IX

The Damsel in Distress

"You need brains in this life of crime," Simon Templar would say sometimes; "but I often think you need luck even more."

He might have added that the luck had to be consistent.

Mr. Giuseppe Rolfieri was lucky up to a point, for he happened to be in Switzerland when the astounding Liver�pool Municipal Bond forgery was discovered. It was a simple matter for him to slip over the border into his own native country; and when his four partners in the swindle stum�bled down the narrow stairway that leads from the dock of the Old Bailey to the terrible blind years of penal servi�tude, he was comfortably installed in his villa at San Remo with no vengeance to fear from the Law. For it is a principal of international law that no man can be extradited from his own country, and Mr. Rolfieri was lucky to have re�tained his Italian citizenship even though he had made him�self a power in the City of London.

Simon Templar read about the case�he could hardly have helped it, for it was one of those sensational scandals which rock the financial world once in a lifetime�but it did not strike him as a matter for his intervention. Four out of the five conspirators, including the ringleader, had been convicted and sentenced; and although it is true that there was a certain amount of public indignation at the immunity of Mr. Rolfieri, it was inevitable that the Saint, in his career of shameless lawlessness, sometimes had to pass up one inviting prospect in favour of another nearer to hand. He couldn't be every�where at once�it was one of the very few human limitations which he was ready to admit.

A certain Domenick Naccaro, however, had other ideas.

He called at the Saint's apartment on Piccadilly one morn�ing�a stout bald-headed man in a dark blue suit and a light blue waistcoat, with an unfashionable stiff collar and a stringy black tie and a luxuriant scroll of black moustache ornament�ing his face�and for the first moment of alarm Simon won�dered if he had been mistaken for somebody else in the same name but less respectable morals, for Signor Naccaro was accompanied by a pale pretty girl who carried a small infant swathed in a shawl.

"Is this-a Mr. Templar I have-a da honour to spik to?" asked Naccaro, doffing his bowler elaborately.

"This is one Mr. Templar," admitted the Saint cautiously.

"Ha!" said Mr. Naccaro. "It is-a da Saint himself?"

"So I'm told," Simon answered.

"Then you are da man we look-a for," stated Mr. Naccaro, with profound conviction.

As if taking it for granted that all the necessary formalities had therewith been observed, he bowed the girl in, bowed himself in after her, and stalked into the living-room. Simon closed the door and followed the deputation with a certain curious amusement.

"Well, brother," he murmured, taking a cigarette from the box on the table. "Who are you, and what can I do for you?"

The flourishing bowler hat bowed the girl into one chair, bowed its owner into another, and came to rest on its owner's knees.

"Ha!" said the Italian, rather like an acrobat announcing the conclusion of a trick. "I am Domenick Naccaro!"

"That must be rather nice for you," murmured the Saint amiably. He waved his cigarette towards the girl and her bundle. "Did you come here to breed?"

"That," said Mr. Naccaro, "is-a my daughter Maria. And in her arms she hold-as a leedle baby. A baby," said Mr. Nacarro, with his black eyes suddenly swimming, "wis-a no father."

"Careless of her," Simon remarked. "What does the baby think about it?"

"Da father," said Mr. Naccaro, contradicting himself dra�matically, "is-a Giuseppe Rolfieri."

Simon's brows came down in a straight line, and some of the bantering amusement fell back below the surface of his blue eyes. He hitched one hip on to the edge of the table and swung his foot thoughtfully.

"How did this happen?" he asked.

"I keep-a da small-a restaurant in-a Soho," explained Mr. Naccaro. "Rolfieri, he come-a there often to eat-a da spaghetti. Maria, she sit at-a da desk and take-a da money. You, signor, you see-a how-a she is beautiful. Rolfieri, he notice her. When-a he pay his bill, he stop-a to talk-a wis her. One day he ask-a her to go out wis him."

Mr. Naccaro took out a large chequered handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. He went on, waving his hands in broken eloquence.

"I do not stop her. I think-a Rolfieri is-a da fine gentleman, and it is nice-a for my Maria to go out wis him. Often, they go out. I tink-a that Maria perhaps she make-a presently da good-a marriage, and I am glad for her. Then, one day, I see she is going to have-a da baby."

"It must have been a big moment," said the Saint gravely.

