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 button-holing me when I went out in the morning; and pursued me so assiduously, 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 identity 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 associate 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 passed 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 assured 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 passed 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 passed 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 passed 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."
I felt relieved by his tone, and assured him, when he had patched me up temporarily with strips torn from my shirt-sleeves and my own handkerchief, that I felt very little of the injury.
"Now take my seat," he said, as he buttoned my coat round me. "I think I have had enough experience of motoring to ensure my taking you in safety to the nearest surgeon. It's infernally bad luck, though," he continued. "I would swear one of us must have hit our friend, and if we were only in a position to follow him up, we should be pretty certain to effect a capture."
My mind had been considerably relieved to find that I was not seriously injured, and the dose of whisky I had taken had pulled me together.
"You've bound me up pretty tightly?" I asked.
"You are right enough until we find a doctor," he answered.
"In that case," I said, "if there's any chance of our catching our man to-night, I'm not going to chuck it away. Put the light back and let us get on."
My mind was made up on the subject. One reason was that physical pain always makes me feel mad, and I would have given a great deal to get even with the Pirate for that reason alone. Besides, call it vanity or what you will, I wasn't going to let any one say I had allowed a scratch to bowl me over. So the moment Forrest had replaced the light, I resumed my seat in the car, asserting that I was fully capable of driving.
The detective attempted to dissuade me from the attempt, but I was bent upon having my own way. He did not argue the question at any length, for as soon as he was in the car I backed into the middle of the road and jammed on our highest speed.
In three minutes we were at Buntingford, and there we nearly ran into a group of people who were gathered in the middle of the road. They were discussing, as it happened, the appearance of the Pirate, who had passed through the town twenty minutes previously. Here Forrest made another futile attempt to persuade me to see a surgeon immediately, but I would not listen to him. We swept onward. I could scarcely see, but I sent the Mercédès along recklessly, stopping for nothing until we reached Ware. I would never have driven in the manner I did in calmer moments. Forrest told me afterwards that his journey on the Pirate's car was nothing to it, for the car rocked so from side to side of the road that he was never certain whether I was not steering for the hedges; while at every bend his heart was in his mouth when he realized that the wheels were never on the ground together.
On the outskirts of Ware we learned that the Pirate had been seen approaching the town, but that, instead of passing through the narrow streets, he had doubled back in the direction of Stevenage. He had kept his twenty minutes' start and I was for following him. Forrest was of another opinion.
"According to his usual custom, he is obviously avoiding the towns," he argued; "and if, as I still suspect, his hiding-place is in the vicinity of St. Albans, we shall stand some chance of cutting him off if we take the most direct route. He cannot be badly hurt, or we should have picked him up before this, and under any other circumstance we are not likely to overtake him."
I saw the force of his reasoning and we flew on. We heard nothing of him neither in Hertford nor in Hatfield.
"Our only chance is at St. Albans," remarked my companion, and once more I put my car to top speed.
We were just about half way between the two towns when we saw the lights of a motor ahead. I sounded the horn, or rather Forrest did, but the vehicle made no attempt to get out of the way. We caught up to the stranger hand over fist, and not until we were nearly touching did I slacken speed.
As I did so the occupant of the car shouted out, "That you, Sutgrove? Never more pleased to meet with a friend in my life."
It was Mannering.
"Seen anything of the Pirate?" shouted Forrest, by way of reply.
"Merely had the pleasure of exchanging shots with him ten minutes ago," was the astounding answer. "Unfortunately he appears to have got the better of the exchange, for he has managed to put a bullet in my shoulder."
"We have had a similar experience, and Mr. Sutgrove is the victim," answered Forrest. "So I am afraid I cannot offer much assistance."
"I think I can get to St. Albans all right," he replied. "It's only the left, and I managed to get a handkerchief round it."
"If you will let us pass," I said, "I will run on to St Albans and see that assistance is sent to you."
"Oh, I didn't notice I was taking all the road," he remarked, as he drew aside.
Once more we drove ahead at our speed limit, and five minutes later we stopped before the police office. There we found every one in blissful ignorance of the fact that the Pirate was abroad. Nor did any one else see him that night. Again he had mysteriously vanished under circumstances which convinced the detective more firmly than ever that his retreat was somewhere in the vicinity of my home.