midnight
The most direct and the easiest thing for him to do would have been to go straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch 's , to find out whether anything had happened there , and if so , what ; and only to go to the police captain , as Pyotr Ilyitch firmly intended doing , when he had satisfied himself of the fact . But the night was dark , Fyodor Pavlovitch 's gates were strong , and he would have to knock again . His acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch was of the slightest , and what if , after he had been knocking , they opened to him , and nothing had happened ? Then Fyodor Pavlovitch in his jeering way would go telling the story all over the town , how a stranger , called Perhotin , had broken in upon him at midnight to ask if any one had killed him . It would make a scandal . And scandal was what Pyotr Ilyitch dreaded more than anything in the world . Yet the feeling that possessed him was so strong , that though he stamped his foot angrily and swore at himself , he set off again , not to Fyodor Pavlovitch 's but to Madame Hohlakov 's .