"I say to her, 'Maria, what have-a you done?' " recounted Mr. Naccaro, flinging out his arms. "She will-a not tell-a me." Mr. Naccaro shut his mouth firmly. "But presently she confess it is-a Rolfieri. I beat-a my breast." Mr. Naccaro beat his breast. "I say, 'I will keell-a heem; but first-a he shall marry you.' "

Mr. Naccaro jumped up with native theatrical effect.

"Rolfieri does-a not come any more to eat-a da spaghetti. I go to his office, and they tell me he is-a not there. I go to his house, and they tell me he is-a not there. I write-a let�ters, and he does-a not answer. Da time is going so quick. Pres�ently I write-a da letter and say: 'If you do not-a see me soon, I go to da police.' He answer that one. He say he come soon. But he does-a not come. Then he is-a go abroad. He write again, and say he come-a to see me when he get back. But he does not-a come back. One day I read in da paper that he is-a da criminal, and da police are already look-a for him. So Maria she have-a da baby�and Rolfieri will-a never come back!"

Simon nodded.

"That's very sad," he said sympathetically. "But what can I do about it?"

Mr. Naccaro mopped his brow, put away his large chequered handkerchief, and sat down again.

"You are-a da man who help-a da poor people, no?" he said pleadingly. "You are-a da Saint, who always work-a to make justice?"

"Yes, but��"

"Then it is settled. You help-a me. Listen, signor, everyting, everyting is-a arrange. I have-a da good friends in Eng�land and in-a San Remo, and we put-a da money together to make-a this right. We kidnap-a Rolfieri. We bring him here in da aeroplane. But we do not-a know anyone who can fly. You, signor, you can fly-a da aeroplane." Mr. Naccaro suddenly fell on his knees and flung out his arms. "See, signor�I hum�ble myself. I kiss-a your feet. I beg-a you to help us and not let Maria have-a da baby wis-a no father!"

Simon allowed the operatic atmosphere to play itself out, and thereafter listened with a seriousness from which his natural superficial amusement did not detract at all. It was an appeal of the kind which he heard sometimes, for the name of the Saint was known to people who dreamed of his assistance as well as to those who lived in terror of his attentions, and he was never entirely deaf to the pleadings of those troubled souls who came to his home with a pathetic faith in miracles.

Mr. Naccaro's proposition was more practical than most.

He and his friends, apparently, had gone into the problem of avenging the wickedness of Giuseppe Rolfieri with the conspiratorial instinct of professional vendettists. One of them had become Mr. Rolfieri's butler in the villa at San Remo. Others, outside, had arranged the abduction down to a precise time-table. Mr. Naccaro himself had acquired an old farm�house in Kent at which Rolfieri was to be held prisoner, with a large field adjoining it at which an aeroplane could land. The aeroplane itself had been bought, and was ready for use at Brooklands Aerodrome. The only unit lacking was a man qualified to fly it.

Once Rolfieri had been taken to the farmhouse, how would they force him through the necessary marriage?

"We make-a him," was all that Naccaro would say, but he said it with grim conviction.

When the Saint finally agreed to take the job, there was another scene of operatic gratitude which surpassed all pre�vious demonstrations. Money was offered; but Simon had al�ready decided that in this case the entertainment was its own reward. He felt pardonably exhausted when at last Domenick Naccaro, bowing and scraping and yammering in�coherently, shepherded his daughter, his illegitimate grand�child, and his own curling whiskers out of the apartment.

The preparations for his share in the abduction occupied Simon Templar's time for most of the following week. He drove down to Brooklands and tested the aeroplane which the syndicate had purchased�it was an ancient Avro which must have secured its certificate of airworthiness by the skin of its ailerons, but he thought it would complete the double journey, given luck and good weather. Then there was a halfway refuelling base to be established somewhere in France�a practical necessity which had not occurred to the elemental Mr. Naccaro. Friday had arrived before he was able to report that he was ready to make the trip; and there was another scene of embarrassing gratitude.

"I send-a da telegram to take Rolfieri on Sunday night," was the essence of Mr. Naccaro's share in the conversation; but his blessings upon the Saint, the bones of his ancestors, and the heads of his unborn descendants for generations, took up much more time.

