midnight
Blandford may have had reason enough left to tell him that it would be better for his headache to walk in the night air than to take a cab , and Mr Durfy highly approved of the decision . He was able without difficulty or obtrusiveness to follow his man at a few yards ' distance , and even give proof of his solicitude by an occasional steadying hand on his arm . Presently the wanderer turned out of the crowded thoroughfare up a by - street , where he had the pavement more to himself . Indeed , except for a few stragglers hurrying home from theatres or concerts , he encountered no one ; and as he penetrated farther beyond the region of public houses and tobacco-shops into the serener realms of offices and chambers , and beyond that into the solitude of a West-end square , not a footstep save his own and that of his escort broke the midnight silence . Durfy 's heart beat fast , for he had a heart to beat on occasions like this . A hundred chances on which he had never calculated suddenly presented themselves . What if some one might be peering out into the night from one of the black windows of those silent houses ?