thirty minutes past six
`` A common murderer , possibly , but a very uncommon cook . '' Norman Gortsby sat on a bench in the Park , with his back to a strip of bush-planted sward , fenced by the park railings , and the Row fronting him across a wide stretch of carriage drive . Hyde Park Corner , with its rattle and hoot of traffic , lay immediately to his right . It was some thirty minutes past six on an early March evening , and dusk had fallen heavily over the scene , dusk mitigated by some faint moonlight and many street lamps . There was a wide emptiness over road and sidewalk , and yet there were many unconsidered figures moving silently through the half-light , or dotted unobtrusively on bench and chair , scarcely to be distinguished from the shadowed gloom in which they sat . The scene pleased Gortsby and harmonised with his present mood . Dusk , to his mind , was the hour of the defeated .