“I woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the Grey Room.  I switched off the current from the Pentacle, which I had left on in my hurry; also, I removed the body of the cat.  You can understand I did not want anyone to see the poor brute.  After that, I made a very careful search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown.  I made several holes, and probed, and found nothing.  Then it occurred to me to try with my instrument under the skirting.  I did so, and heard my wire ring on metal.  I turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing.  At the second go, I got it.  It was a small object, and I took it to the window.  I found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material.  The curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon; that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without the ‘mounts,’ which form the points of the defensive star.  It was free from all chasing or engraving.

“You will understand that I was excited, when I tell you that I felt sure I held in my hand the famous Luck Ring of the Anderson family; which, indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the history of the haunting.  This ring was handed on from father to son through generations, and always—­in obedience to some ancient family tradition—­each son had to promise never to wear the ring.  The ring, I may say, was brought home by one of the Crusaders, under very peculiar circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here.

“It appears that young Sir Hulbert, an ancestor of Anderson’s, made a bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night.  He did so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the bed, in the very room in which I stood.  Many people, it would seem, thought young Sir Hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night in the room.  He also was strangled.  Since then, as you may imagine, no one has ever spent a night in the Grey Room, until I did so.  The ring had been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you can understand.

“It was whilst I stood there, looking at the ring, that I got an idea.  Supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway—­You see what I mean?  A sort of gap in the world-hedge.  It was a queer idea, I know, and probably was not my own, but came to me from the Outside.  You see, the wind had come from that part of the room where the ring lay.  I thought a lot about it.  Then the shape—­the inside of a pentacle.  It had no ‘mounts,’ and without mounts, as the Sigsand Ms. has it:—­’Thee mownts wych are thee Five Hills of safetie.  To lack is to gyve pow’r to thee daemon; and surelie to fayvor the Evill Thynge.’  You see, the very shape of the ring was significant; and I determined to test it.