Pilbeam is a rather slimy-looking man with shiny black hair in a marcelled wave, eyes a little too close together, pimples, and a shabby-looking moustache (occasionally described as "fungoid").
His taste for girls is evident in his approval of Miss "Flick" Sheridan, and his adoration and pursuit of Sue Brown (which enrages Ronnie Fish to the extent of running amok and destroying a restaurant).
He leaves his job to found the Argus Detective Agency, where he impersonates a man to retrieve compromising letters for Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe.
Pilbeam later works at Blandings Castle into the events of Heavy Weather and is once again asked to steal Galahad's book by Parsloe-Parsloe.
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.