“By thunder! I never thought of that!” he cried.
“That’s the trouble with lots of men,” remarked the friend dryly. “Marriage is considered a dual arrangement when it should be a triple—man, woman and life insurance. That’s the only really safe combination. The thoughtful lover will see that the life insurance agent and the minister are interviewed about the same time.”
“Where did you learn all that?” asked the astonished Harry.
“Oh, it’s not original with me,” was the reply. “I heard Dave Murray talk about insurance once. He’s an enthusiast. He claims that the best possible wedding gift is a paid-up life insurance policy, and Iguess he’s right. It would be a mighty appropriate gift from the groom’s father to the bride—a blame sight better than a check or a diamond necklace. A paid-up policy for five thousand would look just as big as a five-thousand-dollar check, and it wouldn’t cost nearly as much—unless the old man plans to sneak back the check before it can be cashed. And what a lot of good it might do at a time when the need may be the greatest! If the bride is the one to be considered in selecting a wedding gift, as I understand to be the case, what better than this?”
“I guess Dave Murray is the man for me,” said Harry in admiration of the originality of this idea.
“Of course he is,” asserted the friend. “And if you want to make the argument stronger for your wavering girl, get an accident insurance policy, with a sick benefit clause, also, and then take out a little old age insurance. There ought to be no trouble about giving her all the assurance necessary to allay her fears.”
Harry was a good risk, and he had no difficulty in getting a policy. He saw Murray personally, but, as he did not explain his purpose or situation, their conference was brief: Murray merely asked if he thought a thousand-dollar policy was all he could afford.
“Because,” said Murray, “when you go after agood thing it’s wise to take all you can of it. There ought to be enough so that something can be found after your estate is settled.”
“I’d make it five hundred if I could,” said Harry.
“Most of the good companies,” said Murray, “wisely protect a man from his own economical folly by refusing to issue a policy for less than a thousand.”
“It’s an experiment. A fellow doesn’t want to put too much money into an experiment.”
Murray, the resourceful Murray, was bewildered. Life insurance an experiment! Surely he could not mean that.
“Well,” he said, “your widow will be pretty sure to think the experiment a success.”
“I haven’t got a widow,” asserted Harry.
“Of course not; but you may have.”
“How can I have a widow when I am dead?” asked Harry. “How can I have anything when I am dead?”
“You can’t tell by the looks of an electric wire how highly it is charged,” mused Murray. “I guess I touched this one too recklessly.” Then to Harry: “But there may beawidow.”
“There may,” returned Harry.
“Well, she’ll be sorry you didn’t experiment on a larger scale, because it really isn’t an experiment at all. There’s only one thing surer than insurance.”
“What’s that?” asked Harry with interest.
“Death; and, with the popular gold bonds or any limited payment policy, you have a chance to beat death by some years. But suit yourself.”
So Harry took the physical examination and got the policy, payable to his estate. Then he promptly assigned it to Alice.
“There’s one thousand dollars sure, if anything should happen to me,” he said. “That beats any old elusive two thousand that Tom Nelson may have.”
“You’re a dear, good, faithful boy, Harry,” she said impulsively, and she gave him a kiss.
That was happiness enough for that day and the next, but on the third he began to get down to earth again and deemed the time propitious.
“You’ll marry me?” he suggested.
“Perhaps,” was her reply.
“Perhaps!” he cried. “It’s always perhaps.”
“Perhaps it won’t be always perhaps,” she returned.
In truth, she had wavered so long that she found it difficult to make up her mind. Besides, Tom was prospering, Tom was devoted, and Tom was a nice fellow. True, he was twenty-six while she was only eighteen, and Harry, at twenty, was nearer her own age, but—well, aside from any question of the future,it was rather nice to have two men so devotedly attentive. Then, too, Tom spent his money more freely, and she derived the benefit in present pleasures. There was no hurry; the future was now brighter, whichever she chose, and, things being so nearly equal, there was even less reason for haste. Alice, in addition to her dread of poverty, was a natural flirt: she enjoyed the power she exerted over these two men. But she said nothing to Tom of Harry’s latest move; perhaps she thought it would be unfair, or perhaps she was a trifle truer to Harry than to Tom.
Harry, in his “simple” way, misinterpreted this irresolution. He was too devoted to criticize; he had begun to understand her dread and to think that she was quite right in taking such a very worldly view of the situation. Why should she not, so far as possible, endeavor to make her future secure? It was for him to convince her of his thoughtfulness and his ability to provide for her. Thereupon he got an accident insurance policy.
