Fortunately I had an aunt present. She was the most amiable of aunts, and quite devoted towards her most dutiful nephew. With her a.s.sistance, I managed not only to improve my acquaintance with Miss Maitland, but also to effect an introduction to her father. I had only known them a week, however, before the Colonel took his daughter back to St. Albans.

I allowed an interval of a fortnight to elapse, and then I followed. Of course I had to be prepared with some excuse, and here luck favoured me.

Looking through the directory I discovered that Winter, whom I knew slightly as having been up at Camford about the same time as myself, was also a resident in the delightful St. Alban's suburb of St. Stephens where the Maitlands resided. I sought out Winter. I confided my story to him. The upshot of it all was that I took a cottage close to his house, and not far from the Colonel's, ostensibly that under Winter's tuition I might develop into a first-cla.s.s motorist.

Somehow I found that I made a great deal more progress with my motoring than with my love-making. Surely a more bewitching, tantalizing, provoking little beauty than Evie Maitland never tore a man's heart to fragments. If she was kind to me one day, she would be still kinder to Mannering the next. But that is neither here nor there. Anyhow, I heartily wished him out of the way, for there was no doubt whatever that Randolph Mannering was a much more attractive person than my insignificant self. His mere advantage in age counted for something; but I could have forgiven him that, had he not made use of the years to see so much and do so much, that he could not help appearing in the light of a hero to a girl who was just at the worshipping age. And he knew so well how to get the fullest value out of his experiences. He never paraded them, I must admit that much in his favour. He was far too clever. An anecdote here and there to ill.u.s.trate some point in the conversation, a modest account of some thrilling adventure, in which he hardly ever mentioned the part he had personally played, produced a much greater effect than if he had gone about trumpeting the deeds he had done and the dangers he had survived.

He had, too, the advantage of a much longer acquaintance with the Maitlands than myself. I learned from the Colonel that Mannering had been living in a house whose garden adjoined his own for a year before my arrival on the scene. His life, until the Colonel had recognized him as an acquaintance he had made at the house of a friend some years before, had been that of a recluse, the object of his retirement being to perfect some mechanical invention upon which he was engaged. He had soon developed into a friend of the family, and I had found him firmly installed as such when I made my appearance at St. Albans.

Naturally then I was none too pleased that Winter had proposed to take him into our confidence, but I made no absolute objection.

I sat smoking quietly while Winter told the story of our adventure. He listened most attentively.

"It's a most extraordinary story," he remarked, when the narrative was concluded. "You are quite sure neither of you touched any of that port?"

Winter turned one of his pockets inside out with an expressive gesture.

"Wine may rob a man of his wits," he replied, "but it does not relieve him of fifty pounds in notes, six in gold, a watch and chain worth fifty, and a diamond which has been valued at a hundred."

"The numbers of the notes should enable you to trace the thief," said Mannering, thoughtfully.

Winter laughed. "The fact is, I am such a careless beggar. I always carry notes about with me, replenishing my case when necessary; and really I have nothing to tell me whether those notes I had in my possession were the last batch I had from the bank, or odd ones left over from previous consignments. They may have been in my case for months."

"Both Winter and I could identify our watches," I hazarded.

"Of course," replied Mannering, "if your Motor Pirate is fool enough to attempt to p.a.w.n them you may get the chance; but if he sells them to a receiver, they'll go straight into the melting pot."

Winter lit a cigarette and Mannering turned to me. "What was the extent of your loss?"

"Ten in gold, thirty in notes, and say thirty for my watch. My loss is comparatively light."

"You know the numbers of your notes, I suppose?" he inquired, as he lit a cigarette in turn.

"Yes," I replied, "I'm not quite so casual as Winter."

"There's some clue for the police to work upon, then."

"It might prove to be so, only Winter thinks we show up so badly in the whole affair that he won't hear of my giving information."

"The fact is," said Winter, "Maitland slept soundly through the whole affair, and it wouldn't be sporting to give him away."

"I see----" began Mannering.

Winter deftly changed the subject. "What puzzles me," he said, "is the kind of motor the fellow employed to propel his car. I know of nothing at present on the market anything like so effective. I've seen 'em all."

"Your loss doesn't seem to trouble you much, anyhow," commented Mannering.

"I would willingly give a hundred times as much for a duplicate of that motor. I should be pretty sure to get my money back once I put it on the market."

"If there's all that value in it, why should the owner go in for highway robbery?" I asked.

"That's just what I fail to understand," said Winter. "From what I could see of it, our friend the Motor Pirate is possessed of an ideal car, graceful in shape, making no noise, running with a minimum of vibration and a maximum of speed. Why, there's a fortune in it."

"Of course it is quite impossible that the motive power can be electricity?" remarked Mannering, gazing into the fire as if he could see a solution of the mystery therein.

