about three o'clock
As he heard the teller 's step on the stair , he turned and waited in the shadow of the doorway without a sound . There is no need really to mention all these details . They are only of interest as showing how sometimes a bank teller in a corded smoking jacket and stockinged feet may be turned into such a hero as even the Mariposa girls might dream about . All of this must have happened at about three o'clock in the night . This much was established afterwards from the evidence of Gillis , the caretaker . When he first heard the sounds he had looked at his watch and noticed that it was half-past two ; the watch he knew was three-quarters of an hour slow three days before and had been gaining since . The exact time at which Gillis heard footsteps in the bank and started downstairs , pistol in hand , became a nice point afterwards in the cross-examination .