ten o'clock in the evening
`` Do n't bother me , Smith , I 'm busy . '' I spent the next half hour studying a map of Great Britain on which I mentally traced _ Her _ course from London to Glasgow and from there to Edinburgh . Another batch of telegrams from Plymouth , Hull , Dublin , Southampton , Newcastle , York , Hastings , and lesser places was silent concerning the missing Hardings . It was ten o'clock in the evening when the boy handed me three envelopes . I read the first two and threw them on the floor . Without glancing at the date line I read the third one . It ran : `` Robert L. Harding , wife and daughter at the Caledonia .