Simon had to admit, however, that the practical contribu�tion of the Naccaro clan was performed with an efficiency which he himself could scarcely have improved upon. He stood beside the museum Avro on the aerodrome of San Remo at dusk on the Sunday evening, and watched the kid�napping cortege coming towards him across the field with genuine admiration. The principal character was an appar�ently mummified figure rolled in blankets, which occupied an invalid chair wheeled by the unfortunate Maria in the uni�form of a nurse. Her pale lovely face was set in an expression of beatific solicitude at which Simon, having some idea of the fate which awaited Signor Rolfieri in England, could have hooted aloud. Beside the invalid chair stalked a sedate spectacled man whose role was obviously that of the devoted physician. The airport officials, who had already checked the papers of pilot and passengers, lounged boredly in the far background, without a single disturbing suspicion of the classic getaway that was being pulled off under their noses.

Between them, Simon and the "doctor" tenderly lifted the mummified figure into the machine.

"He will not wake before you arrive, signor," whispered the man confidently, stooping to arrange the blankets affec�tionately round the body of his patient.

The Saint grinned gently, and stepped back to help the "nurse" into her place. He had no idea how the first stage of the abduction had been carried out, and he was not moved to inquire. He had performed similar feats himself, no less slickly, without losing the power to stand back and impersonally admire the technique of others in the same field. With a sigh of satisfaction he swung himself up into his own cockpit, signalled to the mechanic who stood waiting by the propeller of the warmed-up engine, and sent the ship roaring into the wind through the deepening dusk.

The flight north was consistently uneventful. With a south wind following to help him on, he sighted the three red lights which marked his fuelling station at about half-past two, and landed by the three flares that were kindled for him when he blinked his navigating lights. The two men procured from somewhere by Mr. Naccaro replenished his tank while he smoked a cigarette and stretched his legs, and in twenty minutes he was off again. He passed over Folkestone in the early daylight, and hedge-hopped for some miles before he reached his destination so that no inquisitive yokel should see exactly where he landed.

"You have him?" asked Mr. Naccaro, dancing about de�liriously as Simon climbed stiffly down.

"I have," said the Saint. "You'd better get him inside quickly�I'm afraid your pals didn't dope him up as well as they thought they had, and from the way he was behaving just now I shouldn't be surprised if he was going to have-a da baby, too."

He stripped off his helmet and goggles, and watched the unloading of his cargo with interest. Signor Giuseppe Rolfieri had recovered considerably from the effects of the drug under whose influence he had been embarked; but the hangover, combined with some bumpy weather on the last part of the journey, restrained him hardly less effectively from much re�sistance. Simon had never known before that the human skin could really turn green; but the epidermis of Signor Rolfieri had literally achieved that remarkable tint.

The Saint stayed behind to help the other half of the reception committee�introduced as Mr. Naccaro's brother� wheel the faithful Avro into the shelter of a barn; and then he strolled back to the farmhouse. As he reached it the door opened, and Naccaro appeared.

"Ha!" he cried, clasping the Saint's shoulders. "Meester Templar�you have already been-a so kind�I cannot ask it �but you have-a da car�will you go out again?"

Simon raised his eyebrows.

"Can't I watch the wedding?" he protested. "I might be able to help."

"Afterwards, yes," said Naccaro. "But we are not-a ready. Ecco, we are so hurry, so excited, when we come here we forget-a da mos' important tings. We forget-a da soap!"

Simon blinked.

"Soap?" he repeated. "Can't you marry him off without washing him?"

"No, no, no!" spluttered Naccaro. "You don't understand. Da soap, she is not-a to wash. She is to persuade. I show you myself, afterwards. It is my own idea. But-a da soap we mus' have. You will go, please, please, signor, in your car?"

The Saint frowned at him blankly for a moment; and then he shrugged.

"Okay, brother," he murmured. "I'd do more than that to find out how you persuade a bloke to get married with a cake of soap."

He stuffed his helmet and goggles into the pocket of his flying coat, and went round to the barn where he had parked his car before he took off for San Remo. He had heard of several strange instruments of persuasion in his time, but it was the first time he had ever met common or household soap in the guise of an implement of torture or moral coercion. He wondered whether the clan Naccaro had such a prejudiced opinion of Rolfieri's personal cleanliness that they thought the mere threat of washing him would terrify him into meeting his just obligations, or whether the victim was first smeared with ink and then bribed with the soap, or whether he was made to eat it; and he was so fascinated by these provocative speculations that he had driven nearly half a mile before he remembered that he was not provided with the wherewithal to buy it.

