midnight
All conversations with Higgins showed the earl to have been an extremely suspicious man ; suspicious of banks , suspicious even of Bank of England notes , suspicious of every person on earth , not omitting Higgins himself . Therefore , as I told his nephew , the miser would never allow the fortune out of his sight and immediate reach . From the first the oddity of the forge and anvil being placed in his bedroom struck me as peculiar , and I said to the young man , -- ` I 'll stake my reputation that forge or anvil , or both , contain the secret . You see , the old gentleman worked sometimes till midnight , for Higgins could hear his hammering . If he used hard coal on the forge the fire would last through the night , and being in continual terror of thieves , as Higgins says , barricading the castle every evening before dark as if it were a fortress , he was bound to place the treasure in the most unlikely spot for a thief to get at it . Now , the coal fire smouldered all night long , and if the gold was in the forge underneath the embers , it would be extremely difficult to get at . A robber rummaging in the dark would burn his fingers in more senses than one .