Part 13

It was six months later that he was notified of the sudden death at the Sixty-fourth Street flat of Elmer Harkness, who had a policy in his company. Instantly the details of the case, and his misgivings at the time, returned to him. Yet the proof of death, signed by a reputable and well-known physician, was flawless. A latent heart trouble had developed suddenly, and Harkness had died within forty-eight hours after he was stricken. The physician who had attended him never had been called for Harkness before, but he had been at the flat a number of times to prescribe for the trifling ailments of Mrs. Harkness, and he had become well acquainted with the husband. They had moved into the neighborhood about six months before.

"It all fits in with what we know of the case," commented Murray, "except the heart trouble. That sounds like the mysterious Harkness. Could you have possibly made any mistake in your examination, Doctor?"

"Certainly I could," admitted the company's physician ruefully. "None of us is infallible, but I'll swear there were no indications of any heart trouble when I examined him. Still, the heart is a mighty deceptive organ. There may be trouble without any indications of it and there may be indications without any trouble. I once knew of a man whose heart seemed to skip a beat once in so often, but the best of medical talent was unable to discover the cause of it, and the man lived to a good old age. I don't claim infallibility, but I never examined a man who seemed freer from any indications of heart trouble."

"I wonder," said Murray thoughtfully, "if Harkness' employer has heard of his death."

An insurance company is merciless in following up evidence of attempted fraud, but, lacking such evidence, it is wise to conduct investigations with extreme delicacy. A reputation for unnecessary intrusion or harshness, for a lack of sympathy with the bereaved, for any action that implies a suspicion of dishonesty when the proof is lacking, may do a great deal of harm. Every reputable company is anxious to pay all honest claims with as little inconvenience to the beneficiaries as is compatible with safety. Such investigation as may be necessary in some exceptional case is conducted as unobtrusively as possible.

In this instance, the ordinary proof of death would have been accepted without question were it not for the mystery of the "heart trouble" that was supposed not to exist. This, combined with the report on the other Harkness, was annoying, and, to satisfy himself, Murray sent a man to the wholesale house where Harkness had been employed. The result was reassuring, so far as any question of fraud was concerned. The other clerks were then taking up a subscription to send some flowers to the funeral, and his illness and death had been reported promptly to the head of the department in which Harkness had worked. Furthermore, he was registered as living at the Sixty-fourth Street flat, to which place he had moved from 2313 Wesson Street.

"It seems to be all right," remarked Murray. "This is the man we insured on the strength of your report, Doctor, and I guess the only thing we can do is to charge you up with an error of judgment. Fortunately, it's only a three-thousand-dollar policy."

"I don't understand it," said the doctor gloomily. "I wish we could demand an autopsy."

"Hardly justifiable, in view of the circumstances," returned Murray. "We have the affidavit of a first-class physician, and we know that it's the same man, so the autopsy would be only to satisfy your curiosity. My own curiosity deals with the Wabash Avenue man who was refused. I wish we could locate him, although I don't see that it would have any bearing on this case. He seems to have disappeared utterly. Perhaps he's dead."

Before dismissing the matter from his mind, Murray reviewed the facts carefully. There had been an application to another company from a man living at 1176 Wabash Avenue, which had been refused because of heart trouble, but the city directory for that year gave no Harkness at that address. It did give an Elmer Harkness at another address, however, which coincided with the story told by the Harkness he had insured.

"Somebody," mused Murray, "must have been trying to beat the other company. That's the best I can make out of it, although I can't see why he should have assumed this Elmer's name and antecedents. It's a most extraordinary case."

The latest city directory gave Elmer Harkness as living at 2313 Wesson Street, which certainly was his address at the time the directory was issued. So much Murray had looked up before. Now, further to satisfy himself, he went through all the directories for the interval between the two years, and he was rewarded by finding the name of Elmer Harkness twice in one of them. Both were clerks, the addresses of the employers not being given, and the residence of one of them was put down as the address of the Harkness who had secured insurance.

