midnight
With an eye intent upon the marvel before him , he asked often what this gentleman was concealing . Was he plotting something ? And with whom ? What was the secret of that wind-blown castle , its unseen occupants , its midnight music , the ironic laughter of the domestic Mungo , the annoyance of its master at his mirth ? Could he possibly be unaware of the strange happenings in his house , of what signalled by day and crept on stairs at night ? To look at him yearning there , he was the last man in the world to associate with the thrilling moment of an hour ago when Montaiglon met the marvel on the stairway ; but recollections of Drimdarroch 's treachery , and the admission of Doom himself that it was not uncommon among the chiefs , made him hopeless of reading that inscrutable face , and he turned to look about the room for some clue to what he found nowhere else . A chamber plain to meanness -- there seemed nothing here to help him to a solution .