13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

pay for it.'

Mr. Kinsall drummed his finger-tips on the desk and nar­rowed 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 con­fidential.' 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 yester­day.'

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

'It was about your father's will,' she told him; and sud­denly 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 calcu­latingly for a moment.

'Five hundred,' she said at length.

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

Patricia examined the cheque and put it away in her hand­bag. 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