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.”