"You surely cannot think that Mannering is in any way connected with the Motor Pirate?" I inquired in surprise, for any such idea had long passed from my mind.
"I don't know," she remarked dreamily; "I don't know. But I should not be surprised. I really could believe anything about him."
I reminded her of the steps Forrest had taken to assure himself that there were no grounds for such a suspicion, but she was not convinced; so I forbore to continue the discussion, changing the conversation to the arrangements to be made for her proposed visit to Norfolk. It was decided that I should write at once to my aunt, and that she should be ready to start the moment I received a reply. We had settled all the preliminaries by the time the Colonel and Forrest returned, and I bade her good night, feeling quite easy in my mind.
"I am delighted to be able to congratulate you," said Forrest, the moment we were outside.
"I am the luckiest man in the world," I replied.
"You are," returned the detective, emphatically. "All the same, I should not have been sorry if Miss Maitland had stuck to her intention of refusing to listen to you until after the capture of the Pirate."
"For purely selfish reasons," he replied. "I take it you will not be so keen on the chase. Men in your position don't take risks."
I held out my hand to him. "Put your fist in that," I said. "What I have promised, I stick to; and, to tell the truth, I was never keener on anything in my life."
"That's good news for me," he answered, and I could tell from his tone that he meant it. Besides, he was not a man given to the paying of idle compliments.