Simon Templar was not stingy. He would have stood any necessitous person a cake of soap, any day. In return for a solution of the mystery which was perplexing him at that moment, he would cheerfully have stood Mr. Naccaro a whole truckload of it. But the money was not in his pocket. In a moment of absent-mindedness he had set out on his trip with a very small allowance of ready cash; and all he had left of it then was two Italian lire, the change out of the last meal he had enjoyed in San Remo.

He stopped the car and scowled thoughtfully for a second. There was no place visible ahead where he could turn it, and he had no natural desire to back half a mile down that narrow lane; but the road had led him consistently to the left since he set out, and he stood up to survey the landscape in the hope that the farmhouse might only lie a short dis�tance across the fields as the crow flies or he could walk, And it was by doing this that he saw a curious sight.

Another car, of whose existence nobody had said anything, stood in front of the farmhouse; and into it Mr. Naccaro and his brother were hastily loading the body of the unfortunate Signor Rolfieri, now trussed with several fathoms of rope like an escape artist before demonstrating his art. The girl Maria stood by; and as soon as Rolfieri was in the car she followed him in, covered him with a rug, and settled herself comfortably on the seat. Naccaro and his brother jumped into the front, and the car drove rapidly away in the opposite direction to that which the Saint had been told to take.

Simon Templar sank slowly back behind the wheel and took out his cigarette-case. He deliberately paused to tap out a cigarette, light it, and draw the first two puffs as if he had an hour to spare; and then he pushed the gear lever into reverse and sent the great cream and red Hirondel racing back up the lane at a speed which gave no indication that he had ever hesitated to perform the manoeuvre.

He turned the car round in the farmhouse gates and went on with the cut-out closed and his keen eyes vigilantly scan�ning the panorama ahead. The other car was a saloon, and half the time he was able to keep the roof in sight over the low hedges which hid the open Hirondel from its quarry. But it is doubtful whether the possibility of pursuit ever en�tered the heads of the party in front, who must have been firm in their belief that the Saint was at that moment speeding innocently towards the village to which they had directed him. Once, at a fork, he lost them; and then he spotted a tiny curl of smoke rising from the grass bank a little way up one turning, and drove slowly up to it. It was the lighted stub of a cigar which could not have been thrown out at any place more convenient for a landmark, and the Saint smiled and went on.

In a few seconds he had picked up the saloon again; and very shortly afterwards he jammed on his brakes and brought the Hirondel to a sudden halt.

The car in front had stopped before a lonely cottage whose thatched roof was clearly visible. In a flash the Saint was out of his own seat and walking silently up the lane towards it. When the next turn would have brought him within sight of the car, he slipped through a gap in the hedge and sprinted for the back of the house. In broad daylight, there was no chance of further concealment; and it was neck or nothing at that point. But his luck held; and so far as he could tell he gained the lee of his objective unobserved. And once there, an invitingly open kitchen window was merely another link in the chain of chance which had stayed with him so benevolently throughout that adventure.

Rolfieri and the Naccaro team were already inside. He could hear the muffled mutter of their voices as he tiptoed down the dark passage towards the front of the house; and pres�ently he stood outside the door of the room where they were. Through the keyhole he was able to take in the scene. Rol�fieri, still safely trussed, was sitting in a chair, and the Naccaro brothers were standing over him. The girl Maria was curled up on the settee, smoking a cigarette and displaying a remarkable length of stocking for a betrayed virgin whose honour was at stake. The conversation was in Italian, which was only one language out of the Saint's comprehensive repertoire; and it was illuminating.

"You cannot make me pay," Rolfieri was saying; but his stubbornness could have been more convincing.

"That is true," Naccaro agreed. "I can only point out the disadvantages of not paying. You are in England, where the police would be very glad to see you. Your confederates have already been tried and sentenced, and it would be a mere formality for you to join them. The lightest sentence that any of them received was five years, and they could hardly give you less. If we left you here, and informed the police where to find you, it would not be long before you were in prison yourself. Surely twenty-five thousand pounds is a very small price to pay to avoid that."

