ers on the morning of the first of
April that year devoted columns to his exploits. If I remember aright,
the country was at that time engaged upon two of our usual minor wars,
Parliament was in the midst of an important debate upon the second
reading of a measure to secure an extension of the franchise, and a
divorce case of more than common interest was engaging the attention of
the leading legal lights of the law courts. But all these things
received but the scantiest notice. The war news was relegated to the
inside pages, the Parliamentary intelligence cut down to the barest
summary, the _cause celebre_ dismissed with such a paragraph as
ordinarily serves to chronicle an unimportant police court case. The
Motor Pirate had nearly a monopoly of the space at the editorial
disposal. There was column after column about him. The Plymouth robbery
was reported in as great detail as the Compton Chamberlain affair, while
there were particulars of two similar outrages committed at points
between these two places.

On running my eye over the reports I saw that they added nothing to what
I already knew, and I wasted no time in reading the leaders on the
subject. I was, however, extremely interested to find from one paper
that Winter and I had not been the only victims of the scoundrel's
rapacity on the previous evening, for a brief telegram reported a
similar occurrence a few miles from Oxford on the London road. I at once
sent my man to purchase any of the early editions of the evening papers
which might have reached St. Albans, in the hope that they might contain
further particulars of these operations.

I had finished my breakfast, and was enjoying a cigarette in my library,
when he returned. I took the papers from him, and the first glance at
one of them made me gasp with amazement. The news which startled me was
all in one line--"Five more cars held up by the Motor Pirate."

I am not going into details concerning these. If you have a desire to
refresh your memory all you have to do is to turn to any newspaper of
the date I have named and you will be able to get them _ad nauseam_. But
I will venture to give a list of the places where and the times at which
the outrages took place, for I made a list of them in the hope that, by
carefully studying it with the map, I might get some idea as to where he
might next be expected to make his appearance.

I found that at five minutes past nine he stopped a car some four miles
from