“You’re awfully thoughtful, Harry,” she said. “I like you.”
“I don’t want you to worry,” said Harry, flattered and pleased.
“I’m not worrying,” she told him.
“But I am,” he retorted ruefully.
“Men,” she asserted, “aresoimpatient.”
Harry could not quite agree to this—he thought he had been wonderfully patient. In his straightforward way he began to ponder the matter deeply. It had seemed to him he was doing a wonderfully clever thing that ought to settle the matter definitely. Had he made a mistake? If so, what was necessary to rectify it? Incidentally, he heard that some of Tom Nelson’s little speculations had turned out favorably, and Tom was still quite as devoted as ever and seemed to be received with as much favor. Then to Harry came an idea—a really brilliant idea, he thought.
“Perhaps,” he told himself, “I ought not to have assigned that policy to her; perhaps I ought to have kept it in my control so that a wedding would be necessary to give her the benefit of it. As it is now, she has the policy, no matter whom she marries. I don’t think she would—”
Without finishing the sentence, Harry knitted his brow and shook his head. It was not a pleasant thought—he told himself it was an unjust thought—but, as he had gone in to win, he might as well take every precaution. If the conditions were a little different, it might put an end to her flirtatious mood and compel a more serious consideration of his suit; it might have a tendency to emphasize his point and“wake her up,” as he expressed it. Possibly, it was just the argument needed.
With this in mind, he again called upon Murray.
“I’m in a little trouble,” he explained. “I ought to have had that policy made out to my wife.”
“It makes no difference, unless the estate is involved in some way,” explained Murray. “She’ll get it through—”
“It makes a big difference,” interrupted Harry. “You see, I’ve got to get the wife.”
“What!” ejaculated Murray. “Say that again, please.”
“Why, if I had an insurance policy in favor of my wife, it would make it easier to get the wife, wouldn’t it?”
“Thunder!” exclaimed Murray. “I thought I was pretty well up on insurance financiering, but this beats me. Are you hanging an insurance policy up as a sort of prize package?”
“That’s it, that’s it!” cried Harry, pleased to find the situation so quickly comprehended. “The other fellow is worth more, but insurance looks bigger than anything else I can buy for the money, and I want to show her how much safer she will be with me than with him.”
“You’re all right,” laughed Murray, “but I’mafraid you’ll have to marry first. We can’t very well make a policy payable to a person who doesn’t exist, and you have no wife now. When you have one, bring the policy back if you’re not satisfied to have it payable to the estate, and—”
“But she’s got it.”
“Who?”
“The girl. I assigned it to her, so she doesn’t have to marry me to get the benefit. That wasn’t good business.”
Murray leaned back in his chair and looked at the youth with amusement and curiosity.
“No,” he said at last, “that may have been good sentiment, but it wasn’t good business. And,” he added jokingly, “I don’t know that this transaction is quite legal.”
“Why not?” asked Harry anxiously.
“Well, we’re not allowed to give prizes, and, if a girl goes with the policy, it looks a good deal like a prize-package affair. I’m not sure that that wouldn’t be considered worse than giving rebates on premiums.”
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” argued Harry with solemn earnestness. “The girl doesn’t go with the policy, but the policy goes with me. At least, that’s what I intended.”
“Better try it again with another policy,” suggestedMurray. “Make it payable to your estate, and then hang on to it until you get the girl. Let me give you a word of advice, too, although it’s not exactly to my interest.”
“Well?”
“Well, the policy that you gave to her doesn’t amount to much if you stop paying premiums on it. You might suggest that to her.”
“By George! I never thought of that!” exclaimed the youth. “I guess I haven’t much of a financial head.”
“Oh, you’re all right,” returned Murray. “You’re the first fellow I ever knew who made a matrimonial bureau of an insurance office. I’ve got something to learn about this business yet.”
With his second policy in his pocket, Harry reverted quite casually to the subject of insurance, although he had first taken the precaution to have a lot of insurance literature sent to Alice. From this she learned that nothing could quite equal it in making the future secure.
“I have decided,” said Harry in an offhand way, “that the best investment for a young man who has any one dependent upon him is life insurance. I have just taken out another policy for a thousand dollars.”
“How thoughtful of you!” exclaimed Alice.
“It’s on the twenty-year endowment plan,” explained Harry. “At the end of twenty years the whole sum may be drawn down or it may be left to accumulate. As provision for the future, I guess that makes any two or three thousand in the bank look like thirty cents.”
