midnight
So I read the message through , and I set it down thus : -- / # _ Be at ruin Channel Marsh to-night twelve ; wait in hall for instruc . Word final . _ # / The general meaning of this seemed clear enough . The man whom the policeman had recognised as Broady Sims was to be at some spot -- a ruined building , it would seem -- in a place called Channel Marsh , at midnight , there to wait in the hall for instructions ; no doubt for instructions where to take the hundred pounds he was to have got from the bank . `` Word final '' was not so clear , though I judged -- and I think rightly -- that it meant that the word `` final '' was to be used as a password by which the two messengers should know each other . I was almost at my destination , and was cogitating the message and its meaning , when the cab checked at some traffic in Barbican , just by the `` Compasses '' public-house , and Mr. Victor Peytral hailed me and climbed on the step of the cab . `` I was just going to see if Mr. Hewitt was at the place , '' he said , `` and if so to ask him for news .