ten minutes to twelve
I had a little electric lamp in my pocket , and shielding it with my cap I groped my way to the ice-box , opened it -- and there was the little French melon ... only one . `` I stopped to listen -- I was quite cool . Then I pulled out my bottle of stuff and my syringe , and gave each section of the melon a hypodermic . It was all done inside of three minutes -- at ten minutes to twelve I was back in the car . I got out of the lane as quietly as I could , struck a back road that skirted the village , and let the car out as soon as I was beyond the last houses . I only stopped once on the way in , to drop the beard and ulster into a pond . I had a big stone ready to weight them with and they went down plump , like a dead body -- and at two o'clock I was back at my desk . ''