“You’re awfully good to me,” said Alice, for this apparent evidence of unselfish devotion, in addition to what had preceded it, really made her reproach herself for her capriciousness. But it was such jolly fun to keep two men anxious!
“The insurance,” Harry went on, “is payable to my estate.”
“What does that mean, Harry?” she asked.
“It means,” replied Harry, “that a girl has got to marry me to get a chance at it.”
“I always did like you, Harry.”
“Yes?”
“But you’re so impatient.”
Harry was beginning to develop a little strategical ingenuity.
“There is no need,” he said, “to make a secret of this. I’m not ashamed to have all the girls know that I am making proper provision for the one who becomes my wife.”
“Harry Renway,” exclaimed Alice, “if you makeour private affairs a subject of public gossip I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live.”
Thereupon Harry demonstrated that he was not as “simple” as he was supposed to be, for he promptly returned the kiss that she had given him on a previous occasion. There could be no misinterpreting “our” private affairs.
“When?” he asked.
“Oh, pretty soon,” she replied, for the flirtatious instinct was still in evidence. Besides, under the circumstances, too much haste might be in poor taste. However, their friends were told of the engagement, and that was something. Tom Nelson was angry and disgusted.
“The fool!” he exclaimed. “A live man wants to have the use of his money, and he has tied himself up with insurance. That isn’t my way.”
“But he got the girl,” some one suggested.
“Not yet,” retorted Tom, “and you never can tell.”
In truth, it seemed as if Tom’s insinuation was almost prophetic, for Alice procrastinated and postponed in a most tormenting way, and Harry took it all in good part for two or three months. There was no particular reason for this delay, as the preliminaries of such a wedding as they would havecould be arranged very quickly, and in time it tried the patience even of Harry.
“The semi-annual premium on that first policy is due the day after to-morrow,” he remarked one evening.
“Well?” she returned inquiringly.
“If the premium isn’t paid the policy lapses,” he went on.
“But you’ll pay it?”
“For my wife I will.”
She gave him a quick look and knew that he was not going to be swayed this time by her little cajoleries.
“But, Harry,” she protested, “that’s so—so soon.”
“I have the license in my pocket,” he said; “there’s a church within two blocks, and I saw a light in the pastor’s study as I came by. I guess we’ve waited long enough. Let’s go out for a little stroll.”
It was six months later that Harry again met Dave Murray, but Murray remembered him.
“Did you get the prize with your policy?” asked Murray.
“Sure,” replied Harry.
“Was it a good prize?”
“Bully!” said Harry. “A little hard to handlejust at first, but you can do almost anything with insurance.”
“You certainly have made good use of it,” laughed Murray.
“You bet I have,” answered Harry with some pride. “Why, say! an insurance policy is the greatest thing in the world for family discipline.”
“For what!” exclaimed Murray.
“Family discipline. The first time we had a little rumpus she had me going seven ways for Sunday until I thought of the insurance policies. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if I’m not the head of the house there’s no reason why I should be paying insurance premiums, and I’ll default on the next one. The head of the house looks after things of that sort,’ I told her, and that settled it. I’m the head of the house, and, if I don’t play it too strong, I’ve got the thing to maintain discipline.”
“Don’t you want another policy?” laughed Murray.
“Well,” returned Harry thoughtfully, “if I could get the same kind of prize with another, and if it wasn’t against the law, I rather think I might be tempted to do it. Anyhow, there can’t anybody tell me there’s nothing in insurance, for I know better.”
“I guess it’s all up with us,” said Sidney Kalin despairingly.
“It looks that way,” admitted his brother, Albert Kalin.
The father, Jonas Kalin, sat at his desk with his head half-buried in his hands.
“There is no chance for an extension, of course,” he said wearily.
“I should say not,” returned Sidney. “Telmer bought up the mortgage for just one purpose, and his only hope of success lies in foreclosing. He wants to get his hands on the invention.”
“Will he take an interest in the business?” asked Jonas.
“Why should he, when he can get the only thing he wants without?” returned Sidney.
“What does Dempsey say?” persisted the senior Kalin.
“It’s out of his line,” answered Albert, to whom the question was addressed. “If five thousand wouldstraighten the thing out, he might risk it, but he wouldn’t put up a cent more than that, and he’d want a twenty-five per cent. interest in the business for that sum.”
