nine o’clock
The letter asking him to give up the nugget and ordering him to leave the district under threat of prosecution had been sent to his lodgings , but was still lying there unopened . The letters accumulated into quite a little pile as weeks rolled on , yet Mr Villiers , if he was alive , made no sign , and if he was dead , no traces had been found of his body . McIntosh and Slivers had both seen the police about the affair , one in order to recover the nugget , the other actuated by bitter enmity against Madame Midas . To Slivers ' hints , that perhaps Villiers ' wife knew more than she chose to tell , the police turned a deaf ear , as they assured Slivers that they had made inquiries , and on the authority of Selina and McIntosh could safely say that Madame Midas had been home that night at half-past nine o'clock , whereas Villiers was still alive in Ballarat -- as could be proved by the evidence of Mr Jarper -- at two o'clock in the morning . So , foiled on every side in his endeavours to implicate Mrs Villiers in her husband 's disappearance , Slivers retired to his office , and , assisted by his ungodly cockatoo , passed many hours in swearing at his bad luck and in cursing the absent Villiers . As to M. Vandeloup , he was indefatigable in his efforts to find Villiers , for , as he very truly said , he could never repay Madame Midas sufficiently for her kindness to him , and he wanted to do all in his power to punish her cruel husband . But in spite of all this seeking , the whereabouts of Mr Randolph Villiers remained undiscovered , and at last , in despair , everyone gave up looking .