About noon
` Gladly , ' said Merton , ` but first tell me yours . ' ` When I arrived I found the poor old gentleman unconscious . Dr. Douglas was in attendance . About noon he pronounced life extinct . Mrs. Bower watched , or `` waked '' the corpse . I left her with it about midnight , as I told you ; about four in the morning she aroused me with the news that the body had vanished . What I did after that you know .