The crude deceptions of youth, of course, gave place to subtler and less overtly illegal stratagems as the passing years gave experience and greater guile. Even their personal relationship was glossed over with a veneer of specious affability which deceived neither.
"How about running down to my place for the week-end?" suggested Willie, aged twenty-seven.
Walter ran down; and at dead of night descended to the study and perused all of Willie's private correspondence that he could find, obtaining an insight into his brother's affairs which enabled him to snap up the bankrupt shoe repairing business which Willie was preparing to take over at a giveaway price.
"Come and have lunch one day," invited Walter, aged thirty-five.
Willie came at a time when Walter was out, and beguiled a misguided secretary into letting him wait in Walter's private office. From letters which were lying on the desk he gained the information through which he subsequently sneaked a mining concession in Portuguese East Africa from under Walter's very nose.
The garrulous Mr. Penwick had several other anecdotes on the same lines to tell, the point of which was to establish beyond dispute the fraternal affection of the Bros. Kinsall.
"Even their father got fed up with them," said Mr. Penwick. "And he wasn't a paragon, by any means. You must have heard of Sir Joseph Kinsall, the South African millionaire? Well, he's their father. Lives in Malaga now, from what I hear. I used to be his solicitor, before I was struck off the rolls. Why, I've still got his last will and testament at home. Living abroad, he doesn't know about my misfortune; and I've kept the will because I'm going to be reinstated. I had an awful time with him when he was over here. First he made a will leaving everything to 'em equally. Then he tore it up and left everything to Walter. Then he tore that one up and left everything to Willie. Then he tore that up and made another. He just couldn't make up his mind which of 'em was the worst. I remember once. . . ."
What Mr. Penwick remembered once he could be counted on to remember again. His garrulousness was due only in part to a natural loquacity of temperament: the rest of it could without injustice be credited to the endless supplies of pink gin which Simon Templar was ready to pay for.
The Saint had met Mr. Penwick for the first time in a West End bar; and thereafter had met him a number of times in other bars. He had never had the heart to shatter Mr. Penwick's fond dream that reinstatement was just around the corner; but it is doubtful whether Mr. Penwick really believed it himself. Gin was Mr. Penwick's fatal weakness; and after several encounters with his watery eyes, his shaky hands, and his reddened and bulbous nose, it was hard to imagine that he could ever occupy his former place in the legal profession again. Nevertheless, Simon Templar had sought his company on many occasions; for the Saint was not snobbish, and he had his own vocation to consider.
The uninitiated may sometimes be tempted to think that the career of a twentieth-century brigand is nothing but a series of dramatically satisfying high spots interluded with periods of ill-gotten ease; but nothing could be farther from the truth. The Saint's work was never done. He knew better than anyone that golden-fleeced sheep rarely fall miraculously out of Heaven for the shearing; and while he certainly enjoyed a liberal allowance of high spots, many of the intervals between them were taken up with the dull practical business of picking up clues, sifting stray fragments of gossip from all quarters that came his way, and planning the paths by which future high spots were to be attained. He followed a score of false scents for every one that led him to profit, and there was none which he could pass by; for he never knew until the moment of coincidence and inspiration which would lead him to big game and which would lead to nothing more than a stray mouse.
The garrulousness of Mr. Penwick was a case in point. Solicitors hear many secrets; and when they have been struck off the rolls and nurse a grievance, and their downward path is lubricated by a craving for juniper juice which they are not financially equipped to indulge as deeply as they would wish, there is always the chance that a modern buccaneer with an attentive mind, who will provide gin in limitless quantities, may sooner or later hear some item of reminiscence that will come in useful one day.
Some weeks passed before Mr. Penwick came in useful; and Simon was not thinking of him at all when Patricia Holm looked up from the newspaper one morning and said: "I see your friend Sir Joseph Kinsall is dead."
The Saint, who was smoking a cigarette on the windowsill and looking down into the sunlit glades of the Green Park, was not immediately impressed.
"He's not my pal—he's the bibulous Penwick's," he said, and in his mind ran over the stories which Mr. Penwick had told him. "May I see?"
He read through the news item, and learned that Sir Joseph had succumbed to an attack of pneumonia at ten o'clock the previous morning. A well-known firm of London solicitors was said to be in possession of his will; and the disposition of his vast fortune would probably be disclosed later that day.
"Well, that'll give Walter and Willie something new to squabble over," Simon remarked, and thought nothing more about it until that evening, when a late edition told him that the Kinsall millions, according to a will made in 1927, would be divided equally between his two sons.
That appeared to close the incident; and Simon decided that the late Sir Joseph had found the only possible answer to the choice between two such charming heirs as the gods had blessed him with. He dismissed the affair with a characteristic shrug as only one of the false scents which had crossed his path in his twelve years of illicit hunting; and he was turning to the back page for the result of the 4.30 when a wobbly hand clutched his sleeve, and he looked around to behold a vision of the garrulous Mr. Penwick arrayed in a very creased and moth-eaten frock coat and a top hat which had turned green in the years of idleness.
"Hullo," Simon murmured, and automatically ordered a double pink gin. "Whose funeral have you been to?"
Mr. Penwick clutched at the glass which was provided, downed half the contents, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
"Ole boy," he said earnestly, "I'm going to be reinshtated. Congrashulate me."
Indubitably he was very drunk; and the Saint relaxed into perfunctory attention.
"Splendid," he said politely. "When did you hear the news ?"
"They got to reinshtate me now," said Mr. Penwick, "because I'm only schap hoosh got Kinshallsh will." He dabbed astigmatically at the Saint's evening paper. "Jew read newsh? They shay moneysh divided between Wallern Willie 'cording to will he made in nineen-twenny-sheven. Pish!" said Mr. Penwick, snapping his fingers. "Bosh! That will wash revoked yearsh ago. I got the will he made in nineen-thirry-two. Sho they got to reinshtate me. Can't have sholishitor shtruck off rollsh hoosh got will worth millionsh."
Simon's relaxation had vanished in an instant—it might never have overcome him. He glanced round the bar in sudden alarm, but fortunately the room was empty and the barmaid was giggling with her colleague at the far end of her quarters.