midnight
Mullins said that one mugwump would kill anything . After that the Dean hardly spoke at all . In fact , the rector presently said that he must n't detain Mullins too long and that he had detained him too long already and that Mullins must be weary from his train journey and that in cases of extreme weariness nothing but a sound sleep was of any avail ; he himself , unfortunately , would not be able to avail himself of the priceless boon of slumber until he had first retired to his study to write some letters ; so that Mullins , who had a certain kind of social quickness of intuition , saw that it was time to leave , and went away . It was midnight as he went down the street , and a dark , still night . That can be stated positively because it came out in court afterwards . Mullins swore that it was a dark night ; he admitted , under examination , that there may have been the stars , or at least some of the less important of them , though he had made no attempt , as brought out on cross-examination , to count them : there may have been , too , the electric lights , and Mullins was not willing to deny that it was quite possible that there was more or less moonlight . But that there was no light that night in the form of sunlight , Mullins was absolutely certain .