midnight
He had turned over all old Roderick 's papers without finding the slightest trace of a letter or any kind of a statement bearing upon Wolfgang 's relation to Mdlle . de St. Val . He was sitting wrapt in thought in old Roderick 's sleeping-cabinet , every hole and comer of which he had searched , and was working at a long statement of the case that he intended despatching to a certain notary in Geneva , who had been recommended to him as a shrewd and energetic man , to request him to procure and forward certain documents which would establish the young Freiherr 's cause on firm ground . It was midnight ; the full moon shone in through the windows of the adjoining hall , the door of which stood open . Then V -- fancied he heard a noise as of some one coming slowly and heavily up the stairs , and also at the same time a jingling and rattling of keys . His attention was arrested ; he rose to his feet and went into the hall , where he plainly made out that there was some one crossing the ante-room and approaching the door of the hall where he was . Soon afterwards the door was opened and a man came slowly in , dressed in night-clothes , his face ghastly pale and distorted ; in the one hand he bore a candle-stick with the candles burning , and in the other a huge bunch of keys .