“And, if we can save it, the thing is worth a fortune,” groaned Jonas. “We’ve got a start already, and there’s almost no limit to the possibilities. It ought to be worth fifty thousand a year inside of three years. He doesn’t want much.”
“Well, he’s out of the question, anyway,” said Sidney. “We’ve got to have twenty-five thousand, and we’ve got to have it mighty soon.”
“My life insurance is more than that,” mused Jonas.
“What good does that do?” retorted Sidney rather sharply. “Even if you wanted to surrender it, the cash surrender value is less than ten thousand at the present time.”
“That would help,” argued Jonas.
“Nothing will help that doesn’t put the full sum needed within our reach,” asserted Albert. “We’re about due to begin life over again with a little less than nothing.”
“I’ll think it over,” said Jonas, rising and wearily reaching for his hat. “I’ve always weathered the storms before. Perhaps I’ll find a way to weather this one.”
Jonas Kalin once had been accounted a successful real estate man, but he had lost a good deal of money in speculation, and the time and thought he gave to speculation had had an injurious effect upon his business. One of the sons had been for a time in the employ of a manufacturer of fountain pens. Later the elder Kalin had started both boys, as an independent firm, in that line of business, their pen differing sufficiently from others to avoid any infringement of patents on patented features. They had made no great amount of money, indeed barely a living income, but they had kept out of debt until Sidney invented a machine for finishing the shell or case of the pen.
His experiments had been rather costly, and the machine had been costly to construct, but he had convinced his father that it was a good thing, and Jonas had given up his dwindling real estate business and put what money he had left into his sons’ firm, becoming a partner in the enterprise. Even then it had been found necessary to borrow twenty-five thousand dollars in order to establish the business on the new and larger basis, giving a mortgage on the entire plant, which included the new machine, and this mortgage had passed into the hands of a more prosperous business rival at a time when the value of the invention was just becoming apparent. This inventionlargely reduced the cost of production, but the exploiting so far done, although expensive and reasonably successful, had not enabled the Kalins to accumulate anything to meet their obligation. Indeed, believing they would have no difficulty in securing an extension, they had not worried about this until they found themselves in the power of a rival.
The machine had not been patented, for reasons that most successful inventors will readily understand. While a patent is supposed to protect the inventor, it does not do so in many instances; on the contrary, it frequently gives a rival just the information he needs to duplicate the device with technical variations that will at least make the question of infringement a difficult one to decide. The inventor of limited means, opposed by a company with almost unlimited capital, is at a serious disadvantage when he gets into the courts, and there are cases where the value of an invention has been largely destroyed by having the market flooded with the article before the legal rights can be definitely determined. There is hardly a single patented device of great value that has not been the basis of long and costly litigation, involving either the unauthorized use or manufacture of the device as it is or the use or manufacture of a device suggested by the original and differing fromit only enough to give technical plausibility to the plea that it is not an infringement. Even the great Edison is reported to have said that he has made practically no money on his patents, but has had to enter the manufacturing business to get any material benefit from his inventions.
“When you patent an invention,” the Kalins had been informed by a man of experience in such matters, “you are furnishing ammunition to the enemy. You are giving him your secret, and he will put some smart men at work to discover some method of using it himself. Edison is still busy with inventions, but you don’t see his name in the patent reports any more. He has become too wise for that. Secrecy is the best protection, provided you have something that can be kept secret.”
All this Jonas Kalin reviewed as he walked slowly and with bowed head toward his club. They had kept their invention secret, they had advertised extensively, and now, just as they were beginning to get returns on their investment, the dream was shattered. They had tried to interest various capitalists, but capitalists could not see the future as they saw it. Capital is exceptionally conservative when there is a question of investing in inventions that it does not understand, for inventors are proverbially optimisticand not infrequently cost capital a good deal of money.
“Thirty thousand dollars of life insurance!” muttered Jonas, as he settled himself in a corner of the reading-room. “If we could have the use of that money for a year we would be all right.”
Jonas was a widower, but his wife had been living when he had taken out this insurance. Now it would go to the sons eventually, if they survived him, but, meanwhile, they would lose a fortune. Since the death of his wife, Jonas had given his every thought to the boys and their future. He reproached himself for the speculations that had deprived him of the power of helping them as he had planned in earlier days; he felt that somehow he had defrauded them. So deeply did he feel this that from the day he gave up his real estate business he never had put one dollar into a speculation of any kind, except so far as his investment in their business was a speculation.
