I did. There we set the wires throbbing, and begun to scour the countryside for any traces of the Pirate. We did not give up our quest until eleven o'clock in the morning. I think we inquired at every house and cottage within a ten-mile radius of the scene of the outrage, but without finding a single person who had seen or heard of the Motor Pirate.

Once more he had appeared and disappeared without leaving the faintest clue to his ident.i.ty.

CHAPTER XII

HOW WE EXCHANGE SHOTS WITH THE PIRATE

AFTER the sudden flurry which the reappearance of the Motor Pirate caused, and quite as much in the country at large as in my own particular circle, we settled down once again to a condition of comparative quietude. Of course there were plenty of facts to keep the public interest alive and to fill the papers. The adjourned inquest on the victim found near Towcester supplied columns of copy, while the robbery of the Brighton Mail afforded unlimited scope for the descriptive reporter as well as for the special crime investigator, who at this time made his permanent appearance on the staff of nearly every paper of any importance in the British Isles. My life at home was made a burden to me by these gentlemen. I bear them no malice for their persevering attempts to interview me, but they were an unmitigated nuisance, since I had no wish to air my experiences in the newspapers at this stage of affairs. It was with the utmost difficulty I escaped the attention of the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate, for they even waited on my doorstep for the chance of b.u.t.ton-holing me when I went out in the morning; and pursued me so a.s.siduously, that I dared not look a stranger in the face, lest my glance should be translated into a column of glowing prose.

I have said that the Pirate left no clue to his ident.i.ty upon his latest appearance, and, indeed, at the time, such was the opinion both of Forrest and myself. But in the light of after events we learned that there was a clue, had we been keen-witted enough to have discovered it.

In the course of our inquiries around Crawley, we certainly did not succeed in finding any one who had observed the mysterious car which every one had learned to a.s.sociate with the Pirate, but we had been told casually at Caterham--we had not returned by the direct road between London and Brighton--that we were not the only motorists abroad on that night, since another man had pa.s.sed through the town early the same morning. When we learned, however, that he had been driving a car of the conventional shape with a tonneau body, we paid no further attention to the information, concluding that he was a sportsman, anxious like ourselves for a brush with the Pirate. Our blindness was to cost us dear before we had done.

There was another supposition which I could not get out of my mind in connection with the latest feat, and a couple of days afterwards I mentioned it to Forrest as we waited, according to our invariable custom, at St. Albans for news of the Pirate's reappearance.

"Don't you think it particularly strange," I remarked, "that in holding up the Brighton Mail, our friend at once searched for the registered parcels, and directly he laid his hands upon them at once made off?"

"A perfectly natural thing for him to do," replied the detective. "He would guess that, if there were any valuables, they would almost certainly have been registered, and he could scarcely hope to go over the whole contents of the van."

"Admitted," I replied. "Still, does it not strike you as curious that he should have selected the night when a valuable parcel of diamonds was there?"

"Well?" asked Forrest, his attention thoroughly arrested.

"It almost seems as if he was possessed of the same information as we were," I ventured.

"According to your argument," he answered, "the pirate should be either yourself or myself, Colonel Maitland, Mr. Mannering, Mr. Winter, or his friend."

"There remains Mannering and the diamond merchant," I said thoughtfully, "and I know the latter has never driven a motor-car in his life.

Besides, he is scarcely likely to have robbed himself in such an extraordinary fashion." We had seen from the papers that he had, in fact, been referring to his own firm when he had described to us the advantages of the parcel post as a means of transmitting valuables. "He may have other friends beside Winter to whom he has mentioned the matter."

"There's Mr. Mannering still to be accounted for," remarked Forrest.

"No harm can be done by inquiring if he was away from home that evening.

What sort of establishment does he keep?"

"Merely a couple of maids," I answered.

"In that case there should be no trouble in ascertaining whether he was out or not," he replied. "I'll see about it in the morning."

He made the inquiry accordingly, but as he confessed to me afterwards, without expecting anything to come of it. His expectations seemed to be justified in the result. The maids declared that Mannering had gone to his sitting-room after dinner, and had been there with his slippers on when they retired for the night. They had locked up the house as usual, and the doors had been fast when they came down the next morning.

This investigation, perfunctory as it was, decided us against any idea of Mannering's complicity, and I fell back upon the theory that the diamond merchant must have communicated his methods to some one else. We sought him out in the city, and he a.s.sured us that he had never before referred to the subject. He did not object to supplying us with the names of his acquaintances who owned cars, and either Forrest or myself made inquiries concerning every one of them. All were to no purpose.

