eight o'clock
He tried to fix the hour , but could not , and again his thoughts went rambling on . After sending the lilies , he had returned to his own house , and Pon-Pon had prepared a `` petit cafe '' for him , and he had partaken of it , and had smoked a couple of cigarettes with her , and then had said a leisurely good-bye , and had started for the railway-station en route for Naples . What train had he intended to go by ? The eight o'clock express . He remembered that . But on the way , he had discovered that loss of the dagger-sheath , -- an unforeseen fatality that had turned him back , and brought him to where he now stood meditating . How long did the driver of that fiacre he hired , take to bring him to the wayside inn on the road to Frascati ?