“If we could make that go,” he mused, as he crouched miserably in the big chair, “I should be content. I owe it to the boys to see them fairly started. I was in a position to do it once and I lost the money foolishly—their money, by rights, for I had put it aside for them. And here am I, almost useless—a business wreck—too old to begin again as an employeeand lacking the capital to be an employer or to do business of any sort for myself. Instead of helping my boys, I am to be a burden to them—until I die. I am of value only in the grave.” He shuddered and seemed to sink still lower in the chair. “It is my duty to do what I can for them,” he added. “I am useless, but life is before them—a continuation of my life. I must be a success through my sons.”
Benson, a friend, stopped near him.
“What’s the matter, Kalin?” asked Benson. “You look blue.”
Kalin looked up at Benson in a dazed way, and for a moment seemed to be unable to grasp the fact that he had been addressed.
“Benson,” he said at last, his eyes wandering dreamily about the room, “is a man ever justified in committing suicide?”
Benson was startled, but he replied promptly and emphatically, “Never.”
“Suppose,” Kalin went on, “that your life intervened between those you love and happiness; suppose that your life meant misery and failure for them, while your death meant success and—and comfort.”
Benson drew up a chair and placed his hand on Kalin’s arm as if to emphasize his words.
“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away,” hequoted earnestly. “Life is God’s gift and should be treasured as such. You may not return it until He calls, unless you would doubt His wisdom.”
Kalin nodded his head thoughtfully.
“Men have gone to certain death for those they love and been glorified for so doing,” he argued.
“A man maygivehis own life to save the life of another and be a hero,” returned Benson, “but he may nottakehis own life for any cause and be aught but a coward.”
“What matters it whether he takes it or gives it, so long as the purpose is the same?” asked Kalin.
Benson gripped the arm on which his hand lay and shook Kalin.
“Wake up!” he commanded sharply. “What’s the matter with you to-day?”
Kalin roused himself, as if from a dream, and laughed in a forced, dreary way.
“Nothing is the matter with me,” he replied. “I must have been reading something that gave my thoughts a morbid turn. Still, your reasoning seems to be that of a man who never has been tested. Your view has been my view, but I can see how a man’s views may change when he is confronted by the actual conditions concerning which he has previously only theorized. I don’t think you’re right.”
“It’s a disagreeable subject, even for abstract consideration,” asserted Benson. “Let’s drop it.”
“All right,” said Kalin. “I’m going in to lunch.”
In the dining-room he got into an obscure corner and the waiter had to joggle his elbow to rouse him from the reverie into which he immediately fell. Then, after barely tasting the lunch he ordered, he went to the office of the club and asked that all charges against him be footed up.
“There’s nothing against me at all now?” he said inquiringly as he paid the bill.
“Nothing at all, sir,” replied the clerk.
“I’d hate to leave any club debts,” he remarked, as if talking aloud to himself.
At his office he found his sons still gloomily discussing the situation.
“I think,” he said, “that I have found a way to save the business.”
“How?” they asked eagerly.
“The details are not quite clear in my mind yet,” he replied. “I would like to give them a little more thought before explaining the matter. But, if I succeed in pulling you through, you boys must be mighty careful in the future. A concern doesn’t get out of this kind of hole twice, and I’m going to turn it all over to you.”
“Why?” asked Albert in surprise.
“I ruined one business,” was the reply. “One is enough. Be cautious. Go slow. You’ve got a good thing—a fortune—if you handle your finances properly and don’t try to spread out too fast.”
He shook hands with both the boys, to their great bewilderment.
“Where are you going?” asked Sidney. “One would think you were starting on a long journey.”
“I’m taking leave of the business,” he answered, with a laugh that had something of pathos in it. “I’m going to shut myself up for a day or so until I get my little scheme elaborated, and then you shall have the benefit of it, but I am out of active business.”
Sidney and Albert were silent for some time after he had left. Jonas Kalin always had been a rather eccentric man, and they were accustomed to letting his whims and peculiarities of word and action pass without comment, but there was something in this parting that made them feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t like it,” remarked Sidney. “I wonder if the worry and disappointment have been too much for him.”
“It is a hard blow to him—not for himself, but for us,” returned Albert. “However, we’ll see him this evening.”
Mrs. Albert Kalin was the housekeeper for the three men. Sidney, being a bachelor, had always lived with his father, but Albert had married and moved away from the parental roof. Then, when his mother died, Jonas had called him back and practically turned the house over to him and his wife, reserving only one large room for himself. In this he had his own little library, and to this he frequently retired for long evenings of solitude, for, while not a recluse, he was a man who really needed no other companionship than his own thoughts and often seemed to avoid the society of others.
