seven o’clock
He was sitting in the smoking-room of the club having tea , and listening rather wearily to Surbiton 's account of the last comic song at the Gaiety , when the waiter came in with the evening papers . He took up the _ St. James 's _ , and was listlessly turning over its pages , when this strange heading caught his eye : SUICIDE OF A CHEIROMANTIST . He turned pale with excitement , and began to read . The paragraph ran as follows : Yesterday morning , at seven o'clock , the body of Mr. Septimus R. Podgers , the eminent cheiromantist , was washed on shore at Greenwich , just in front of the Ship Hotel . The unfortunate gentleman had been missing for some days , and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in cheiromantic circles . It is supposed that he committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement , caused by overwork , and a verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by the coroner 's jury . Mr. Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand , that will shortly be published , when it will no doubt attract much attention .