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When we had spent a quiet hour at the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and Carnacki began: "I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have finished.
Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair, as I have said was his habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze directed thoughtfully at the fire. The rest of us, if I may so express it, made ourselves cozy, each after his own particular manner.
Not one of us ever willingly missed, for after a thoroughly sensible little dinner Carnacki would snuggle down into his big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks. Then he would begin to talk. Upon this particular night I was the first to arrive and found Carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper.
I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it 'round to the others. "Did that stop the haunting?" Carnacki nodded. "Yes," he said. "I slept three nights in the Grey Room, before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to; but by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and ordinary. And, you know, I believe, in his heart, he hardly approved."
Five minutes later the Luck Ring, once the 'luck, but now the 'bane, of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid splash of hot metal." Carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a small circle of greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter. "Well?"
And his fear and appreciation of some tremendous danger approaching was probably more keenly real even than mine. And then he did the one fine, great thing!" "And the cause?" I said. "What caused it?" Carnacki shook his head. "God knows," he answered, with a peculiar, sincere reverence.
I shall never forget the look on Parsket's face. And afterward the disgusting sounds of those great hoofs going away through the quiet house." Carnacki stood up. "Out you go!" he said in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula. And we went presently out into the quiet of the Embankment, and so to our homes. No. 5
Then he rose and took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in friendly fashion on the Embankment and into the fresh night air. "Good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. If she had, eh? If she had? That is what I kept thinking. No. 4 I had that afternoon received an invitation from Carnacki. When I reached his place I found him sitting alone.
I was aware of this interesting fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard which I was rereading, and by which I was requested to present myself at his house not later than seven o'clock on that evening. Mr. Carnacki had, as I and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends knew, been away in Kent for the past three weeks; but beyond that, we had no knowledge.
I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki was interested. When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit and afterward we all went in to dinner.
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