one o'clock
She must have become a concierge through some unfortunate mistake . She snapped open her little square window and stuck out into the moonlit court a dishevelled gray head . `` Il n'est pas là . '' she said again , beaming upon Richard Hartley , whom she liked , and , when he protested that he had a definite and important appointment with her lodger , went on to explain that Ste. Marie had gone out , doubtless to lunch , before one o'clock and had never returned . `` He may have left word for me up-stairs , '' Hartley said ; `` I 'll go up and wait , if I may . '' So the woman got him her extra key , and he went up , let himself into the flat , and made lights there . Naturally he found no word , but his own note of that morning lay spread out upon a table where Ste. Marie had left it , and so he knew that his friend was in possession of the two facts he had learned about Stewart .