He was not at home, however, when his sons arrived for dinner. Mrs. Albert Kalin said he had brought home two or three bundles early in the afternoon, had gone directly to his room, where he remained for about an hour, and had then appeared with a valise.
“I never saw him look so haggard and distressed,” she explained. “He kissed me most affectionately and said he had some business to attend to and would not be home to-night.”
Late that evening Sidney Kalin went to his father’s club, where he saw Benson and learned enough to send him to police headquarters. There was no publicity, but a search for the missing man was begunat once. The circumstances were, to say the least, disquieting.
At the moment this search was begun Jonas Kalin was crossing Lake Michigan on one of the large steamers, and his actions were such as to attract the attention of some of the other passengers. It was a Friday night boat and was crowded with excursionists bound for a Saturday and Sunday outing in Michigan. Jonas had a state-room, but he merely put his valise in it, and then paced the deck, occasionally stopping to lean over the rail and look down at the water. Once or twice he sought a secluded corner and sat for a time buried in thought, but he moved away the moment others stopped near him. About eleven o’clock, as he passed through the main cabin, he saw a woman putting a little boy to bed on a sofa, and he offered her his state-room.
“I’m very grateful to you, sir,” she replied, “but we couldn’t think of taking it. You’ll need it yourself.”
“I shall not sleep to-night,” he said. “It will be vacant unless you take it. Shove the valise into a corner somewhere and I’ll get it in the morning.”
He dropped the state-room key on a chair and disappeared through a door leading to the deck before she could make further protest, but his face hauntedher all that night. In the morning, after some search, she found him huddled up on a camp-stool against the rail of the forward deck, and she thanked him again.
“You don’t look well,” she ventured. “Can I do anything for you?”
“It’s not a question of what any one can do for me,” he answered, “but of what I can do for others.”
“I don’t understand you, sir,” she said.
“It’s a good thing you don’t,” he returned, and, fearing that she had to deal with a crazy man, she left him.
After landing, he went directly to a hotel, engaged a room, and shut himself up in it until afternoon. Then he went to the dock and wandered nervously back and forth, looking out over the water and occasionally down into it. The dock men watched him curiously, and one of them loosened a life-preserver that hung near, but he went back to the hotel without giving them an opportunity to use it.
He kept close to his room at the hotel, and was so unobtrusive that the clerks and the other guests hardly realized he was there, and, being registered under an assumed name, not one of them recognized him as the Jonas Kalin who was described in the Sunday papers as being missing. For, the secret search Fridaynight and Saturday failing to reveal any trace of him, his sons had decided to try the effect of publicity.
It was not until he had surrendered his room Sunday night that his identity was established. On the table was found a letter, sealed, addressed to Sidney Kalin.
“Kalin!” cried the clerk, when the letter was brought to him. “Good Lord! that’s the man who disappeared. And there’s a reward for information. I remember, too, he had all the Sunday papers sent to his room, and then kept out of the way until the moment he left.”
The clerk looked at the letter, uncertain as to what he ought to do. Finally, he decided to get the Chicago police department on the long-distance telephone.
“Jonas Kalin has been here for two days under an assumed name,” he reported, “but his identity was discovered only after he had taken the night boat back to Chicago. He left a letter. It is sealed and addressed to Sidney Kalin.”
“We’ll notify Kalin and meet the boat,” was the prompt reply. “Hold the letter until you hear from Kalin.”
A little later Kalin called up the hotel and instructed that the letter be mailed to him at once. As Jonas was already on his way back, nothing would begained by having its contents transmitted by telephone. He was beyond reach until the boat arrived.
It was an anxious little crowd that waited at the wharf for the arrival of the boat. There were Albert and Sidney Kalin, two detectives and some newspaper men. The news of Jonas Kalin’s sojourn across the lake was already in the morning papers, having come by telegraph, and there was natural curiosity to learn the reason for this strange procedure. In addition, there was an undefined and unexpressed feeling that there might be a tragedy back of it. In any event, there was a mystery.
The boat reached its dock before five o’clock, but the state-room passengers had the privilege of sleeping until seven, so only the excursionists who had been obliged to sit up all night left the boat at once. There were many of these, however—a weary and disheveled lot of individuals, groups and couples straggling along to the dock. They were talking of something that had happened during the night, or was supposed to have happened. Something or some one certainly had gone over the rail, for the splash was distinctly heard, and an excitable passenger had raised the cry of “Man overboard!” The boat had been stopped, but investigation had failed to discover an actual witness to any such accident, although twopeople were sure they had seen something in the water just after the splash. The captain, however, insisted that it was all the result of some nervous person’s imagination.