Rolfieri stared sullenly at the floor for a while; and then he said: "I will give you ten thousand."

"It will be twenty-five thousand or nothing," said Naccaro. "Come, now�I see you are prepared to be reasonable. Let us have what we ask, and you will be able to leave England again before dark. We will tell that fool Templar that you agreed to our terms without the persuasion of the soap, and that we hurried you to the church before you changed your mind. He will fly you back to San Remo at once, and you will have nothing more to fear."

"I have nothing to fear now," said Rolfieri, as if he was trying to hearten himself. "It would do you no good to hand me over to the police."

"It would punish you for wasting so much of our time and some of our money," put in the girl, in a tone which left no room for doubt that that revenge would be taken in the last resort.

Rolfieri licked his lips and squirmed in the tight ropes which bound him�he was a fat man, and they had a lot to bind. Perhaps the glimpse of his well-fed corporation which that movement gave him made him realise some of the ines�capable discomforts of penal servitude to the amateur of good living, for his voice was even more half-hearted when he spoke again.

"I have not so much money in England," he said.

"You have a lot more than that in England," answered the other Naccaro harshly. "It is deposited in the City and Continental Bank under the name of Pierre Fontanne; and we have a cheque on that bank made out ready for you. All we require is your signature and a letter in your own hand instructing the bank to pay cash. Be quick and make up your mind, now�we are losing patience."

It was inevitable that there should be further argument on the subject, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

The cheque was signed and the letter was written; and Domenick Naccaro handed them over to his brother.

"Now you will let me go," said Rolfieri.

"We will let you go when Alessandro returns with the money," said Domenick Naccaro. "Until then, you stay here. Maria will look after you while I go back to the farm and detain Templar."

The Saint did not need to hear any more. He went back to the kitchen with soundless speed, and let himself out of the window by which he had entered. But before he left he picked up a trophy from a shelf over the sink.

Domenick Naccaro reached the farmhouse shortly after him, and found the Saint reading a newspaper.

"Rolfieri has-a marry Maria," he announced triumphantly, and kissed the Saint on both cheeks. "So after all I keep-a da secret of my leedle trick wis-a da soap. But everyting we owe to you, my friend!"

"I guess you do," Simon admitted. "Where are the happy couple?"

"Ha! That is-a da romance. It seems that Signor Rolfieri was always fond of Maria, and when he hear that she have-a da baby, and he see her again�presto! he is in love wis her. So now they go to London to get-a da clothes, queeck, so she can go wis him for da honeymoon. So I tink we drink-a da wine till they come back."

They spent a convivial morning, which Simon Templar would have enjoyed more if caution had not compelled him to tip all his drinks down the back of his chair.

It was half-past one when a car drew up outside, and a somewhat haggard Rolfieri, a jubilant Alessandro Naccaro, and a quietly smiling Maria came in. Domenick jumped up.

"Everything is all right?" he asked.

"Pairfect," beamed Alessandro.

That was as much as the Saint was waiting to hear. He un�coiled himself from his chair and smiled at them all.

"In that case, boys and girls," he drawled, "would you all put up your hands and keep very quiet?"

There was an automatic in his hand; and six eyes stared at it mutely. And then Domenick Naccaro smiled a wavering and watery smile.

"I tink you make-a da joke, no?" he said.

"Sure," murmured the Saint amiably. "I make-a da joke. Just try and get obstreperous, and watch me laugh."

He brought the glowering Alessandro towards him and searched his pockets. There was no real question of anybody getting obstreperous, but the temptation to do so must have been very near when he brought out a sheaf of new banknotes and transferred them one-handed to his own wallet.

"This must seem rather hard-hearted of me," Simon re�marked, "but I have to do it. You're a very talented family� if you really are a family�and you must console yourselves with the thought that you fooled me for a whole ten days. When I think how easily you might have fooled me for the rest of the way, it sends cold shivers up and down my spine. Really boys, it was a rather brilliant scheme, and I wish I'd thought of it myself."

"You wait till I see you da next time, you pig," said Domenick churlishly.

"I'll wait," Simon promised him.