When we had finished, we were no nearer discovering anything concerning the Pirate than we were when we had begun.

Then occurred an incident which should have opened our eyes, if anything possibly could have done so, to the personality of the Pirate. But again we were absolutely blind.

It was the second week of May, and since, in spite of continued fine weather, our unknown terror remained in the seclusion of his hiding-place, wherever it might be, I had persuaded Forrest to come with me for a run one afternoon as far as Cambridge, proposing to return after sunset.

The roads were beginning to be a little dusty, but altogether we had a very pleasant journey without any incident of note. We left the university town about nine, reckoning upon getting home comfortably before midnight. There was a bright slice of moon shining, and we did the dozen miles before reaching Royston at a decent pace. We went slowly over the hilly road out of Royston and had pa.s.sed over the worst of it, and I had just put on a higher speed, when I fancied I heard the distant hum which once heard could never be mistaken for anything else. Forrest heard it at the same time as myself.

"Pull up at the side of the road," he cried. "The car must not be damaged."

I obeyed, running the bonnet into the hedge and leaving the back of the car extended over the footpath. Meanwhile, Forrest had drawn his revolver from his pocket, and the moment I brought the car to a standstill I followed his example.

"Don't stand on ceremony," advised my companion; "shoot on sight!"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when our enemy made his appearance, coming from the direction of Buntingford. Whether he had any intention of stopping and robbing us, I have no means of telling, but I think not, for he was travelling at his most rapid pace, and gave no signs of slackening as he approached. Once more I was astonished at the wonderful steadiness of his machine. He pa.s.sed us in a flash, the car running as evenly as if it were upon rails. In fact I paid so much attention to this, that I was too late to fire with any prospect of hitting him. Forrest was more alert. As the Pirate swooped by, the detective's Colt spoke twice. So far as we could see, the shots took no effect, for he did not move an inch.

"No luck," muttered my companion, as the hum of the Pirate's car died away in the distance.

I held up a warning finger. "Hush!" I said.

My ears had told me truly--our enemy was once more approaching us. I leaned over the back of the car, this time determined that I would at least make an endeavour to stop his progress. The road was without a bend for a stretch of at least two hundred yards, and the moment he came into the straight he was clearly visible to us in the light of the moon.

I did not wait. The moment I saw him distinctly, I lifted my revolver and pulled the trigger as rapidly as I was able. Before I had emptied three chambers he was level. I was just in the act of firing a third time, when a flash of fire spurted from the running car and my pistol dropped from my hand. Something had struck me violently on the arm. I felt no pain for the moment, only curiously numbed and cold. I wondered why my companion should continue to fire at the rapidly disappearing form of the Pirate, who appeared to me to be swerving from side to side of the road in the most ridiculous fashion. In another moment he was out of sight. I felt extremely sick, and, with something between a groan and a sigh, I sank back into my seat.

"I fancy one of us must have got him," said Forrest, in an excited tone.

"Let us get on."

"I hope you are right," I answered. "For he has certainly managed to wing me."

The shock had pa.s.sed off, and, with the return of sensation, my arm felt as if a red-hot iron had been run through it, while there was a similar sort of feeling about my chest.

"Really," said Forrest, as he looked closely into my face. He must have seen that I was not joking, for he jumped out of the car and came back with one of the lamps in his hand. "Where is it?" he asked, with some anxiety.

"Merely the arm, I fancy," I replied.

He took a knife from his pocket, and, without a moment's hesitation, ripped up the sleeve of the overcoat and under-coat which I was wearing.

The shirtsleeve was already soaked with blood, and his face was curiously anxious as he cut away the linen and felt the bone from wrist to shoulder. Then his face cleared.

"Only through the muscle," he remarked. "A fortnight will see the wound completely healed."

Meanwhile he was tearing his handkerchief into strips, and, with this improvised bandage, he bound up the wound.

"Sure that is all?" he asked, when he had tightened it to his satisfaction.

"I've got much the same sort of feeling here," I replied, tapping my chest gingerly.

His face grew grave again, and before doing anything more he fished my flask out of my pocket, and insisted upon my taking a liberal draught of the contents. Not until then would he examine me.

"Your bleeding powers would do credit to a bullock," he commented, as he cut away my shirt: "but beyond loss of blood, I don't think there's much harm done."

His first impression was correct. A cursory examination was quite sufficient to convince him that I was not much hurt.

"Just a nasty furrow," he remarked. "Pretty painful, I suppose. The bullet glanced off, turned by that leather coat of yours, I presume.

Lucky for you; as it is, you will be all right in the fortnight."