"Hadn't we better be getting on to St. Albans, and giving information to the police?"

"H--m--m!" he answered meditatively. "I think perhaps we had better not."

"Not?" I replied in surprise.

"In the first place it is after dinner," he said.

"What of that? We dined wisely."

"One of us knows nothing about it." Winter jerked his thumb in the direction of the slumbering warrior. "We could hardly explain the reason why the Colonel slept so soundly through the adventure. The explanation could hardly please him, would it?"

I muttered an a.s.sent.

"Besides," continued Winter, "for three of us to admit that we tamely allowed ourselves to be held up by one man, and forced to hand over to him all our valuables, well it--er--it hardly seems heroic, does it?

That wouldn't create a very favourable impression upon Miss Maitland either."

I was compelled to agree with him.

"I think perhaps we had best keep the matter to ourselves. I have no desire to provide another sensation for the evening papers to-morrow."

"At any rate I'm not going to sit down quietly under my loss if you are," I responded irritably.

"That's another matter altogether," replied Winter, as he set our car in motion once more. "I did not say that I was going to grin and bear it either."

"What do you propose?" I cried eagerly.

"That is a question we will discuss over a whisky and soda, when we have deposited the Colonel safely at home;" and he refused to say anything further.

Our car was once more put at full speed, and in five minutes we reached the cross-roads on the outskirts of St. Albans, where the road to Watford makes a junction with that on which we had come from town. Here Winter pulled up, and, much to my surprise, dismounted and made a careful examination of the road by the light of our lamps.

"I just want to see in which direction the fellow went," he answered, in reply to my inquiry as to the meaning of his action.

He was still engaged on the task when we heard in the distance the regular beat of a petrol motor approaching us on the Watford road.

"If it's another pirate, he won't get much plunder," I remarked.

"That's no pirate," replied Winter, as a couple of lights came into view. "Cannot you recognize the rattle of Mannering's old car? I should know it anywhere. He will be able to tell us if any one has pa.s.sed him on the road."

As soon as the new-comer came within range of his voice, Winter hailed him.

"That you, Mannering?"

"Hullo, Winter! Got a puncture? Can I be of any a.s.sistance?"

Was it indeed Mannering's voice, or were my ears deceiving me? The intonation was remarkably like that of the stranger, who so short a time previously had bade us stand and deliver, that I sprang to my feet with an exclamation of astonishment. My eyes at once convinced me that my ears had played me false. There was no mistaking Mannering's lumbering old car for the graceful shape of the Motor Pirate's vehicle. I resumed my seat, taking my nerves seriously to task for generating the suspicion, if suspicion it could be called, which had flashed across my mind. If anything further had been needed to dispel it, the reply vouchsafed to Winter's query as to whether he had met any one on the road would have done so.

"Met any one?" said Mannering; "I should think I have. Met the most wonderful motor I've ever seen, about a couple of miles back. 'Pon my soul, I'm not sure even now whether it was not a big night bird, for it just swooped by me with about as much noise as a humming-top might make.

It must have been travelling eighty miles an hour at least. Reckless sort of devil the driver must be too. He hadn't a single light. I suppose his lamps must have been put out by the rapidity with which he was travelling. Never had such a scare in my life. I'd like to meet the Johnny. I'd welcome an opportunity of telling him what I thought of his conduct."

"So should I," replied Winter, grimly; "and I fancy Sutgrove would not be averse to a meeting with him."

"Why, what has he been doing?" asked Mannering.

"It's too long a story to tell you now," said Winter, as he climbed back into his seat; "but if you will come up to my place as soon as you have put your car to bed, I'll tell you all about it."

"Right!" sang out Mannering, as we once more set out upon our homeward way. We had not much further to go. In two minutes we had pulled up at Colonel Maitland's door.

I leaned back and shouted, "Here we are, Colonel," in the slumbering warrior's ear.

"Eh! What--what?" he replied, as he awakened with a start. "When are we going to start?"

"Start? Why we've brought you safely home to your own threshold," said Winter.

"'Pon my soul! I remember now," he answered. "I just shut my eyes to keep the dust out of 'em, and---- You will come in for a peg, of course," he continued, as he emerged from the rugs in which he had been enveloped.

I glanced at the windows. There was only a light in the Colonel's study.

If there had been another in the drawing-room, I should have accepted forthwith. As it was, I merely said that I could not think of disturbing Miss Maitland.

"Pooh!" said the Colonel, with the usual callous disregard of the mere father for his children's beauty sleep.

But he did not press the invitation. Indeed it was with difficulty he succeeded in repressing a yawn.

"I'll call to-morrow, and get a considered opinion upon my Soho house of entertainment," I remarked, as the Colonel opened his door, and paused at the entrance to bid us a final good night.

"Glad to see you," he replied, as he grasped my hand and shook it warmly. "But of one thing you may rest a.s.sured. So long as that bin of port holds out, your house of entertainment may count upon me as a regular customer whenever I dine in town."

"Opium isn't in it," commented Winter in a low voice, as he set the car in motion and wheeled out of the drive. "How he could have slept so soundly through it all absolutely beats me."

I did not reply. My attention was concentrated upon one of the upper windows, at which I thought I had seen a form I knew very well make a brief appearance. But we left the window and house behind us. Winter's place was only about a hundred yards further up the road.

CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING MY RIVAL

"NOW, Jim, dip your beak into that, and let me see if it will not restore to your cla.s.sic features their customary repose."

So saying, Winter handed me a stately tumbler, and the mixture was so much to my liking that I felt an involuntary relaxation of my facial muscles immediately I obeyed the command. I stretched myself at length in the easy chair which I had drawn up before the fire, and felt able to forgive even the Motor Pirate. We were alone in the apartment which Winter called his study, but since the only books he read therein were motor-catalogues, and the lounges with which the snuggery was furnished were much more conducive to repose than to mental exertion, I refused to acknowledge its claim to the t.i.tle. That, by the way. The fire was burning brightly. Winter's red, rugged, honest face was beaming with almost equal radiance. Who could help feeling happy?

Then Mannering was announced, and Mannering was a man I had learned to pa.s.sively dislike. Why, I scarcely knew. I was aware of nothing against him. Indeed, when six months previously, on my first coming to St.

Albans, I had been introduced to him, I had been rather favourably impressed. He was a tall dark man of thirty-five, with more than the average endowment of good looks. He could tell a good story, had shot big game in most parts of the world, was well-read, intelligent, possessed unexceptionable manners, and yet---- Well, Winter had none of his various qualifications, but I would at any time far rather have had one friend like Winter than a hundred like the other man.

I had first made his acquaintance at Colonel Maitland's house, where I had found him on an apparently intimate footing. Perhaps it was this very intimacy which formed the basis for my dislike, for--there is no need to mince matters--at this time I was jealous, horribly and unreasonably jealous, of every male person who entered the Colonel's house. And here, perhaps, it will be better for me to explain how it happened that I came to be living in a cottage on the outskirts of St.

Albans in preference to my own house in Norfolk.

The change in my residence had been entirely due to a tennis party at Cromer. There I met Evie Maitland. She was---- No, every one can fill in the blank from their own experience for themselves; and if they cannot, I pity them.