About noon
`` Tempestuous Theophilus ! '' cried the General , who in the presence of the Doctor always swore by unknown saints -- to relieve himself , as was thought -- `` but 't is more serious than you think . A fellow like this alive , at large , in our parish -- '' `` In _ my _ parish -- '' corrected the Doctor , who was the only man alive with a legal right to speak of Eden Valley parish as his own . About noon the Fiscal , responsible law officer of the Crown , arrived from Kirkcudbright escorted by Tom and Eben . The evidence was all heard over again , the chamber -- ex-cheese room , present parlour -- again inspected , but nothing further appeared likely to be discovered , when a shadow fell across the threshold . For some time , indeed , I had sat quaking in my corner , all cold with the fear of a flitting figure , appearing here and there , seen with the tail of the eye , and then disappearing like the black cat I see in corners when my eyes are overstrained with Greek . Of course I thought at once of the murderer Wringham Pollixfen lurking catlike among the office-houses in the hope of striking again , perhaps at Miss Irma -- perhaps , also , as I now see , at Sir Louis .