midday
I 'll turn you croquet balls ... '' The doctor went out of the ward with a wave of his hand . It was all over with the turner . THE deputy examining magistrate and the district doctor were going to an inquest in the village of Syrnya . On the road they were overtaken by a snowstorm ; they spent a long time going round and round , and arrived , not at midday , as they had intended , but in the evening when it was dark . They put up for the night at the Zemstvo hut . It so happened that it was in this hut that the dead body was lying -- the corpse of the Zemstvo insurance agent , Lesnitsky , who had arrived in Syrnya three days before and , ordering the samovar in the hut , had shot himself , to the great surprise of everyone ; and the fact that he had ended his life so strangely , after unpacking his eatables and laying them out on the table , and with the samovar before him , led many people to suspect that it was a case of murder ; an inquest was necessary . In the outer room the doctor and the examining magistrate shook the snow off themselves and knocked it off their boots .