midnight
They have a habit of watching the river for the mere interest of the sight , and they talk about everything like housewives gathered of an evening round the cottage door . If the first mate of a Castle Liner gets the sack they will be able to tell you what he said to the captain , what the old man said to him , and what both said to the Board , and having finished off that affair they will cheerfully turn to discussing whether Bill Stevens sank his barge outside the West Indian No. 2 by accident or on purpose . Theodore Racksole had no satisfactory means of identifying the steam launch which carried away Mr Tom Jackson . The sky had clouded over soon after midnight , and there was also a slight mist , and he had only been able to make out that it was a low craft , about sixty feet long , probably painted black . He had personally kept a watch all through the night on vessels going upstream , and during the next morning he had a man to take his place who warned him whenever a steam launch went towards Westminster . At noon , after his conversation with Prince Aribert , he went down the river in a hired row-boat as far as the Custom House , and poked about everywhere , in search of any vessel which could by any possibility be the one he was in search of . But he found nothing .