twenty minutes
to nine
The fog was lifting . Automobiles were making cautious progress along the slippery street . A woman with a basket had stopped under the street light and was rearranging her parcels . The clock of the city hall , visible over the opposite roofs , marked only twenty minutes to nine . It was still early evening -- not even midnight , the magic hour of the night . Somehow that fact reassured me , and I was able to take stock of my surroundings . I realized , for instance , that I stood in the room over Arthur 's dressing room , and that it was into the ceiling under me that the second -- or probably the first -- bullet had penetrated .