midnight
And for one year now Professor Paul Fellner had been in the town , after having applied for his transference from the university in the capital to this place , which was scarce half an hour 's walk distant from the home of the beautiful young woman who had been the love of his youth . And Fellner had made his home in the quietest quarter of the city , in that quarter which was nearest the Archducal hunting castle . He had lived very quietly , had not cultivated the acquaintance of the ladies of the town , but was a great walker and bicycle rider ; and every Saturday evening since he had been alone in the house , he had sent his servant to the theatre . And it was on Saturday evenings that Forest-Councillor Kniepp went to his Bowling Club at the other end of the city , and did not return until the last train at midnight . And during these evening hours Fellner 's apartment was a convenient place for pleasant meetings ; and nothing prevented the Professor from accompanying his beautiful friend home through the quiet Promenade , along the turnpike to the hunting castle . And Johann had once found a dog-whip in his master 's room-and Councillor Leo Kniepp , head of the Forestry Department , was the possessor of a beautiful Ulmer hound which took an active interest in people who wore clothes belonging to Fellner . Furthermore , in the little drawer of the bedside table in the murdered man 's room , there had been found a tortoise-shell hairpin ; and in the corner of the vestibule of his house , a little mother-of-pearl glove button , of the kind much in fashion that winter , because of a desire on the part of the ladies of the town to help the home industry of the neighbourhood .