midnight
I will mention your great services to the Empress . Yes , we must rely upon Gutchkoff . '' In half an hour the servant returned with his master , the head of the political police , a short , fat man in general 's uniform , with decorations , who , when he entered the room , betrayed unmistakable signs of having dined well . Indeed , he had been unearthed from a midnight carouse at a questionable restaurant . At sight of Rasputin , a power to be reckoned with and a person of whom even the greatest in the land craved favours , he pulled himself together and cast himself into a chair to listen . The monk was clever enough not to enlighten the Police Director regarding the plot to upset Kokovtsov 's undue inquisitiveness . He merely told him that a certain secret agent named Botkine was leaving Berlin for Petrograd on the twenty-second .