"Quite out of the question. Any one who has the slightest knowledge of motoring would know it to be impossible, even if the Pirate had devised a storage battery which would knock Edison's latest invention into a c.o.c.ked hat. But supposing he had achieved the feat, remember that, according to the newspaper reports, he was at Plymouth yesterday at dusk, near Salisbury at eleven the same evening, and holding us up on the confines of St. Albans to night. He would be bound to get his batteries recharged somewhere and, with a car of such remarkable shape, how is he to do so without exciting remark? No; electricity is quite out or the question. I should be glad to think that the car was an electric one. His capture would only be a matter of a few hours."

An indefinable expression, which might have been a smile, flitted across Mannering's face.

"I hope, for all our sakes, his motor is an electric one," he said. "At all events it should not be difficult to track a car of so singular a shape. If it were built on the same lines as yours or mine, for instance, the owner might go anywhere without attracting attention."

"Anyhow," I broke in, "until he is captured I'm going for a run every night with something that will shoot within easy reach. The next time I have the fortune to meet with him I hope I shall be in a position to get a bit of my own back."

Again a smile appeared on Mannering's face as he exclaimed, "I almost feel inclined to follow your example. I have nearly forgotten how to use a pistol since I have resided in this law-ridden land."

"Surely you won't expose your experimental car to the chance of being rammed by the Motor Pirate," remarked Winter, chaffingly.

Mannering's car was a stock joke with us. It was a particularly c.u.mbersome vehicle, with heaven only knows what type of body. It might have been capable of twenty miles an hour on the flat, but that would be the extreme limit of its powers. "You fellows," he had explained to us one day, "have taken to motoring for the fun of flying along the high-roads at an illegal speed. I have taken to it for a more utilitarian purpose. I have my own ideas about the motor of the future, and I am working them out down here. My old caravan is heavy, perhaps, but I want a heavy car. It's most useful for testing tyres, and that is one of the special points engaging my attention. Besides, in this car I am not tempted to get into trouble with the police. Twelve miles an hour is quite fast enough for all my purposes."

Both Winter and myself had frequently asked him how he was progressing with his work, but as he had never returned us any but the vaguest of answers, nor ever invited us into the workshop which had once formed the stables of the house where he resided, we had thought that his story of being engaged in mechanical invention merely an excuse for getting rid of unpleasant visitors. I think we were both surprised when he answered Winter's chaff quite warmly.

"I should not at all mind exposing my car to any risk if I could get the opportunity to examine the Motor Pirate's car. If the truth must be told, from what I have seen of his car, and what you have told me, I am rather inclined to think that whoever designed it has forestalled me in an idea which I had thought quite my own. I have long been working to produce a car which would run at least a hundred miles an hour without noise or perceptible vibration."

"Couldn't you get it completed in a week?" interrupted Winter. "We might have a most exciting chase after our friend."

Mannering shook his head. "I've been absolutely floored on one detail, and if that fellow has solved the problem----" Shrugging his shoulders, he rose and held out his hand to Winter. I followed his example.

"I had no idea that you had anything so important on the stocks,"

remarked Winter, as he accompanied us to the door.

"Nor would you have done so until you saw the perfect machine on the road, if it had not been for my chagrin at seeing that car to-night. Of course I can count upon you both to say nothing of the matter."

"On condition that you do not refer to our adventure again," said I, laughing.

"Agreed," responded Mannering, as he smiled again.

We both said good night to Winter, and in spite of our host's efforts to persuade us to stay for another peg, I followed Mannering out, declaring that I should never be able to face Mrs. Winter again if I kept him up any longer.

I found Mannering standing at the gate, and I paused beside him to glance at the sky, across which one or two fleecy clouds were hurrying from the west. The moon, brilliant as earlier in the evening, now hung low down over the horizon. The breeze had freshened, and we could hear it whispering amongst the trees.

"We shall not be long without rain. If the Pirate is still abroad he will leave tracks," said Mannering.

The beauty of the night held so much of appeal to me that I felt annoyed at the current of my thoughts being turned back to the topic.

I answered shortly. My companion took no notice of my petulance.

"You have always thought I cared nothing for speed," he remarked, "but you were mistaken. I thought I would keep my desires in the background until I had succeeded in perfecting a car which I knew it would be impossible to outpace. I could not enter into compet.i.tion with longer purses than my own, and if I had bought the fastest car in the market somebody else would have bought one faster. But to-night---- By Jove!

How I envy that Motor Pirate. Imagine what the possession of that car means on a night like this, with the roads clear from John-o'-Groat's to Land's End. Fancy flying onwards at a speed none have ever attempted.

Can you not see the road unwinding before you like a reel of white ribbon, hear the sweet musical drone of the wheels in your ears----" He stopped abruptly.