midnight
What Beautrelet surmised was that the four pictures had undoubtedly been carried off in the motor car , but that , before reaching Caudebec , they were transferred to another car , which had crossed the Seine either above Caudebec or below it . Now the first horse-boat down the stream was at Quillebeuf , a greatly frequented ferry and , consequently , dangerous . Up stream , there was the ferry-boat at La Mailleraie , a large , but lonely market-town , lying well off the main road . By midnight , Isidore had covered the thirty-five or forty miles to La Mailleraie and was knocking at the door of an inn by the waterside . He slept there and , in the morning , questioned the ferrymen . They consulted the counterfoils in the traffic-book . No motor-car had crossed on Thursday the 23rd of April .