midnight
Twenty minutes later a dark and muffled figure was seen to emerge from a recess in the mullioned wall of the Arc de Triomphe and pass rapidly northward . It was no other than Tictocq , the detective . The network of evidence was fast being drawn about the murderer of Marie Cusheau . * * * * * * It is midnight on the steeple of the Cathedral of Notadam . It is also the same time at other given points in the vicinity . The spire of the Cathedral is 20,000 feet above the pavement , and a casual observer , by making a rapid mathematical calculation , would have readily perceived that this Cathedral is , at least , double the height of others that measure only 10,000 feet . At the summit of the spire there is a little wooden platform on which there is room for but one man to stand .