noon
Gaily lighted cars offering glimpses of women in elaborate toilets and of their black-coated and white-shirted cavaliers thronged Piccadilly , bound for theatre or restaurant . The workaday shutters were pulled down , and the night life of London had commenced . The West End was in possession of an army of pleasure seekers , but Nicol Brinn was not among their ranks . Wearing his tightly-buttoned dinner jacket , he stood , hands clasped behind him , staring out of the window as Detective Inspector Wessex had found him at noon . Only one who knew him very well could have detected the fact that anxiety was written upon that Sioux-like face . His gaze seemed to be directed , not so much upon the fading prospect of the park , as downward , upon the moving multitude in the street below . Came a subdued knocking at the door .