He backed discreetly out of the room and out of the house to his car; and they clustered in the doorway to watch him. It was not until he pressed the starter that the fullest realisa�tion dawned upon Signor Rolfieri.

"But what happens to me?" he screamed. "How do I go back to San Remo?"

"I really don't know, Comrade," answered the Saint callous�ly. "Perhaps Domenick will help you again if you give him some more money. Twenty five thousand quid instead of five years' penal servitude was rather a bargain price, anyway."

He let in the clutch gently, and the big car moved forward. But in a yard or two he stopped it again, and felt in one of his pockets. He brought out his souvenir of a certain fortu�nate kitchen, and lobbed it towards the empurpled Domenick.

"Sorry, brother," he called back over his shoulder. "I for-get-a da soap!"

X

The Loving Brothers

"You never saw a couple of brothers like 'em," said the garrulous Mr. Penwick. "They get enough pleasure out of doing anybody down, but if one of 'em can cheat the other out of anything it's a red-letter day."

Dissension between brothers is unhappily nothing new in the world's history. Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel, dis�agreed in a modest way, according to the limitations of their day. Walter and Willie Kinsall, living in times when a mess of pottage has no great bargaining value, disagreed on a much more lavish scale.

Naturally this lavishness of discord was a thing which grew up through the years. It was not achieved at one stroke. When Walter, aged four, realised that Willie, aged two months, was commanding the larger share of his parents' time and attention, and endeavored to brain him with a toy tomahawk, their mutual jealousy was merely embryonic. When Willie, aged seven, discovered that by lying awake at night until after Walter, aged eleven, had gone to sleep, he was able to rifle Walter's pockets of a judicious share of their current collection of sweets, pennies, pieces of string, and elastic bands, his ideas of retaliation were only passing through the experimental stage. But when Walter, aged twenty, found that he was able to imitate the handwriting of Willie, aged sixteen, so well that he succeeded in drawing out of Willie's savings bank account a quantity of money whose disappear�ance was ever afterwards a mystery, it might be said that their feud was at least within sight of the peaks to which it was destined later to rise.

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 rela�tionship 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 give�away 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 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 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 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 lodg�ings, 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.

"I'm sorry to hear you've lost your job, my dear," he said insincerely. "What was this, mistake you made?"

"I opened a letter, that's all. I open all his letters at the office, of course, but this one was marked 'private and con�fidential.' I came in rather late that morning, and I was in such a hurry I didn't notice what it said on the envelope. I'd just finished reading it when Walter came in, and he was furious. He threw me out then and there�it was only yester�day."

"What was this letter about?" asked Mr. Kinsall.

"It was about your father's will," she told him; and sud�denly Mr. Kinsall sat up. "It was from a man who's been to see him once or twice before�I've listened at the keyhole when they were talking," said the girl shamelessly, "and I gather that the will which was reported in the papers wasn't the last one your father made. This fellow�he's a solicitor� had got a later one, and Walter was trying to buy it from him. The letter I read was from the solicitor, and it said that he had decided to accept Walter's offer of ten thousand pounds for it."

Mr. Willie's eyes had recovered from their temporary shrinkage. During the latter part of her speech they had gone on beyond normal, and at the end of it they genuinely bulged. For a few seconds he was voiceless; and then he exploded.

"The dirty swine!" he gasped.

That was his immediate and inevitable reaction; but the rest of the news took him longer to grasp. If Walter was willing to pay ten thousand pounds for the will. . . . Ten thousand pounds! It was an astounding, a staggering figure. To be worth that, it could only mean that huge sums were at stake�and Willie could only see one way in which that could have come about. The second will had disinherited Walter. It had left all the Kinsall millions to him, Willie. And Walter was trying to buy it and destroy it�to cheat his out of his just inheritance.

"What's this solicitor's name?" demanded Willie hoarsely.

Patricia smiled.

"I thought you'd want that," she said. "Well, I know his name and address; but they'll cost you money."

Willie looked at the clock, gulped, and reached into a drawer for his cheque-book.

"How much?" he asked. "If it's within reason, I'll pay it."

She blew out a wreath of smoke and studied him calcu�latingly for a moment.

"Five hundred," she said at length.

Willie stared, choked, and shuddered. Then, with an ex�pression of frightful agony on his predatory face, he took up his pen and wrote.

