nine
o'clock
she ended irrelevantly . `` I do , too ; but as long as he is not , you must trust me to do what I think best . '' He went out abruptly , and Helen Waldstricker cried herself to sleep . That evening Frederick Graves shook in his shoes when he returned home and received Waldstricker 's message to meet him in the library at nine o'clock . If there was one person in the world he did n't want to see just then , it was his dictatorial brother-in-law . He stood in his room considering the situation , when he heard the grandfather 's clock on the stairs slowly strike the hour of nine . `` Well , it wo n't help any to keep him waiting , '' he muttered .