noon
This animal in the street , momentarily revealed by the corner light as he darted across to take position by the door , this animal with sickly face and pointed chin , with dirty muffler round its chicken-neck , shoddy coat clothing its sloping shoulders , baggy corduroy trousers flapping round its bony shanks -- this was Popinot 's , and but one of a thousand differing in no essential save degree of viciousness . It was n't possible to guess how thoroughly Popinot had picketed the house , in co-operation with Roddy 's murderer , by way of provision against mischance ; but the adventurer was satisfied that , in his proper guise as himself , he needed only to open that postern door at the street end of the passage , to feel a knife slip in between his ribs -- most probably in his back , beneath the shoulder-blade ... . He nodded grimly , moved back from the window , and used the flash-lamp to light him to the door . Now when Lanyard had locked the door , he told himself that the gruesome peace of those two bed-chambers was ensured , barring mischance , for as long as the drug continued to hold dominion over the American ; and he felt justified in reckoning that period apt to be tolerably protracted ; while not before noon at earliest would any hôtelier who knew his business permit the rest of an Anglo-Saxon guest to be disturbed -- lacking , that is , definite instructions to the contrary . For a full minute after withdrawing the key the adventurer stood at alert attention ; but the heavy silence of that sinister old rookery sang in his ears untroubled by any untoward sound ... . That wistful shadow of his memories , that cowering Marcel of the so-dead yesterday in acute terror of the hand of Madame Troyon , had never stolen down that corridor more quietly : yet Lanyard had taken not five paces from his door when that other opened , at the far end , and Lucia Bannon stepped out . He checked then , and shut his teeth upon an involuntary oath : truly it seemed as though this run of the devil 's own luck would never end !