midnight
This explained the `` business '' that had called him away after the Barbican stronghold had been captured ; finding both Hewitt and Plummer somewhat uncommunicative , and himself somewhat `` out of it , '' he had drawn off , and had followed Hewitt 's every movement , confident that he would be led to his old enemy at last . What I had told him of the cypher message had led him to hunt out Channel Marsh in the afternoon , and to return at midnight . He , of course , regarded the message , as I did myself at the time , as a perfectly genuine instruction from Mayes to Sims , and he came to the rendezvous wholly in ignorance as to what Hewitt was doing , and with no better hope than that he might hear something that would lead him in the direction of Mayes . He had entered the marsh after dark from the upper end , and had lain concealed by the other channel till near midnight ; then he had crept to the rear of the ruin and climbed to where an opening seemed to offer a good chance of hearing what might pass in the hall . He had heard Hewitt approach from the front , and the crash that followed . The rest we had seen . Mayes never recovered consciousness , and was dead when we visited the hospital the day after ; both skull and spine were badly fractured .