midnight
You tell us that the injured man is a stranger to you ; you go on to say that he must have found his way into your house during a nocturnal ramble of yours . Well , that sounds like common sense on the face of it . The criminal has studied your habits and has taken advantage of them . Then I ask if you are in the habit of taking these midnight strolls , and with some signs of hesitation you say that you have never done such a thing before . Charles Dickens was very fond of that kind of thing , and I naturally imagined that you had the same fancy . But you had never done it before . And , the only time , a man is nearly murdered in your house . ''