midnight
`` On the Saltfleet Road , eh ? '' interposed Cleek , rapidly , as the boy paused a moment for breath . `` So ? My midnight friend is doubtless sailing for foreign parts , as the safest place when coroner 's evidence begins to get too hot for him . And what then , Dollops ? '' `` Could n't find out much else , Mr. Cleek , ` cept to trace the place where the beggar ` angs out , and that 's a bit of a shanty just off Saltfleet Bay , an ' a stone 's throw from what looks ter me very like a boat-factory of some kind . Reckon the chap 's employed there , as , from a casual chat wiv a sailorin ' Johnny in the bar parlour of the ` Pig and Whistle ' , where I wuz a-linin ' of me empty stummick -LRB- detectin ' is that ` ungry work , sir ! -RRB-