"I hope you won't have to return alone," he remarked. "I am hoping to be able to inflict myself upon you for a few more days; but it is on the cards I may be taken off the job since I have met with so little success."

"I hope not," I answered.

"I should be sorry, too," he said. "I am more convinced than ever that our friend is living within a twenty-mile radius of this house."

"What grounds have you for thinking so?" I asked.

"The very slightest at present," he declared frankly; "and until I have seen the police reports from other parts of the country, I will not commit myself definitely to the opinion."

I could not get anything more out of him then, but after he had made a note of all the information to be obtained at St. Albans--we were on the road by nine-thirty--he became more communicative. The information he obtained did not amount to much. On the previous evening, the Motor Pirate had not made his appearance anywhere; while on the evening before, the only outrage of which he had been guilty was the murder which we had discovered. On that night, however, his car had been reported as having been seen on various roads in the midlands, one appearance having been recorded as far north as Peterborough.

"That confirms my opinion," Forrest declared. "The Peterborough report gives the time of his appearance as about 2.50. The sun rises at five, and it is beginning to be light an hour earlier. It must have been about four when he dropped me into the water at Shefford. Hitherto he has not been seen by daylight at all. Clearly he must have delayed getting rid of me until he thought it was dangerous to carry me about any longer.

He may even have been close to his own home, though he would probably select a spot twenty or thirty miles away at least."

"It seems likely," I agreed.

"Certain of it," said Forrest. "Now we will get along to Shefford."

We had a very pleasant run, and a mile from the village, Forrest stopped me where a deep pool fringed with rushes skirted the road.

"This is the spot," he cried.

He left me in the car and scrambled through the hedge into an adjoining field. He came running back with a dilapidated overcoat sodden with water in one hand, and a piece of rope in the other.

"Thought I could not be mistaken," he cried.

When he was again in the car he examined the rope carefully.

"Just an ordinary piece of half-inch cord," he remarked. "It's not of much value as a clue, but as a piece of evidence--I have known a man's life hang upon a slighter thread before now." He chuckled grimly at his own pleasantry.

"Where next?" I inquired.

"Towcester," he replied; and I wheeled the car round, and we were soon making the dust fly again.

We were not detained very long at the inquest. Forrest had a few words with the coroner, so that after formal evidence of identification had been given, and I had made my statement as to the finding of the body, the inquiry was adjourned. Thus plenty of time was left at our disposal, and we did not hurry on our way to town, even breaking our journey on the way for lunch.

The weather remained delightfully fine. Clean roads, blue sky, soft winds, combined to make ideal weather for motoring. We reached town about four, and went straight to Scotland Yard. Forrest went in while I waited for him. Then he returned for me, and, taking me up in the lift, he piloted me into the presence of the commissioner, whom I found to be an exceedingly courteous gentleman. He expressed himself indebted to me for the a.s.sistance I had rendered the department. I did not see that my a.s.sistance had been of much practical value, and I said so; but I added that I was very keen on the Motor Pirate's capture, and I should be glad to render any service in my power which would tend to such an end.

"Anything you can do to a.s.sist Inspector Forrest will be greatly appreciated," he declared. "Of course, it is not our usual plan to make use of outside a.s.sistance, but we are not so bound up in red tape as to refuse such aid as that you offer."

We had ten minutes' further conversation, and then Forrest and I left together. The detective was in high glee. He had obtained _carte blanche_ to do as he liked. His chief had expressed every confidence in him, while urging him to spare no effort to obtain the Pirate's arrest.

"The fact is," he said, "the papers have been rubbing it into us for allowing such audacious crimes to be committed right under our noses, and the chief is wild to get the chap. Half of the detective force are already engaged on the job. I fancy I should get him myself singlehanded sooner or later if he were a sane man; but, as it is, the cunning of a madman upsets every calculation."

"You still hold to the theory that he is mad?" I asked.

"Cannot explain his treatment of me in any other way," he replied promptly.

"Well, what's the next move?" I asked, when we had returned to our car.

"I suppose we may as well go for a prowl to-night, on the off-chance of finding him."

"We might try a new district," answered Forrest, "You may have noticed that he breaks fresh ground every time he reappears."

"Where shall it be then?"

Forrest answered my question with another. "Supposing yourself to be in his place, and the desire to attract notoriety a stronger motive than mere plunder. What should you do?"

There flashed into my memory what Winter's guest had said about the Brighton Parcels Mail, and I said laughingly--

"I fancy I should hold up the Brighton Mail."

"As likely a feat as any for him to attempt," replied Forrest, thoughtfully.

I glanced up at the clock in the tower of St. Stephens; the hands pointed to a quarter before five.

"Well," I said, "we may as well run down to Brighton by daylight and get acquainted with the road, since I have only driven over it once before.

We can dine at the Metropole comfortably, spend a couple of hours on the front after dinner, and have plenty of time to meet the mail on the road afterwards."

"A most excellent suggestion," agreed the inspector, and his eyes twinkled at the thought of the programme I had mapped out.

We started forthwith. Reaching Brighton before sunset, I refilled my tanks with petrol before putting the car up at the Metropole and reserving a table for dinner. We had a wash, walked to the Hove end of the esplanade, and came back to our dinner with appet.i.tes equal to anything. We sat over our coffee a long while, Forrest making the time fly by spinning yarns about his experiences. Then we smoked a cigar on the pier, and so whiled away the time until eleven. If we had started then we should possibly have reached town before the mail had started, but as we were both tired of dawdling about, I proposed that we should extend our tour.

