one o'clock in the afternoon
Laurie inspected other houses , dozens of them . He made his way into strange , new roads . Nowhere was there the slightest clue leading to the house he sought . It was one o'clock in the afternoon when , with an exclamation of actual anguish , he swung his car around for the return journey to the station . For the first time the hopelessness of his mission came home to him . There must be a few hundred houses on the Sound near Sea Cliff . How was he to find the right one ?