bly, 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 appetites 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