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 understandable.
For a time there was absolute silence, while the two devoted 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 compliments 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."