eleven o'clock
At present , all you have to do is to hold your tongue ; everything else is my affair . '' As soon as it was dark , four men got into a closed carriage in the yard of the police office , and were driven in the direction of the village of S -- ; their carriage , however , did not enter the village , but stopped at the edge of a small wood in the immediate neighborhood . Here they all four alighted ; they were the police director , accompanied by the young Latitudinarian , a police sergeant and an ordinary policeman , who was , however , dressed in plain clothes . `` The first thing for us to do is to examine the locality carefully , '' the police director said ; `` it is eleven o'clock and the exorcisers of ghosts will not arrive before midnight , so we have time to look round us , and to take our measure . '' The four men went to the churchyard , which lay at the end of the village , near the little wood . Everything was as still as death , and not a soul was to be seen . The sexton was evidently sitting in the public house , for they found the door of his cottage locked , as well as the door of the little chapel that stood in the middle of the churchyard .