ten o'clock
`` Let us hear what the man has to say . '' Gedge began . He spoke by the book , like one who repeats a statement carefully prepared . `` It was past ten o'clock on the night of the 25th June , 1914 . I had just finished supper when I was rung up by the landlord of The Three Feathers on the Farfield road -- it 's the inn about a quarter of a mile from the lock gates . He said that the District Secretary of the Red Democratic Federation was staying there -- his brother-in-law , if you want to know -- and he had n't received my report . I must explain that I am the local secretary , and as there was to be an important conference of the Federation at Derby the next day , the District Secretary ought to have been in possession of my report on local affairs .