irate
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 reappearan