eight o’clock
That would explain the game of tennis . Those chaps did n't need to act , they just turned a handle and passed into another life , which came as naturally to them as the first . It sounds a platitude , but Peter used to say that it was the big secret of all the famous criminals . It was now getting on for eight o'clock , and I went back and saw Scaife to give him his instructions . I arranged with him how to place his men , and then I went for a walk , for I did n't feel up to any dinner . I went round the deserted golf-course , and then to a point on the cliffs farther north beyond the line of the villas . On the little trim newly-made roads I met people in flannels coming back from tennis and the beach , and a coastguard from the wireless station , and donkeys and pierrots padding homewards .