noon
No one but the bewildered kitchen-maid had seen him leave the house , and no one else had seen `` the gentleman '' who accompanied him . All inquiries in the neighborhood failed to elicit the memory of a stranger 's presence that day in the neighborhood of Lyng . And no one had met Edward Boyne , either alone or in company , in any of the neighboring villages , or on the road across the downs , or at either of the local railway-stations . The sunny English noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into Cimmerian night . Mary , while every external means of investigation was working at its highest pressure , had ransacked her husband 's papers for any trace of antecedent complications , of entanglements or obligations unknown to her , that might throw a faint ray into the darkness . But if any such had existed in the background of Boyne 's life , they had disappeared as completely as the slip of paper on which the visitor had written his name . There remained no possible thread of guidance except -- if it were indeed an exception -- the letter which Boyne had apparently been in the act of writing when he received his mysterious summons .