"Do you really mean that, Mr. Sutgrove?" he asked.
"Of course I do," I replied.
He hesitated a moment, then he accepted my invitation. Luck was on my side after all.
CHAPTER VIII
MURDER
I learned to know Inspector Forrest very well during the next fortnight, better perhaps, since during that time the Motor Pirate gave absolutely no sign of existence. It seemed as if, contented with the sensation he had created and the plunder he had secured, he had retired into the obscurity from which he originally emerged.
For two reasons I was not sorry for this interval. In the first place, I found I could not get immediately the type of car I wanted. Manufacturers and agents were willing enough to book orders, but none of them had in stock the high-speed automobile such as I required. Only after a long day's hunt did I discover an agent who thought that he could obtain for me a 60-h.p. Mercédès, and then it would have to be sent from Paris. At my suggestion, he telephoned through an order that the car should be despatched to him at once; but two or three days elapsed before its arrival in London, and then there were certain alterations which I required to be made which took a week to complete. I was glad, therefore, that my enemy did not make a reappearance until I was provided for him. When the new Mercédès was delivered to me I was delighted with it, especially when I found on my return from the trial run the engines worked as smoothly as when I started.
The other reason why I did not regret the Pirate's quiescence was because of the opportunity afforded me of cementing the friendship which had grown up between myself and the detective. It became a very real and warm friendship during those long idle days. He upset all my preconceived notions of the police, at least as regards the detective portion of the force, he was such an all-round man. He had not allowed his undoubted powers of observation to be entirely concentrated upon the seamy side of his profession. Judging from his conversation, I gathered that he knew quite as much about modern French literature as he did about French criminals, and of the latter his knowledge was both extensive and interesting. I remember on one occasion that he gave me a really acute criticism of the Verlain school, with special relation to the effects of decadent literature on national life. But that is only one example of his scope. Wherever he had been and whatever he had done, had apparently awakened in him the desire to see all round the case he was investigating, and being possessed of a well-trained memory, his mind was a storehouse of curious knowledge.