He spends some three years there, during which he incurs the wrath of Galahad Threepwood. He leaves his job, much to Lord Tilbury's indignation, to found the Argus Detective Agency, which he runs from offices in an alley off Beeston Street, in South-West London, telegraphic address "Pilgus Piccy". He was hired, in the early days of the organisation, to retrieve some compromising letters for Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, a task he achieved by impersonating a man come to read the gas meter and breaking into a safe. We hear about this later, in Summer Lightning, when Parsloe-Parsloe hires him once more to steal Galahad Threepwood's scandalous book of reminiscences, just after Lord Emsworth has called him in to investigate the disappearance of his prize pig, Empress of Blandings, and Millicent Threepwood has had him tail her fiancé Hugo Carmody. His time at Blandings Castle is somewhat tense, with Carmody, Galahad and Ronnie Fish holding grudges against him, and he feels entirely out of place and uncomfortable amongst the well-bred, well-dressed Threepwood family and their friends. However, he remains there into the events of Heavy Weather, when he is once again asked to steal Galahad's book by Parsloe-Parsloe. For a time he has hopes of making a large sum of money from the book, but his hopes are dashed; however, he does get well rewarded, when he agrees to employ Monty Bodkin in his detective agency. He reappears in Something Fishy, published some 24 years later. Television In a 1995 adaptation of Heavy Weather, made by the BBC and partners and broadcast in the United States by PBS, Pilbeam was played by David Bamber. External links Percy Pilbeam page at the Thrilling Detective Web Site P. G. Wodehouse characters Literary characters introduced in 1924