one o’clock
`` I do n't quite understand . '' `` Well , my dear fellow , we have already arrived at the conclusion that the message received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an assignation . Now , if the obvious reading of it is correct , and in order to keep the tryst one has to ascend a main stair and seek the seventh door in a corridor , it is perfectly clear that the house is a very large one . It is equally certain that this house can not be more than a mile or two from Oxshott , since Garcia was walking in that direction and hoped , according to my reading of the facts , to be back in Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi , which would only be valid up to one o'clock . As the number of large houses close to Oxshott must be limited , I adopted the obvious method of sending to the agents mentioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them . Here they are in this telegram , and the other end of our tangled skein must lie among them . '' It was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey village of Esher , with Inspector Baynes as our companion .