Patricia examined the cheque and put it away in her hand�bag. Then she picked up a pencil and drew the note-block towards her.

Willie snatched up the sheet and gazed at it tremblingly for a second. Then he heaved himself panting out of his chair and dashed for the hat-stand in the corner.

"Excuse me," he got out. "Must do something about it. Come and see me again. Goodbye."

Riding in a taxi to the address she had given him, he barely escaped a succession of nervous breakdowns every time a traffic stop or a slow-moving dray obstructed their passage. He bounced up and down on the seat, pulled off his hat, pulled out his watch, looked at his hat, tried to put on his watch, mopped his brow, craned his head out of the window, bounced, sputtered, gasped, and sweated in an anguish of impatience that brought him to the verge of delirium. When at last they arrived at the lodging-house in Bayswater which was his destination, he fairly hurled himself out of the cab, hauled out a handful of silver with clumsy hands, spilt some of it into the driver's palm and most of it into the street, stumbled cursing up the steps, and plunged into the bell with a violence which almost drove it solidly through the wall. While he waited, fuming, he dragged out his watch again, dropped it, tried to grab it, missed, and kicked it savagely into the middle of the street with a shrill squeal of sheer insanity; and then the door opened and a maid was inspecting him curiously.

"Is Mr. Penwick in?" he blurted.

"I think so," said the maid. "Will you come in?"

The invitation was unnecessary. Breathing like a man who had just run a mile without training, Mr. Willie Kinsall ploughed past her, and kicked his heels in a torment of suspense until the door of the room into which he had been ushered opened, and a tall man came in.

It seems superfluous to explain that this man's name was not really Penwick; and Willie Kinsall did not even stop to consider the point. He did look something like a solicitor of about forty, which is some indication of what Simon Tem�plar could achieve with a black suit, a wing collar and bow tie, a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez, and some powder brushed into his hair.

Willie Kinsall did not even pause to frame a diplomatic line of approach.

"Where," he demanded shakily, "is this will, you crook?"

"Mr. Penwick" raised his grey eyebrows.

"I don't think I have�ah�had the pleasure��"

"My name's Kinsall," said Willie, skipping about like a grasshopper on a hot plate. "And I want that will�the will you're trying to sell to my dirty swindling brother. And if I don't get it, I'm going straight to the police!"

The solicitor put his finger-tips together.

"What proof have you, Mr.�ah�Kinsall," he inquired gently, "of the existence of this will?"

Willie stopped skipping for a moment. And then, with a painful wrench, he flung bluff to the winds. He had no proof, and he knew it.

"All right," he said. "I won't go to the police. I'll buy it What do you want?"

Simon pursed his lips.

"I doubt," he said, "whether the will is any longer for sale. Mr. Walter's cheque is already in my bank, and I am only waiting for it to be cleared before handing the document over to him."

"Nonsense!" yelped Willie, but he used a much coarser word for it. "Walter hasn't got it yet. I'll give you as much as he gave�and you won't have to return his money. He wouldn't dare go into court and say what he gave it to you for."

The Saint shook his head.

"I don't think," he said virtuously, "that I would break my bargain for less than twenty thousand pounds."

"You're a thief and a crook!" howled Willie.

"So are you," answered the temporary Mr. Penwick mildly. "By the way, this payment had better be in cash. You can go round to your bank and get it right away. I don't like to have to insist on this, but Mr. Walter said he was coming round in about an hour's time, and if you're going to make your offer in an acceptable form��"

It is only a matter of record that Willie went. It is also on record that he took his departure in a speed and ferment that eclipsed even his arrival; and Simon Templar went to the tele�phone and called Patricia.

"You must have done a great job, darling," he said. "What did you get out of it?"

"Five hundred pounds," she told him cheerfully. "I got an open cheque and took it straight round to his bank�I'm just pushing out to buy some clothes, as soon as I've washed this paint off my face."

"Buy a puce jumper," said the Saint, "and christen it Willie. I want to keep it for a pet."

Rather less than an hour had passed when the front door bell pealed again; and Simon looked out of the window and beheld the form of Walter Kinsall standing outside. He went to let the caller in himself.

