Nonsense Novels, Stephen Leacock [open ebook txt] 📗

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