nine o'clock at
night
`` On my arrival at my Whitechapel premises , I affixed a notice to the window informing the nobility and gentry that I was ` absent on business . ' Then I clothed myself decently , emptied the contents of the safe into a hand-bag , in which I also put the cooper 's chisel , locked up the premises and hurried off to Aldgate Station . My first objective was the establishment of Mr. Hammerstein , the dealer in osteology , from whom I purchased three articulated human skeletons , and obtained the invaluable receipted invoices ; and having thus taken every precaution that prudence and human foresight could suggest , I repaired to my Bloomsbury house , let myself in at the museum door , rolled the casks through into the laboratory and proceeded to unpack the specimens . `` The initial processes occupied me far into the night , while as to the finishing operations , they kept me busy for over a month ; during which time I shaved and cut hair throughout the day up to nine o'clock at night , reserving the laboratory work for a relaxation after the prosaic labors of the day . `` Looked at broadly , the episode was highly satisfactory and successful -- excepting in one vital respect . None of the three specimens had ringed hair . The completed preparations were , after all , but the by-products of my industry .