Mr. Walter Kinsall was a little taller and heavier than his brother, but the rat-like mould of his features and his small beady eyes were almost the twins of his brother's. At that point their external resemblance temporarily ended, for Wal�ter's bearing was not hysterical.

"Well, Mr. Penwick," he said gloatingly, "has my cheque been cleared?"

"It ought to be through by now," said the Saint. "If you'll wait a moment, I'll just phone up the bank and make sure."

He did so, while the elder Kinsall rubbed his hands. He paused to reflect, with benevolent satisfaction, what a happy chance it was that his first name, while bearing the same initial as his brother's, still came first in index sequence, so that this decayed solicitor, searching the telephone directory for putative kin of the late Sir Joseph, had rung him up first. What might have happened had their alphabetical order been different, Walter at that moment hated to think.

"Your cheque has been cleared," said the Saint, returning from the telephone; and Walter beamed.

"Then, Mr. Penwick, you have only to hand me the will��"

Simon knit his brows.

"The situation is rather difficult," he began; and suddenly Walter's face blackened.

"What the devil do you mean�difficult?" he rasped. "You've had your money. Are you trying��"

"You see," Simon explained, "your brother has been in to see me."

Walter gaped at him apoplectically for a space; and then he took a threatening step forward.

"You filthy double-crossing��"

"Wait a minute," said the Saint. "I think this is Willie coming back."

He pushed past the momentarily paralysed Walter, and went to open the front door again. Willie stood on the step, puffing out his lean rat-like cheeks and quivering as if he had just escaped from the paws of a hungry cat. He scrabbled in his pockets, tugged out a thick sheaf of banknotes, and crushed them into the Saint's hands as they went down the hall.

"It's all there, Mr. Penwick," he gasped. "I haven't been long, have I? Now will you give me��"

It was at that instant that he entered the room which Simon Templar had rented for the occasion, and saw his brother; and his failure to complete the sentence was under�standable.

For a time there was absolute silence, while the two de�voted brothers glared at each other with hideous rigidity. Simon Templar took out his cigarette case and selected a smoke at luxurious leisure, while Willie stared at Walter with red-hot eyes, and Walter glowered at Willie with specks of foam on his lips. Then the Saint stroked the cog of his lighter; and at the slight sound, as if invisible strait-jackets which held them immobile had been conjured away, the two men started towards each other with simultaneous detonations of speech.

"You slimy twister!" snarled Walter.

"You greasy shark!" yapped Willie.

And then, as if this scorching interchange of fraternal com�pliments made them realise that there was a third party present who had not been included, and who might have felt miserably neglected, they checked their murderous advance towards one another and swung round on him together.

Epithets seared through their minds and slavered on their jaws�ruder, unkinder, more malignant words than they had ever shaped into connected order in their lives. And then, with one accord, they realised that those words could not be spoken yet; and deprived of that outlet, they simmered in a second torrid silence.

Walter was the first to come out of it. He opened his aching throat and brought forth trembling speech.

"Penwick," he said, "whatever that snivelling squirt has given you, I'll pay twice as much."

"I'll pay three times that," said Willie feverishly. "Four times�five times�I'll give you twenty per cent of anything I get out of the estate�"

"Twenty-five per cent," Walter shrieked wildly. "Twenty-seven and a half��"

The Saint raised his hand.

"One minute, boys," he murmured. "Hadn't you better hear the terms of the will first?"

"I know them," barked Walter.

"So do I," bellowed Willie. "Thirty per cent ��"

The Saint smiled. He took a large sealed envelope from his breast pocket, and opened it.

"I may have misled you," he said, and held up the docu�ment for them to read.

They crowded closer, breathing stertorously, and read:

I, Joseph Kinsall, hereby give and bequeath everything of which I die possessed, without exception, to the Royal London Hospital, believing that it will be better spent than it would have been by my two worthless sons.

It was in the late Sir Joseph Kinsall's own hand; and it was properly signed, sealed, and witnessed.

Simon folded it up and put it carefully away again; and Willie looked at Walter, and Walter looked at Willie. For the first time in their lives they found themselves absolutely and unanimously in tune. Their two minds had but a single thought. They drew deep breaths, and turned. ...

It was unfortunate that neither of them was very athletic. Simon Templar was; and he had promised Mr. Penwick that the will should come to no harm.