midnight
the heart of a thief upon which even now the fruits of his thieving weighed ... . Irritated , he wrenched his thoughts into another channel , and began to piece together inconsecutive snatches of information gained from Crane in the confusion of the quarter hour just past , while the Secret Service operatives were busy rounding up the inmates of that spy-fold and searching for evidences of their impudent activities . It appeared that Washington had at length , however tardily , roused out of its inertia and at midnight had telegraphed instructions to arrest out of hand every enemy alien in the land against whom there was evidence of conspiracy or even a ponderable suspicion . So unexpected was this order that Crane had volunteered to show Cecelia Brooke that midnight rendezvous of the Prussian spy system without the least notion that he might be required before morning to lead a raiding force against the establishment ; and even when a messenger stopped him as he turned to enter Au Printemps , he was not advised concerning the cause of this demand for his immediate presence at headquarters . The first cast of what Crane aptly termed the dragnet had brought in the management and service staff to a man , with a number of the restaurant 's habitues , including Sophie Weringrode and her errand-boy , the exquisite Mr. Revel . Velasco , however , had somehow mysteriously managed to slip through the meshes and had straightway hastened to spread the alarm . As for O'Reilly and Dressier , they had left with Ekstrom in pursuit of Lanyard less than five minutes before , and so had escaped not only arrest but all knowledge of the raid prior to their return to Seventy-ninth Street .