eight o'clock
There is a strangeness in the story of `` The Man Who Knew '' which brings it into the category of veracious history . It can not be said in truth that any story begins at the beginning of the first chapter , since all stories began with the creation of the world , but this present story may be said to begin when we cut into the lives of some of the characters concerned , upon the seventeenth day of July , 19 -- . There was a little group of people about the prostrate figure of a man who lay upon the sidewalk in Gray Square , Bloomsbury . The hour was eight o'clock on a warm summer evening , and that the unusual spectacle attracted only a small crowd may be explained by the fact that Gray Square is a professional quarter given up to the offices of lawyers , surveyors , and corporation offices which at eight o'clock on a summer 's day are empty of occupants . The unprofessional classes who inhabit the shabby streets impinging upon the Euston Road do not include Gray Square in their itinerary when they take their evening constitutionals abroad , and even the loud children find a less depressing environment for their games . The gray-faced youth sprawled upon the pavement was decently dressed and was obviously of the superior servant type . He was as obviously dead .