Saint Intervenes (24 page)

“Even
their father got fed up with them,” said Mr. Pen
wick. “And he
wasn’t a paragon, by any means. You must
have heard of Sir
Joseph Kinsall, the South African mil
lionaire? 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 misfor
tune; and
I’ve kept the will because I’m going to be rein
stated. 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 be
lieved 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 pro
fession 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 en
joyed 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 reminis
cence 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 char
acteristic 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, “be
cause 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 re
voked 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 sud
den alarm, but fortunately the room
was empty and the barmaid was giggling with her colleague at the far end of
her
quarters.

“Wait
a minute,” he said firmly, and steered the unsteady
Mr.
Penwick to a table as far removed as possible from po
tential
eavesdroppers. “Tell me this again, will you?”

“Sh-shimple,”
said Mr. Penwick, emptying his glass and
looking pathetically
around for more. “I got Kinshallsh lasht willan teshtamen. Revoking all
othersh. I wash going to Law
Society to tellum, shoonsh I read the newsh,
but I shtopped
to have drink an’ shellybrate. Now I shpose Lawsiety all
gone
home.” He flung out his arms, to illustrate the theme
of the Law
Society scattering to the four corners of the globe.
“Have to wait
till tomorrer. Have ‘nother drink inshtead.
Thishish on me.”

He fumbled
in his pockets, and produced two halfpennies
and a sixpence. He
put them on the table and blinked at
them hazily for a moment: and then, as
if finally grasping
the irrefutable total, he covered his face with his hands
and burst into tears.

“All
gone,” he sobbed. “All gone. Moneysh all gone.
Len’ me a
pound, ole boy, an’ I’ll pay for drinksh.”

“Mr.
Penwick,” said the Saint slowly, “have you got that
will on
you?”

”
‘Coursh I got will on me. I tole you, ole boy—I wash
goin’ Lawshiety an’
show ‘em, so they could reinshtate me.
Pleash pay for
drinksh.”

Simon
lifted his own glass and drank unhurriedly.

“Mr.
Penwick, will you sell me that will ?”

The
solicitor raised shocked but twitching eyebrows.

“Shell
it, ole boy? Thash imposhble. Profeshnal etiquette.
Norrallowed to sell
willsh. Len’ me ten bob——
”

“Mr.
Penwick,” said the Saint, “what would you do if you
had five
hundred a year for life?”

The
solicitor swallowed noisily, and an ecstatic light
gleamed through his
tears like sunshine through an April
shower.

“I’d
buy gin,” he said. “Bols an’ bols an’ bols of gin.
Barrelsh
of gin. I’d have a bath full of gin, an’ shwim my-
shelf to shleep
every Sarrerdy night.”

“I’ll
give you five hundred a year for life for that will,”
said the
Saint. “Signed, settled, and sealed—in writing—this
minute.
You needn’t worry too much about your professional
etiquette. I’ll give you my word not to
destroy or conceal the
will; but I would
like to borrow it for a day or two.”

Less than
an hour later he was chivalrously ferrying the
limp body of Mr.
Penwick home to the ex-solicitor’s lodgings, for it is a regrettable fact that
Mr. Penwick collapsed
rather rapidly under the zeal with which he
insisted on cele
brating the sale of his potential reinstatement. Simon
went on to his own apartment, and told Patricia of his purchase.

“But
aren’t you running a tremendous risk?” she said anx
iously.
“Penwick won’t be able to keep it secret—and what use is it to you,
anyway?”

“I’m
afraid nothing short of chloroform would stop Pen
wick talking,”
Simon admitted. “But it’ll take a little time for his story to get
dangerous, and I’ll have had all I want out of the will before then. And the
capital which is going
to pay his five hundred a year will only be
half of it.”

Patricia
lighted a cigarette.

“Do I
help?”

“You
are a discontented secretary with worldly ambitions
and no moral sense,”
he said. “The part should be easy for
you.”

Mr. Willie
Kinsall had never heard of Patricia Holm.

“What’s
she like?” he asked the typist who brought in her
name.

“She’s pretty,” said
the girl cynically.

Mr. Willie
Kinsall appeared to deliberate for a while; and
then he said:
“I’ll see her.”

When he
did see her, he admitted that the description was
correct. At her best,
Patricia was beautiful; but for the bene
fit of Mr. Willie she
had adopted a vivid red lip-stick, an
extra quantity of rouge, and a generous
use of mascara, to reduce herself to something close to the Saint’s estimate of
Mr. Willie’s taste.

“How
do you do, my dear?” he said. “I don’t think
we’ve—er——
”

“We
haven’t,” said the girl coolly. “But we should have. I’m your brother
Walter’s secretary—or I was.”

Mr. Willie
frowned questioningly.

“Did
he send you to see me?”

Patricia
threw back her head and gave a hard laugh.

“Did
he send me to see you! If he knew I was here he’d probably murder me.”

“Why?”
asked Willie Kinsall cautiously.

She sat on
the corner of his desk, helped herself to a
cigarette from his
box, and swung a shapely leg.

“See here,
beautiful,” she said. “I’m here for all I can get.
Your brother threw me out of a good job just
because I made
a little mistake, and
I’d love to see somebody do him a bad
turn.
From what he’s said about you sometimes, you two
aren’t exactly devoted to each other. Well, I think I can put
you in the way of something that’ll make Walter
sick; and
the news is yours if you
pay for it.”

Mr. Kinsall drummed his
finger-tips on the desk and nar
rowed his
eyes thoughtfully. By no stretch of imagination
could he have been truthfully described as beautiful; but he
had a natural sympathy for pretty girls of her
type who
called him by such
endearing names. The rat-faced youth of sixteen had by no means mellowed in the
Willie Kinsall of
thirty-eight; he was
just as scraggy and no less ratlike, and
when he narrowed his beady eyes they almost disappeared
into their deep-set sockets.