noon
Great are the uses of a dead prophet to the keepers of his tomb ! Not within the memory of the oldest inhabitant had any funeral been so largely or honourably attended . Truly it spelled excellent advertisement -- and this although two persons , calculated mightily to have heightened interest and brought up dramatic and emotional values , were absent from the scene . For Lesbia Faircloth , giving her barman and two women servants a holiday , closed the inn at noon . Alone within the empty house , she locked the outer doors . Drew the blinds , reducing the interior to uniform , shadow-peopled obscurity , with the exception of her own bed-chamber . There she left one small square window -- set deep in the stone work of the wall -- open and uncurtained .