"Then there are, or at least there were, two," thought Murray, "but only one came from Madison. And what has become of the missing Harkness? Why is he in only one directory? The fact that there were two helps to clear up the record of the one I insured, so far as that Wabash Avenue address is concerned, but how did both happen to give the same place and date of birth? And did both have heart trouble?"

Murray straightened up suddenly and sent for the clerk who had made the previous inquiries for him.

"Harry," he said, "I want you to go to the funeral of Elmer Harkness to-morrow. Go early, and get a look at him, if possible. If not, get a description of him from some of the neighbors."

Murray reproached himself for not having searched all the directories before, although it would have made little difference. The fact that another Harkness had lived in Chicago would have had no bearing on the case, so long as the record of the one who applied for insurance was clear. In fact, it would have explained everything, except the coincidence of the alleged birth records. Still, it would have given a new line of investigation, which might have cleared up the mystery.

Harry reported promptly the next day, and almost his first words aroused Murray.

"I couldn't get a glimpse of the late lamented," he said flippantly, "for the casket was closed, but I learned that he had hair slightly tinged with gray and--"

"Gray!" exclaimed Murray. "Does a man get gray hair in six months? The man we insured hadn't a gray hair in his head."

"He was rather stout--"

"Our man was not."

"I couldn't learn much else--"

"You've learned enough."

"--except that when he was stricken his wife's first thought seemed to be to get a message to some mysterious man, who responded in person, had a short talk with the wife, and then disappeared. A neighbor who had come in was somewhat impressed by this, because she called him 'Elmer,' which was her husband's name."

"What!" cried Murray, startled out of his usual imperturbability by the evidence thus unexpectedly accumulating. Then, more calmly, "Harry, you didn't get the address to which she sent, did you?"

"The messenger," said Harry, proud of his success, "was a neighbor's boy. I found him. Here is the address."

Murray took the slip of paper, looked at the address, and then sent for the company's physician.

"We'll make identification sure," he said, "for we both know the man, and we'll take an officer and a warrant along with us."

Elmer Harkness was sitting on his trunk, waiting for an expressman, when the party appeared at the door of his room in a little out-of-the-way boarding-house.

"I thought you were dead," said Murray.

"I wish I was," said Harkness. He had almost fainted at the first sight of Murray, but had recovered himself quickly, and, having once decided that the case was hopeless, he resigned himself to the inevitable and spoke with a frank carelessness that had been entirely lacking when he was playing a part and trying to stick to the details of a prepared story.

"Any weapons?" asked the policeman, making a quick search.

"No weapons," replied Harkness. "I'm not that kind."

"I don't see," said Murray, "why you waited here to be arrested."

"Why, I had a little interest in that insurance," explained Harkness, "and I rather wanted to get it before leaving. However, waiting here was a little trying to the nerves, even if everything did seem to be going all right, and I was just about to slip up to Milwaukee until the case was settled. I ought to have gone the day Elmer was stricken."

"What Elmer?" demanded Murray.

"Elmer Harkness, my cousin," the other replied promptly.

"And who are you?"

"I'm Elmer Harkness, his cousin," he returned with equal promptness.

"Which of you was born at Madison, Indiana?" pursued Murray.

"He was," replied Harkness, and added, "I was born at Matteson, Illinois."

"There's a nice pair of names for a tangle," commented Murray as the possibilities of the situation began to dawn on him. "No wonder my inquiries failed to untangle it. Would you mind telling me how you happened to try this thing?"

