nine o'clock
Otherwise , keep the matter as quiet as you have done , and look for me about nine o'clock . And rely upon this as a certainty : the Vanishing Cracksman will never get away with even one of those jewels if he enters that house to-night , and never get out of it unshackled ! '' With that , he suavely bowed his visitors out and rang up the pick of his men without an instant 's delay . Promptly at nine o'clock he arrived , as he had promised , at Wyvern House , and was shown into Sir Horace 's consulting-room , where Sir Horace himself and Miss Lorne were awaiting him , and keeping close watch before the locked door of a communicating apartment in which sat the six men who had preceded him . He went in and put them all and severally through a rigid examination -- pulling their hair and beards , rubbing their faces with a clean handkerchief in quest of any trace of `` make-up '' or disguise of any sort , examining their badges and the marks on the handcuffs they carried with them to make sure that they bore the sign which he himself had scratched upon them in the privacy of his own room a couple of hours ago . `` No mistake about this lot , '' he announced , with a smile . `` Has anybody else entered or attempted to enter the house ? ''