twelve o'clock
Great was the joy ; the happiness was universal . O heavens ! by what a thunderbolt were we awakened from our security ! On the night of the twenty-seventh of December , half an hour , it might be , after twelve o'clock , an alarm was given that all was not right in the house of Mr. Liebenheim . Vast was the crowd which soon collected in breathless agitation . In two minutes a man who had gone round by the back of the house was heard unbarring Mr. Liebenheim 's door : he was incapable of uttering a word ; but his gestures , as he threw the door open and beckoned to the crowd , were quite enough . In the hall , at the further extremity , and as if arrested in the act of making for the back door , lay the bodies of old Mr. Liebenheim and one of his sisters , an aged widow ; on the stair lay another sister , younger and unmarried , but upward of sixty .