To Albert and Sidney Kalin these rumors brought sinking hearts and a great dread. It took them a little time to locate the state-room that had been occupied by their father, but a description of him, coupled with the name he had used at the hotel, enabled them to do it.
His valise alone was found.
Several people remembered the haggard man who had tramped the deck so restlessly. He seemed to be in great mental distress, anxious only to keep away from all companionship, and no one could recall having seen him after the cry of “Man overboard!” Even the captain had finally to admit that it was probable he had lost a passenger, although, of course, no blame whatever attached to him or to any of the boat’s crew.
Then came the letter that had been forwarded from the hotel. It was pathetically brief and to the point, as follows:
“My Dear Sons: The insurance money will pull you through. It is all that I can give you. Yoursuccess is dearer to me than anything else in the world. Your affectionate father,
Jonas Kalin.
Of course, Dave Murray read the story in the papers—all but the letter. That was brought to him later by Albert Kalin.
“We wish to give you all the facts, without reservation,” Albert explained. “Father did this for us to save the firm, to save an almost priceless invention.” The young man choked a little. “We have hoped against hope that his letter might prove to be capable of some other interpretation, or that he may have changed his mind after writing it, and we have left no stone unturned—”
“Neither have we,” said Murray quietly. “Perhaps we know more than you.”
“Have you got trace of him?” asked Albert quickly, and his face showed a dawn of hope that could not be misunderstood: he actually believed his father dead and would welcome any evidence to the contrary. It was not the expression of a man who was principally interested in the payment of the insurance money, although he was naturally presenting his and his brother’s claim.
“I am sorry to say we have not,” replied Murray, “but neither have we any proof of death.”
Albert plainly showed his disappointment at Murray’s first statement, and it was a moment or two before he replied to the second.
“I do not know your rules or aims,” he said, “but it is possible—indeed almost probable, under the circumstances—that there never will be any absolute proof of death. It—it happened in mid-lake, you know.”
“Our aim,” returned Murray, “is to pay every claim that we are convinced is just, without resorting to any quibbling or technical evasions, but we have to be careful. In saying this, I am merely stating a general proposition, without particular reference to this affair. Indeed, I concede that the presumption of death is unusually strong in this case. I shall be glad to have any facts bearing on it that you can give me.”
Albert fully reviewed the circumstances as he knew them, to all of which Murray listened attentively.
“I shall make a complete report to the home office,” said Murray at the conclusion of the recital. “Of course, after the lapse of a certain period there is a legal presumption of death, anyhow, but it is possible that the circumstantial evidence may be deemed strong enough to warrant an earlier settlement. Knowing the ostensible motive, I appreciate the value of timeto you, and I assure you the company has no desire to delay matters longer than is necessary to assure itself of the justice of the claim.”
After Albert had departed, Murray went over the case carefully, and the evidence seemed quite convincing. In the first place, there could be no question as to a very strong motive. There was the certainty of ruin, which the death of Jonas alone could avert, and, after a lapse of two years from the date of the policy, suicide did not invalidate it. Therefore, by his own sacrifice, he could purchase a bright future for his sons. Then there could be no doubt that he had been depressed and worried for some time, and latterly unquestionably had brooded on the subject of self-destruction. In a talk with one man he had spoken of it as “self-elimination,” but he had spoken more bluntly to Benson at the club. There could be no doubt now that he contemplated such action at that time, and that he had reference to it when he told his sons he had discovered a way to raise the necessary money. Everything indicated that his troubles had made him temporarily insane.
Then there was the evidence of the woman to whom he had resigned his state-room on the boat, and of various other passengers who had noted his restlessness and his misery. One woman even asserted thatshe had said to a companion at the time that there was a man who contemplated some desperate act. It seemed probable that he had planned to jump overboard that first night, but had been deterred, either by lack of a favorable opportunity or because his courage failed him. His actions at the hotel, and especially at the dock, were wholly consistent with this theory, and the blunt note he left was further evidence of mental derangement. Although his purpose in no way affected his policy, a man in his right mind would hardly have stated it so frankly; indeed, a sane man probably would have tried to give the appearance of accident to his death. Finally, he had boarded the return boat and was missing when the boat reached Chicago, although his strange actions had directed particular attention to him during the early part of the trip.
