noon
She was going to rub them herself , I believe , and went into the china-closet , which opens from the room , for the silver-soap . The breakfast-room was left vacant , and it was vacant when she returned to it , and she insists , with a quiet conviction which it is hardly reasonable to doubt , that no human being did or could have entered the room without her knowledge . When she came back to the sideboard every one of those spoons lay there _ bent double _ . She showed them to me when I came home at noon . Had they been pewter toys they could not have been more completely twisted out of shape than they were . I took them without any remarks -LRB- I began to feel as if this mystery were assuming uncomfortable proportions -RRB- , put them away , just as I found them , into a small cupboard in the wall of the breakfast-room , locked the cupboard door with the only key in the house which fitted it , put the key in my inner vest pocket , and meditatively ate my dinner . About half an hour afterward a neighbor dropped in to groan over the weather and see the baby , and Allis chanced to mention the incident of the spoons .