eleven o'clock
Their carriage , however , did not enter the village , but stopped at the edge of a small wood in the immediate neighborhood . Here all four alighted : the police director , accompanied by the young Latitudinarian , a police sergeant , and an ordinary policeman , the latter however , dressed in plain clothes . `` The first thing for us to do is to examine the locality carefully , '' said the police director . `` 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 lay our plans . '' 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 .