There flashed into my memory what Winter's guest had said about the Brighton Parcels Mail, and I said laughingly—
"I fancy I should hold up the Brighton Mail."
"As likely a feat as any for him to attempt," replied Forrest, thoughtfully.
I glanced up at the clock in the tower of St. Stephens; the hands pointed to a quarter before five.
"Well," I said, "we may as well run down to Brighton by daylight and get acquainted with the road, since I have only driven over it once before. We can dine at the Metropole comfortably, 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.