four o'clock in the afternoon
My only fear is that they may anticipate it and change their tactics . Hassan of Aleppo apparently knows as much of our plans as we do ourselves . '' Inspector Bristol , though a man of considerable culture , clearly was infected with a species of supernatural dread . At four o'clock in the afternoon I had heard nothing further from Bristol , but I did not doubt that he would advise me of his arrangements in good time . I sought by hard work to forget for a time the extraordinary business of the stolen slipper ; but it persistently intruded upon my mind . Particularly , my thoughts turned to the night of Professor Deeping 's murder , and to the bewitchingly pretty woman who had warned me of the impending tragedy . She had bound me to secrecy -- a secrecy which had proved irksome , for it had since appeared to me that she must have been an accomplice of Hassan of Aleppo .