midnight
My eyes were now on a level with the floor of the landing , out of which branched two passages -- one turning sharply to my right , the other straight in front , so that I was gazing down the length of it . Almost at the end , a parallelogram of light fell across it from an open door . A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence that can fitly be called `` dead . '' This is only to be found in a great house at midnight . I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled the stair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife . If the house held a clock , it ticked inaudibly . Upon this silence , at the end of a minute , broke a light sound -- the _ tink-tink _ of a decanter on the rim of a wine-glass .