midnight
`` And the moon will help us , '' the other said , `` for it will be full in the early hours of the morning , and this kind of elemental-being is always most active at the period of full moon . Hence , you see , the clue furnished by your diary . '' So it was finally settled . Colonel Wragge would provide the materials for the experiment , and we were to meet at midnight . How he would contrive at that hour -- but that was his business . I only know we both realised that he would keep his word , and whether a pig died at midnight , or at noon , was after all perhaps only a question of the sleep and personal comfort of the executioner . `` Tonight , then , in the laundry , '' said Dr. Silence finally , to clinch the plan ; `` we three alone -- and at midnight , when the household is asleep and we shall be free from disturbance . ''