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.
