seventeen minutes past three o'clock
The guard took her bag , and she swung onto the step . It did not seem strange to her that she had reached the station at precisely the same time as the train . It seemed only natural ... in accordance with the plan ... . At seventeen minutes past three o'clock Bessie Lonsdale hurried into a telephone-booth in Victoria Station , called up a friend , and asked her to tea . Then she took a taxi to within a block of the flat , where she dismissed the taxi , went into a pastry-shop , bought some cakes , and five minutes later she was taking off her hat and coat in her own bedroom . She worked quickly , automatically , without any sense of exertion , still as if she but obeyed a hypnotist 's command . At four o'clock a leaping fire in the drawing-room grate flickered cheerily against silver tea-things , against the sheen of newly dusted mahogany ; books lay here and there , carelessly , a late illustrated review open as if some one had just put it down , and dressed in a soft gown of blue crêpe , Bessie Lonsdale received her guest .