“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.”