noon
He should have seen that the scholar dared not for his own sake destroy a thing so precious , a thing by which he might , at the worst , ransom his life . The Syndic wondered that he had not discerned that point before : and still in sanguine humour he retired to bed , and slept better than he had slept for weeks , ay , for months . The elixir was his , as good as his ; if he did not presently have Messer Basterga by the nape he was much mistaken . He had had the scholar watched and knew whither he was gone and that he would not return before noon . At nine o'clock , therefore , the hour at which he had directed Claude to come to him at his house , he approached the Royaumes ' door . Pluming himself on the stratagem by which twice in the twenty-four hours he had rid himself of an inconvenient witness , he opened the door boldly and entered . On the hearth , cap in hand , stood not Claude , but Louis .