"No trouble at all," returned Harkness. "It was my cousin's scheme. He had tried to get insurance when he was living on Wabash Avenue and had failed. He had a heart trouble that was likely to culminate fatally almost any time. Still, I don't think it occurred to him to try to beat an insurance company until we happened to be thrown together about a year ago. We were cousins, although we never had met before, and the similarity of names seemed to make a great impression on him. He had just returned to Chicago after a year or more in St. Louis, and he already had had one heart attack, with a warning from his doctor that the next would almost certainly be fatal. He was also told that the next was not likely to be long delayed. Now, I suppose you'll think I'm lying, but I did not take kindly to his scheme, and the money alone would not have tempted me to go into it. I was sorry for his wife. He had been able to make only a bare living; he could leave her absolutely nothing. She never had had to support herself and there seemed to be mighty little chance that she could do it. I finally agreed to go into it for her sake. It looked easy and I was glad to make the try on her account."

"But you wouldn't refuse a little something for yourself on the side, so to speak," suggested Murray sarcastically.

"No, I wouldn't," Harkness frankly admitted. "To carry out the plan it would be necessary for me to give up my job, change my name and make a fresh start somewhere else. The job was not such an all-fired good one, but it might be some time before I got another as good, and I would need something for expenses while I was losing myself. I was to get five hundred of the three thousand dollars insurance. The rest was to go to the widow."

"That wouldn't last her very long," remarked Murray.

"It would help a little," said Harkness, "and we thought we would stand a better chance if we didn't ask for too big a sum."

"An insurance company," said Murray, "has to be as particular with a small risk as with a large one, and it will follow up a suspicious case as closely in one instance as in the other. It's a matter of principle."

"I think I understand that now," remarked Harkness regretfully.

"But I am curious to know," persisted Murray, "how in the world you arranged such a mystifying record."

"It was easy," replied Harkness. "I gave you my cousin's place and date of birth, his parents, his marriage and his life up to the time he left Madison. Then I gave you my record up to the finish, with the exception of one year, when he was in the Chicago directory. We put that year in so you could get trace of the wife in case you made any investigation. I have no wife, and it was rather important, of course, that there should be a record of a wife somewhere."

"It was a wise provision," admitted Murray. "We got trace of the wife at that flat."

"It was after leaving there," Harkness continued, "that my cousin went to St. Louis. When he returned we met and a little later fixed up the job. As soon as I got the policy I rented the Sixty-fourth Street flat, and my cousin and his wife moved in. That's all, I think, except that you ought to be a little easy on me, I think, for giving you such an entertaining story."

Murray turned to the doctor with a pardonable air of triumph.

"Was I right, Doctor," he asked, "in saying that it takes the novice to devise the really confusing scheme?"

"You were right," said the doctor.

AN INCIDENTAL GRIEVANCE

Jane Moffat, widow, was sore distressed.

"Without Tom," she said, "I don't know what I'll do. Tom was a good man, but unlucky. There was better providers than Tom, but he was better than none."

This apparent reflection on her late husband did not mean that Mrs. Moffat confined herself to the financial point of view, for she had been a true and devoted wife, but her present need was great and her present resources were nothing. Furthermore, Tom Moffat certainly had been either unlucky or incapable. Mrs. Moffat, out of her affection for him, chose to attribute their misfortunes to ill luck; another, less considerate, might have said that Tom lacked ability and stability; no one, however, could have said that he was neglectful or indifferent--he did the best he could, and his family always had all he could provide. Nevertheless, Tom Moffat had drifted from one thing to another, and his wife and two children had drifted with him. He had worked at many things, and in many places, and there had been times when he lacked work entirely. So he left Mrs. Moffat practically nothing when he died.

"The neighbors was good," continued Mrs. Moffat, "an' I've got some sewing to do. I was pretty good at that in my younger days, but the children don't give me time to earn much, even if the pay was what it should be. I had to sell some furniture already, an' I don't know what I'll do. We've been going from bad to worse."

"Didn't he have no insurance?" asked the sympathetic Mrs. Crimmins, whose husband was a member of one of the fraternal organizations.

"Not when he died," answered Mrs. Moffat. "Didn't I say he was unlucky? He had insurance when it didn't mean anything but paying out money, but there ain't any when the time comes for getting it back."

