A visitor usually comes during the wakeful hours. Nocturnal visitors are usually thieves. They don’t inform one in advance because the purpose of their visit is never noble enough to inform in advance. People involved in shady businesses only choose midnight to break into someone’s house. In this story a spy is after an important report about missiles, a secretly guarded report, which is expected to be delivered to the private detective Ausable at 12.30 am. The spy gets the secret information from his trusted connections. So, he arrives earlier than Ausable and sneaks into his room using a pass key. The spy is brandishing his pistol to coerce the private detective to pass on the report as and when it arrives. Ausable outsmarts him by cooking up a story about a non existent balcony beneath his window which extends from the neighbouring apartment. He connects brilliantly the knock of Henry the waiter to that of police who might fire at Max as he is armed. So, the title of the story, “The Midnight Visitor” is very pertinent.
