midnight
`` Give me a receipt for it and after my check has gone through clearing I 'll come back and get the ring . '' Fifteen minutes later , with the blue vase packed in excelsior and reposing in a stout cardboard box , Bill Peck entered a restaurant and ordered dinner . When he had dined he engaged a taxi and was driven to the flying field at the Marina . From the night watchman he ascertained the address of his pilot friend and at midnight , with his friend at the wheel , Bill Peck and his blue vase soared up into the moonlight and headed south . An hour and a half later they landed in a stubble field in the Salinas Valley and , bidding his friend good-bye , Bill Peck trudged across to the railroad track and sat down . When the train bearing Cappy Ricks came roaring down the valley , Peck twisted a Sunday paper with which he had provided himself , into an improvised torch , which he lighted . Standing between the rails he swung the flaming paper frantically .