realised the risks that he had incurred
in our reckless dealing with the world of spirits. Annerly fell a
victim to the great cause of psychic science, and the record of our
experiments remains in the face of prejudice as a witness to its
truth.
