midnight
Opposite High Street Kensington Station he jumped upon a bus , and at five minutes to midnight alighted at the Marble Arch . On entering the park he quickly found the seat he had indicated as their meeting place , and sat down to wait . The home-going theatre traffic behind him in the Bayswater Road had nearly ceased as the church clocks chimed the midnight hour . In the semi-darkness of the park dark figures were moving , lovers with midnight trysts like his own . In the long , well-lit road behind him motors full of gaily-dressed women flashed homeward from suppers or theatres , while from the open windows of a ballroom in a great mansion , the house of an iron magnate , came the distant strains of waltz music . Time dragged along . He strained his eyes down the dark pathway , but could see no approaching figure .