"They can't take your money an' not give you nothing for it," declared Mrs. Crimmins.

"Sure they can!" said Mrs. Moffat.

"I say they can't," insisted Mrs. Crimmins. "There can't nobody do that, if you got the sense to fight. There was a lawyer once told my man so."

"Well, Tom paid the money, an' it ain't come back to me, has it?" demanded Mrs. Moffat, as if that settled the question.

"You ain't tried to get it, that's why!" retorted Mrs. Crimmins. "You go see a lawyer. He'll make 'em pay, an' he won't charge you a cent if he don't get the money. Some might, but I'll tell you one that won't."

Mrs. Moffat was not in a position to overlook even a slight chance to get any money, especially if it cost nothing to make the attempt. She knew less about insurance than Mrs. Crimmins, and Mrs. Crimmins had only wild, weird, second-hand notions. Still, Mrs. Crimmins talked confidently, and Mrs. Moffat finally took the address of the lawyer recommended to her. This, of course, was a mistake--it would have been better to go direct to the insurance company. But the impression prevails in some quarters that insurance companies are ready to take advantage of any technicality to escape the payment of claims, and that a lawyer's services are necessary to compel them to pay anything that can possibly be questioned. Some lawyers, for their own purposes, encourage this idea. Isaac Hinse, to whom Mrs. Moffat went, was one of this class.

"You did well to come to me," he said pompously, as soon as she had stated her errand. "What chance has a woman, with no knowledge of the law, against a great corporation that has big lawyers engaged for the sole purpose of bulldozing or fooling the ignorant? Fortunately, I know how to deal with them. Now, where is this policy?"

"Tore up," answered Mrs. Moffat.

"What!" cried Hinse.

"Tom tore it up when he couldn't pay any more on it. I ain't looking for the whole thousand dollars, but only to get back what he paid in. Mrs. Crimmins said I could do that."

Hinse leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"Well," he said at last, "that makes more trouble, of course. An insurance company can't escape its obligations because the policy has been destroyed, but it makes it more difficult to prove the claim. Do you know what kind of policy it was?"

"How should I?" returned Mrs. Moffat. "I'm no lawyer nor no insurance man. I come to you to learn my rights."

"Quite right, quite right," conceded Hinse; "but I must know something of the circumstances. When was this policy taken out?"

"Fifteen or sixteen years ago," answered Mrs. Moffat. "We was doing pretty well then. Tom's aunt left him a bit of money, an' Tom was workin' steady an' I got some money a little later. But Tom was always unlucky. He didn't seem to hold on well, an' we kept movin' an' movin' an' gettin' harder up--"

"And he finally let the policy lapse," suggested Hinse.

"Lapse!" exclaimed Mrs. Moffat, as if she had made an important discovery unexpectedly. "That's it; that's what he said when he tore it up an' threw it in the fire. I only knew he didn't think it was good, but Mrs. Crimmins says they got to pay back what he paid them."

"That depends on the policy and circumstances," said Hinse in his most impressive way--and Hinse prided himself upon being impressive. "How long did he pay premiums?"

"Eight or ten years."

"Ha!" exclaimed Hinse. "There is a chance, but it is a desperate chance--so desperate that I really can't afford to take this on my usual contingent fee."

"What's that?" asked Mrs. Moffat.

"I mean," explained Hinse, "that I'll get the money for you if any one can, but I'll have to charge five dollars in advance."

Mrs. Moffat hesitated.

"I got it," she said, "but it's rent money."

"There's more than rent in this," declared Hinse, "but why should I take all the risk? It is a hard case and will take a great deal of my time, but I know these people, and I think I can work it out of them. You happened to come to just the right man."

Mrs. Moffat was sitting on the opposite side of the desk from Hinse, which she deemed fortunate at this critical moment.

"There ain't any safe place to leave money at home," she explained apologetically, "an' a woman don't have safe pockets like a man."

