The Story Mr. Popkiss Told

Mr Algernon Blackwood writes in the “Westminster Gazette”:—

“Talking of railway accidents⁠—” “But we weren’t,” interrupted the prig. “⁠⸺⁠and of narrow escapes,” continued Mr.  Popklss, ignoring the contradiction, and looking like an offended parrot with his head on one side, “reminds me of one.” “Which?” inquired the prig smartly, “the railway accident or the narrow escape?” He was a small young man, with red eyes and a face like a weasel. He was also a “psychical student.” “Both,” said Popklss, looking at him over the top of his spectacles, and spreading out his coattails before the fire, so that he resembled more than ever a parrot, jaunty, yet slightly ruffled, swinging on its perch. “Let’s have the story,” said Brown, in a tone of authority. And the story began at once; for Brown was “the intellect” of the little party of newspaper men telling yarns round the club fireplace that deserted Christmas-week, when their duties held them in London after everyone else had gone. “It saved my life, so it was nearly on accident,” continued Mr. Popklss ambiguously, “and this is how it happened. Most odd, it was.” ‘ He buttoned his coat tightly, as though conscious that he resembled a bird, and anxious to dissemble the fact. He was a man of fifty, bald, shabby, timid, and kindhearted⁠—an unsuccessful solicitor. “It was last year, on the Boxing Day after Christmas,” he begun in his high-pitched voice, “and I was in a third-class carriage, going down into Surrey for the New Year’s week. I was alone, sitting by the window. It was after ten o’clock, and I was drowsy, but not asleep. The window streamed with rain. Outside, everything was black and raw and miserable⁠—utterly cheerless. Just after leaving Wimbledon station another train drew up alongside, and I watched it through the window of my corner-seat, trying to work up an interest, and wondering which would win. I imagined the two trains were racing⁠—as one is apt to do at such a time⁠—and that all the passengers knew it. But for a long time we both ran an even race, neck and neck, and I remember thinking what a fool our engine-driver was not to put on steam ami pull ahead. “Faster and faster we went. It annoyed me that all these stupid passengers in the other train were so close to me, going to other destinations than mine, It seemed so dull and boring for them. You know the kind of foolish thoughts that wander up and down the mind at such times.” “Quite,” said the psychical student; “quite!” “And I was glad the windows were so blurred by rain that they couldn’t see into my carriage⁠—when, suddenly, I turned with a start and found that my own window was clear as crystal, and that I could see with the greatest ease into the carriage running close beside me. Something had sponged the windows clean. And in the corner seat of that other carriage, so close to my elbow that I could have put my hand out and touched him, sat a man, huddled up in overcoats and rugs, just as I was.” Mr. Popklss unbuttoned the top button of his coat to allow more freedom for possible gestures. The group of listeners stared with keen attention. The mind of the weasel-faced student was already busily searching for flaws by means of which he might tear the story to pieces the moment it was finished. “Quite inexplicably,” continued Mr. Popklss, pitching his voice higher in key but lower in tone, “the figure of this man arrested my attention vividly⁠—almost unpleasantly. The face was hidden by his hand, but there was something about him that made me reflect. It seemed to me that I know who he was. Like myself, he was alone in an empty compartment. The curious idea entered my head that he was watching me through the fingers over his face; and a mysterious uneasiness I could not account for came over me. “I made a movement forward to look at him through the middle window⁠—and the man made a precisely similar movement. Through the middle windows of both carriages our eyes met, and in a flash I saw who It was⁠—” “You recognised him?” asked several voices together. “I recognised him beyond all question⁠—he was myself!” continued Mr.  Popklss, unfastening the second button of his coat; “absolutely myself!” “Another Popklss!” exclaimed the psychical student. “You mean a reflection, of course?” “At first I thought it was a reflection, for the man copied every movement I made⁠—every single movement. I won’t bore you with details: but everything I did in my carriage that man also did in his carriage. And yet”⁠—Popklss mopped his forehead and unbuttoned the last button⁠—“there was something about him⁠—something about the peering face with spectacles⁠—about the silent movements and shadowy appearance-that woke a nameless terror in me. I began to perspire all over. And something in me, too, began to tremble. Each time I turned to look, there he stood, his arms placed precisely as mine wore placed, his body in the same attitude exactly, and his spectacled eyes staring straight into my own.” His voice sank to a whisper as he said this. Everyone listened breathlessly. “A projection of your own Double,” murmured the student, “or a condition of hysteria inducing a vision;” but no one paid any attention to him. “Yes, and this is how it happened,” resumed Popklss, passing a baud over his bald head, as though the world were so strange a place that it would not have surprised him to find unexpected tufts upon that marble surface, “and I never can persuade you how dreadfully queer I felt. “Then, suddenly, an idea came to me just us the two trains wore slowing down, still running neck und neck. I opened the window! The other man did the same. We put our heads out. There was no question of reflection then. I had to cling to the window sides lo prevent myself falling, so great was the shock. For, instead of disappearing, as a reflection must have disappeared, the face of this other man suddenly flamed up through the night in most amazing fashion; and, thrusting his head forward so that we almost touched one another, I heard his whisper fly across to me through the darkness. The words came with a sense of most appalling reality, and it seemed to me that a wind of ice and snow passed over my checks. “ ‘Leave this train!’ he said, above the rattle of the metals. ‘Leave this train!’ “And the very next second, before I could answer, or do anything at all, the lights in his carriage were extinguished, and the train was running beside me in black darkness! “But was it running beside me? That was the queer part of it. Was it still keeping up a neck-and-neck race with my own? For when I put my head further out to look, and as soon as my eyes got accustomed to the gloom, lo and behold, there was no train there at all! Both in front and behind the lines were clear. There was no train, and no sign of one.⁠ ⁠… Five minutes later we ran into Woking Junction.” The psychical student longed to say something, but his mind was so confused with such phrases as “double personality,” “veridical dreams.” “subliminal consciousness,” and the like, that before he could squeeze out a word Mr.  Popklss was at it again, finishing his story: “It would be impossible to describe to you how, and why, the whole thing so impressed me,” he explained softly, “that I actually did leave the train at Woking Junction, although my destination was several further stations further on⁠ ⁠… All I can tell you is that the train itself⁠—my train⁠—ran off the metals before it had gone another mile down the line, and two people were killed outright, and a dozen injured terribly⁠ ⁠… i had to sleep at Woking and go on next day when the debris was cleared away⁠ ⁠… He buttoned up his coat again very quickly, and touched the bell for the waiter. “Queer, wasn’t it?” he observed, looking round him with a thirsty sigh. Involved discussion followed in a torrent, during the course of which the psychical student gave the group the benefit of much labored explanation. A world in which he could not explain everything by the processes of his own acute little mind was intolerable to him. And when the others, led by Brown, made difficulties, he fell back upon the delightful generalisation that “to imagine such things at all was a sure sign of mental degeneration⁠ ⁠… “What do you think of yourself?” he asked at length of the storyteller. “I?” said Popkiss, deprecatingly; “oh, I don’t think anything at all. It saved my life⁠—and that’s enough for me!” He handed a cigarette to the student who “didn’t drink,” and sat back in his chair to listen to the next tale.