nearly midnight
It was ordained that Gordon should anticipate his appointment by meeting his man at the dinner-table in the Marlboro café ; and it was accident or design , as you like to believe , that Dyckman should be sitting two tables away , choking over his food and listening only by the road of the eye , since he was unhappily out of ear range . When the two had lighted their cigars and passed out to the elevator , the bookkeeper rose hastily and made for the nearest telephone . This , at least , was not accidental . The conference in Suite 32 lasted until nearly midnight , with Dyckman painfully shadowing the corridor and sweating like a furnace laborer , though the night was more than autumn cool . The door was thick , the transom was closed , and the keyhole commanded nothing but a square of blank wall opposite in the electric-lighted sitting-room of the suite . Hence the bookkeeper could only guess what we may know . `` You have let in a flood of light on Mr. Farley 's proposition , Mr. Gordon , '' said the representative of American Aqueduct , when the ground had been thoroughly gone over .