midnight
There were the Lewisite partisans , who knew exactly the value of the jewels to a halfpenny , and how they were kept in a box under the bed , and how the prisoner had carried them off by stealth , and buried them somewhere in the sands of Newton Bay . Some of these , the more charitably disposed , could go even further than this . They explained how it was that the prisoner had never meant to commit the murder at all , but simply to steal the jewels , but had been interrupted in the act by the unexpected waking of the deceased woman . They grew impressive as they pictured the elder woman suddenly roused from sleep by the midnight robber , and the emotions of that robber detected in the act of guilt . They could tell you how she started back in terror , and then , realizing that ruin was upon her , succumbed to temporary frenzy , and with the weapon which she had brought to open the jewel-chest dealt the fatal blow to her unhappy victim . Others , less lenient in their views , had obtained quite different details . They could relate numerous previous attempts of the prisoner on the life of her benefactress .