midnight
` The main point of all this , ' I went on calmly , ` is not the disaster to the butler , nor even the shock to his lordship , but the fact that the tray the serving man carried brought food to a prisoner , who probably for six weeks has been without anything to eat . ' ` Then , ' said the constable , ` he is a dead man . ' ` I find it easier , ' said I , ` to believe in a living man than in a dead man 's ghost . I think I heard his footsteps at midnight , and they seemed to me the footsteps of a person very nearly exhausted . Therefore , constable , I have awaited your arrival with some impatience . The words his late lordship endeavoured to write on the paper were `` The Secret '' . I am sure that the hieroglyphics with which he ended his effort stood for the letter `` R '' , and if he finished his sentence , it would have stood : `` The secret room '' .