two o'clock in the morning
-LSB- Illustration : `` Can the horse run ? '' -LRB- cartoon from _ The Rolling Stone _ -RRB- -RSB- -LSB- Originally published in _ The Black Cat _ for April , 1902 , The Short Story Publishing Co. -RSB- The policeman was standing at the corner of Twenty-fourth Street and a prodigiously dark alley near where the elevated railroad crosses the street . The time was two o'clock in the morning ; the outlook a stretch of cold , drizzling , unsociable blackness until the dawn . A man , wearing a long overcoat , with his hat tilted down in front , and carrying something in one hand , walked softly but rapidly out of the black alley . The policeman accosted him civilly , but with the assured air that is linked with conscious authority . The hour , the alley 's musty reputation , the pedestrian 's haste , the burden he carried -- these easily combined into the `` suspicious circumstances '' that required illumination at the officer 's hands .