She made a dive down behind the desk, there was a sound of moving skirts, and she straightened up with three bills in her hand--a five and two ones. She handed the five to Hinse, who promptly tucked it away in his vest pocket.

"I don't know what I'll do about the rent," she sighed.

"Think of the insurance," suggested Hinse, "and remember that you've got the best man cheap. I'll see these insurance people to-day."

Hinse was a large pompous man, who wore a long rusty frock coat, because he thought that kind of coat properly impressed his police-court clients. His speeches also were for his clients, rather than for the judge--he wanted to show them he was not afraid of the court. He talked loud and aggressively. His whole life being what is popularly termed a "bluff," it naturally followed that he considered bluffing the main element of success.

That is where he made his mistake when he went to see Dave Murray about Mrs. Moffat's claim. Murray was not in particularly good humor that day. A friend had been arguing to him that corporations are notoriously ungrateful for services rendered, and another friend had endeavored to demonstrate that life insurance companies had a way of forcing a man to the limit of his endurance, of squeezing all the life and energy out of him in a few years, and then dropping him.

The worst of it was that some of the cases cited Murray knew to be true: men were "forced" and then left to seek other avenues of employment when insurance had got the best that was in them. He had argued that it was the universal business rule of "the survival of the fittest"; that the man who had the ability to get near the top need have no fear, and that men who could stand the pace prospered wherever they might be in the great system. But an unexpected and rather harsh criticism from headquarters had given him a more pessimistic view of the situation: it could not be denied that comparatively few men grew old in the service. Then there was a gloomy outlook for a promotion he had expected, to add to his annoyance, and--well, Murray, the energetic and enthusiastic Murray, was momentarily dissatisfied. He was in no humor to be "bluffed" by a pompous shyster lawyer.

"I am representing Mrs. Jane Moffat," announced Hinse.

"What about her?" asked Murray shortly.

"She has a claim against your company."

"Policy?"

"Yes."

"Let's see it."

"There will be time enough for that," said Hinse in his most impressive tones, "when we have settled what is to be paid on it." Hinse was so constituted morally that he could not possibly be frank and straightforward. "It is a policy for a thousand dollars on the life of her late husband, Thomas Moffat. He failed to pay some of the last premiums, but there is a value to it."

"Is there?"

"There is. Will you look it up and see how the matter stands, or shall I take legal proceedings to force a settlement?"

"Better sue," said Murray. "Good day."

"You will regret this interview," announced Hinse.

"I regret it already," returned Murray. Then, his professional instinct overcoming his dislike of the man, he added: "If premiums have not been paid, the policy may have lapsed, or it may be non-forfeitable. I must see the policy and know the details. I never heard of Thomas Moffat that I recall. Give me the facts."

"Ah," said Hinse, settling himself comfortably in a chair, "I thought you would see the wisdom of being reasonable."

"Reasonable!" exploded Murray. "Damn it! I'm having trouble enough being patient. Who was he, where did he live, and when did he die?"

There was something in the way this was said that led Hinse to change his tactics, and he partly explained the situation in a confidential way. Premiums had been paid on the policy for at least eight years, he said, but the widow had supposed that everything was forfeited when her husband failed to pay the later premiums: she knew nothing about cash surrender values or non-forfeitable clauses.

"She'll do what I say," he said significantly in conclusion. "She'll compromise for any figure that I say is right."

He waited for Murray to reach for this bait, but Murray was merely fighting an impulse to throw the man out of the office.

"Oh, she will!" said Murray at last. "Well, you'll talk more frankly than you have, if you want to do business with me. Where's the proof of death and the proof of identity? Where's the policy?"

Hinse ignored the last question. He wished to find out certain things about that policy himself before he admitted that it had been destroyed, and he thought he was handling the matter with consummate skill.

"There will be no trouble about the proof of death," he said. "In fact, I have that with me. But Moffat and his family moved many times during the years that have elapsed since he stopped paying premiums, living in two or three different cities, and they were not always known to their neighbors."