about midnight
-LSB- Illustration : `` HENRIETTE WAS TESTING THE FIFTY-THOUSAND-DOLLAR PIANO '' -RSB- That evening Colonel Scrappe called , ostensibly to look over the house and as landlord to see if there was anything he could do to make it more comfortable , and I , blind fool that I was for the moment , believed that that was his real errand , and ventured to remind Henriette of the leak in the roof , at which they both , I thought , exchanged amused glances , and _ he _ gravely mounted the stairs to the top of the house to look at it . On our return , Henriette dismissed me and told me that she would not require my services again during the evening . Even then my suspicions were not aroused , although there was a dull , disturbed feeling about my heart whose precise causes I could not define . I went to the club and put in a miserable evening , returning home about midnight to discover that Colonel Scrappe was still there . He was apparently giving the house and its contents a thorough inspection , for when I arrived , Henriette was testing the fifty-thousand-dollar piano in the drawing-room for him with a brilliant rendering of `` O Promise Me . '' What decision they reached as to its tone and quality I never knew , for in spite of my hints on the subject , Henriette never spoke of the matter to me . I suppose I should have begun to guess what was happening under my very nose then , but thank Heaven I am not of a suspicious nature , and although I did n't like the looks of things , the inevitable meaning of their strange behavior never even dawned upon my mind .