And the answer was, "Yes, at midnight.

You see, midnight here is exactly midday in Allahabad in India." This explanation was, of course, ample.

"Midnight," repeated everybody to everybody else, "is exactly midday in Allahabad." That made things perfectly clear.

Whereas if midnight had been midday in Timbuctoo the whole situation would have been different.
Each of the ladies was requested to bring to the seance some ornament of gold; but it must be plain gold, without any setting of stones.
It was known already that, according to the cult of Boohooism, gold, plain gold, is the seat of the three virtues--beauty, wisdom and grace.
Therefore, according to the creed of Boohooism, anyone who has enough gold, plain gold, is endowed with these virtues and is all right.

All that is needed is to have enough of it; the virtues follow as a consequence.
But for the great experiment the gold used must not be set with stones, with the one exception of rubies, which are known to be endowed with the three attributes of Hindu worship, modesty, loquacity, and pomposity.
In the present case it was found that as a number of ladies had nothing but gold ornaments set with diamonds, a second exception was made; especially as Mr.Yahi-Bahi, on appeal, decided that diamonds, though less pleasing to Buddha than rubies, possessed the secondary Hindu virtues of divisibility, movability, and disposability.
On the evening in question the residence of Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown might have been observed at midnight wrapped in utter darkness.