about a quarter past nine
What on earth did she want with him ? And could he , at any rate , get at the desk and read the papers of which the note spoke and which , he did not doubt , were the dossier of the Bellward case , before she awoke ? They might , at least , throw some light on his relations with the dancer . `` She had her dinner here by the fire , '' old Martha resumed her narrative , `` and about a quarter past nine comes your second tellygram , sir , saying as how you could not arrive till five o'clock in the morning . '' Desmond glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece . The hands pointed to a quarter past five ! He had lost all count of the time in his peregrinations of the night .