midnight
I should like to know where Inspector Field was born . In Ratcliffe Highway , I would have answered with confidence , but for his being equally at home wherever we go . _ He _ does not trouble his head as I do , about the river at night . _ He _ does not care for its creeping , black and silent , on our right there , rushing through sluice-gates , lapping at piles and posts and iron rings , hiding strange things in its mud , running away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies faster than midnight funeral should , and acquiring such various experience between its cradle and its grave . It has no mystery for him . Is there not the Thames Police ! Accordingly , Williams leads the way .