six o'clock
This closed the evidence ; and the jury retired . They were absent about a quarter of an hour , and then returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown . Henry Dunbar , Arthur Lovell , and Mr. Balderby went back to the hotel . It was past six o'clock when the coroner 's inquest was concluded , and the three men sat down to dinner together at seven . That dinner-party was not a pleasant one ; there was a feeling of oppression upon the minds of the three men . The awful event of the previous day cast its dreadful shadow upon them . They could not talk freely of this subject -- for it was too ghastly a theme for discussion -- and to talk of any other seemed almost impossible .