about the hour of ten
`` Because the thing 's too dead easy , and a thing like that always looks like hell to me . '' Freddy Cohen finished his glass of whisky . `` Wait while I get some more drinks , '' he said . In this way , then , at about the hour of ten on a stuffy autumn night , in the crowded bar of that Wapping public-house , these two made a compact ; and of its outcome and of the next appearance of Cohen , the Jewish-American cracksman , within the ken of man , I shall now proceed to tell . `` I 've been expecting this , '' said Chief Inspector Kerry . He tilted his bowler hat farther forward over his brow and contemplated the ghastly exhibit which lay upon the slab of the mortuary . Two other police officers -- one in uniform -- were present , and they treated the celebrated Chief Inspector with the deference which he had not only earned but had always demanded from his subordinates .