eight in the morning
It was all very curious and pathetic , yet I think I should have been safe , for a time at all events , in this little corner of London into which chance had so strangely thrown me , but for one unfortunate happening . That was the arrival of the daily newspaper . There was never more than a single copy . It came at eight in the morning and was laid on the dining-room mantelpiece , from which -LRB- by an unwritten law of the house -RRB- it was the duty as well as the honour of the person who had first finished breakfast to take it up and read the most startling part of the news to the rest of the company . Thus it occurred that on the third morning after my arrival I was startled by the voice of the old colonel , who , standing back to the fire , with the newspaper in his hand , cried : `` Mysterious Disappearance of a Peeress . '' `` Read it , '' said the old clergyman . The tea-cup which I was raising to my mouth trembled in my hand , and when I set it down it rattled against the saucer .