midnight
They decided that since Braddock Washington had seen them together they had best depart the next night . Nevertheless , John 's lips were unusually dry at dinner , and he nervously emptied a great spoonful of peacock soup into his left lung . He had to be carried into the turquoise and sable card-room and pounded on the back by one of the under-butlers , which Percy considered a great joke . Long after midnight John 's body gave a nervous jerk , he sat suddenly upright , staring into the veils of somnolence that draped the room . Through the squares of blue darkness that were his open windows , he had heard a faint far-away sound that died upon a bed of wind before identifying itself on his memory , clouded with uneasy dreams . But the sharp noise that had succeeded it was nearer , was just outside the room -- the click of a turned knob , a footstep , a whisper , he could not tell ; a hard lump gathered in the pit of his stomach , and his whole body ached in the moment that he strained agonisingly to hear . Then one of the veils seemed to dissolve , and he saw a vague figure standing by the door , a figure only faintly limned and blocked in upon the darkness , mingled so with the folds of the drapery as to seem distorted , like a reflection seen in a dirty pane of glass .