Forrest was quite agreeable. "Really we are out on a fool's errand," he remarked. "We are just as likely to meet him on one road as another. Yet I have a presentiment that we shall hear something further about him to-night. If we do meet him, remember one thing. One of us must get in the first shot, and it must not miss."

"Don't wait for me to shoot, then," I replied.

We got our car, and after a glance at the map, I told my companion where I proposed to go: a run along the coast to Worthing, there to strike inland for Horsham, from Horsham to make for the Brighton road about Crawley, roughly about a forty-mile run in all, and I reckoned that if we kept to the legal speed limit we should just about meet the mail.

Forrest made no objection to my suggestion, so we started at our slowest pace. I had very little to do, and the ride was one of the most enjoyable I have ever experienced. The salt breath of the sea was in our faces, and the roar of it in our ears. I was quite sorry when on reaching Worthing it became necessary to leave the coast. Inland the roads were absolutely deserted. We did not meet a single person between Worthing and Horsham, and for the first time I realized how easily the Motor Pirate's movements could evade notice. At Horsham we looked in at the police-station, and Forrest made a formal inquiry as to whether anything had been heard of our quarry in the neighbourhood; but, as we expected, without result. We remained there a little time to stretch our legs and to drink a cup of tea, which the officer in charge prepared for us, and on leaving we proceeded at the same steady pace, arriving in Crawley something after four. There we found that the mail had pa.s.sed through a quarter of an hour before our arrival, and I questioned whether it would be worth our while to remain any longer on the road.

"We may as well make a night of it," said Forrest, in reply to my remark on the subject, so I turned the car in the direction of Brighton again. We bowled along at about fifteen miles an hour, at which rate I reckoned on catching the mail within half an hour. But we were destined to overtake it in a considerably shorter time, for just after pa.s.sing the third milestone after leaving the village, our path was blocked by the huge van standing in the middle of the road and all across it.

I pulled up at once. Apparently the vehicle was not much damaged, but the door was broken open, while the parcels with which it had been laden were scattered all over the roadway. One horse lay on the roadway perfectly still, the others had disappeared.

The moment we stopped Forrest leaped from the car; I followed his example. The first object which met our eyes was the form of a man. He lay perfectly still, and I thought he was dead, but my companion had sharper eyes. Taking a knife from his pocket, he hacked at cords which bound the man hand and foot.

"More work of the Motor Pirate," remarked Forrest grimly, as I came to his a.s.sistance.

The man was not dead, but he had been so roughly gagged that had we arrived ten minutes later he probably would have been beyond human help.

In the condition he was, it took us ten minutes working vigorously to restore his respiration; and after that it took the whole of the contents of my pocket flask to restore him sufficiently to enable him to give us an account of the mishap which had befallen him.

Then we learned that the man was the driver of the mail, and that Forrest's surmise that we had happened once more upon the handiwork of the Motor Pirate was correct. He had, it appeared, been driving quietly along, when his attention had been arrested by the curious high-toned hum which presaged the Pirate's approach. He was wondering what the curious noise could be, when he suddenly realized that a long low car was beside him. He did not antic.i.p.ate any harm either to himself or to his charge, for, though he fancied that the stranger was the noted criminal, he shared the impression, pretty common until then, that the Pirate confined his attentions to motorists. The stranger did not even call upon him to pull up. He ran beside the coach, then slightly increasing his speed, he drew level with the wheelers of the team. There was the sound of a pistol shot, the off wheeler fell dead in his tracks, bringing down the other horses in his fall, and swinging the vehicle right across the road. The driver only escaped being pitched from his seat by the strap which held him to it.

"Then," continued the man, "he ups with 'is pistol an' tells me to come dahn, an' dahn I toddles pretty quick. 'Sorry ter inconwenience yer, my good feller,' ee says. 'Don't menshing it,' I says, as perlite as you'd be with a pistol a pointing at yer 'ed. 'I want the keys er this 'ere waggin,' ee says. 'Sorry they don't trust 'em ter us drivers,' I answers. 'Don't matter worth a cent,' ee says. 'I've another w'y er openin' thet strong box. Put yer 'ands be'ind yer an' turn rahnd,' ee says. I done it, an' ee trusses me up like a bloomin' chicken, an'

sticks my own angkincher dahn me froat. With thet ee walks along ter the door and blows the bloomin' locks orf with 'is pistol. That did it. Ee looks inside, an' the w'y ee cleared them parcels aht was a sight--well, yer can see fer yerself wort it's like. The other 'orses were thet mad they kicks theirselves free. Ee goes froo the parcels cool as a cowc.u.mber until ee routs aht the registered parcels. Ee puts them in 'is car. 'Tar, tar!' ee says, wiving 'is 'and, an' orf ee goes jest abaht five minutes afore you gents comed along."

When Forrest realized how near we had been to coming to close quarters with our quarry, he went aside, and for the first time since I had made his acquaintance, I heard him swear. It was a successful effort. He returned to my side the next moment.

"The telegraph is our only chance," he said. "Drive like h.e.l.l back to Crawley."