midnight
The laborious letter , after half an hour , had in it : `` If you go to 15 , Cheyne Gardens , the gentleman will give you a sovereign which he owed me for cutting down the elm in the beech-wood at Teddington for him '' . Now , Loveday lived at 15 , Cheyne Gardens , and had only to see those words `` _ the elm in the beechwood _ , '' to scent a cypher from Hogarth . He offered five pounds for that letter : but it was two weeks before he decided upon the intended words : `` Small chloroform -- trenches -- rock '' . There were several trenches , many rocks : yet one midnight , when a blustering wind huddled the bracken , and the prison stood darkling , wrapped in mystery , a lonely figure in an ulster was there ; and under each of three rocks he deposited two vials : for the formation of only three gave the least chance of concealment . What Hogarth 's plan could be he racked his brain in vain to dream , guessing that prisoners , on returning from the moor , must be searched , even to the ears : Hogarth , therefore , could never use the vial within the walls , and must mean to use it without -- a sufficiently wild proceeding . But the finding of the vials , was sure : for the `` rock '' which Hogarth had had in mind was one of those granite ones common on Colmoor , standing five feet high on a small base ; and one day he swept his hand among the gorse under it , and , with a glad half-surprise , touched two vials . Three days later he again swept his hand among the gorse , touched the vials , breasted his handkerchief , laid the vials on it , and presently contrived to tie them together with a twig .