a quarter past twelve
Let 's come out into the playground ; I shall catch it if I am found here . '' That night there was just sufficient light struggling through the clouds to make Panley Common visible as a black expanse , against the lightest tone of which a piece of ebony would have appeared pale . Not a human being was stirring within a mile of Moncrief House , the chimneys of which , ghostly white on the side next the moon , threw long shadows on the silver-gray slates . The stillness had just been broken by the stroke of a quarter past twelve from a distant church tower , when , from the obscurity of one of these chimney shadows , a head emerged . It belonged to a boy , whose body presently wriggled through an open skylight . When his shoulders were through he turned himself face upward , seized the miniature gable in which the skylight was set , drew himself completely out , and made his way stealthily down to the parapet . He was immediately followed by another boy .