At ten minutes to eight on the night of Saturday November 27th, the parish hall at Winton St. Giles smelt of evergreens, wet mackintoshes, and humanity.
Overture to Death Ngaio Marsh 1939

Naturally, not to long afterward, tragedy ensued.

I read that for the first time yesterday – so it was doubly trippy (unfortunately not at 7.50pm, it was more like 3.35pm and of course it was a Tuesday). I do like it when significant (to me) dates (and less often, names) pop up in the course of my reading.

Also, strange that is not an American edition with that punctuation (although I do think that comma before the “and” makes a nice pause). And I would have thought it was “smelled of”.