After a brief delay the company paid the policy. The circumstantial evidence could hardly be more convincing, and the body of a man who drowned himself in mid-lake might never be recovered.
It was several years later that Albert Kalin called upon Murray and introduced himself a second time.
“We have just heard from father,” he said.
“What!” cried Murray.
“He died in South America,” explained Albert; “died there miserably—not because of any poverty, but because he was an exile and felt that he was a swindler. He left a letter which was forwarded to us. His life, he said, had been one long torture since that night on the boat, and he had a thousand times regretted that he did not actually throw himself into the lake. I fear,” added Albert sadly, “that he really did commit suicide finally. He made one dying request. I would like to read it to you.”
Albert took a letter from his pocket and read this paragraph:
“My life as an exiled swindler has been hell, but I have seen the Chicago papers and I know that I saved the firm and the invention and that you have prospered. That has been my only consolation. It would have been some relief if I could have communicated with you, but I would not make you a party to my crime. Now, at last, I ask you to do something for the old man: Refund to the insurance company every cent you received, less the premiums I actually paid. Refund it all, if necessary, but make my record clear. That was the only dishonest act of a long business career, and God only knows how I have suffered for it. You have prospered, you can do this, and I know you will. It is that alone that gives me consolationas my period of punishment at last draws to a close.”
“How did he do it?” asked Murray, before Albert could speak.
“He purchased and took with him a second-hand suit of clothes and a wig,” explained Albert. “He cut off his whiskers and mustache, so that he appeared as a man who had neglected to shave for a week—a pretty good disguise in itself, for father was always neat and clean. The clothes he had worn went overboard with a weight attached, which accounts for the splash, and he himself raised the cry of ‘Man overboard!’ After that he kept out of the light, and he had little difficulty in slipping ashore while we were hunting his state-room. His mental distress was real, for he was leaving all he held dear and condemning himself to exile.”
“Well,” commented Murray, “I guess the circumstances would have fooled any one, for his whole previous life made him about the last man who would be suspected of anything of that sort.”
“And now,” said Albert, “my brother and I are prepared to make a cash settlement with you on any basis that you deem satisfactory.”
The applicant for insurance was nervous and ill at ease, but that alone was not sufficient to make Dave Murray suspicious. A man taking out his first policy is very often nervous—he dreads the physical examination in many instances. He may think he is all right, but he fears the possibility of some serious latent trouble. If there is anything radically and incurably wrong with the average man, he prefers not to know it. He may not say so, but he does. He goes before the medical examiner with the fear that he may learn something disagreeable.
“I’m fairly contented now,” he says to himself, if he happens to be practical enough to put his thoughts into words, “but life will be a haunting hell to me if I learn that I am not a good risk. That will mean at least the probability of an early death. It will not change conditions, but it will seem to bring death nearer.”
These thoughts do not come to the very young man, but they do come to the man who has passed, or is passing, the optimism of youth. In the words of DaveMurray, “One of the great annoyances of the life insurance business is that the very young man is too well and strong to want to be insured, and the man of middle age is afraid of learning that he is not as well and strong as he thinks he is. We have to fight optimism first and cowardice later. Theoretically, the ‘risk’ ought to be caught young, but, practically, it is easier to catch him when he has begun to appreciate the responsibilities of life. The optimism is more difficult to overcome than the cowardice.”
Nevertheless, the man who has neglected to take out insurance when he could get the best rate is likely to be nervous when he applies for it later, however hard he may try to conceal the fact. And Elmer Harkness was nervous. He was a year short of forty, apparently in the best physical condition, but he was unusually nervous. He hesitated over his answers to the most ordinary questions, he corrected himself once or twice, and he betrayed a strong desire to get through with the ordeal in the quickest possible time. When, at last, he was able to leave, the physician having completed his examination, he gave a very audible sigh of relief.
“There’s something about this I don’t like,” commented Murray a little later.
“What?” asked the doctor.
“That’s the trouble,” returned Murray. “I can’t say exactly what it is, but I have a feeling that something is wrong. We’ve had nervous men here before. Remember the fellow who was brought up by his wife and who would have ducked and run if he could have got the chance? He was nervous enough, but not in the same way. He was afraid he would find he was going to die next week, but this fellow was shifty. How does he stand physically, doctor?”
“Fine,” answered the doctor. “You couldn’t ask a better risk.”
“Well, he doesn’t get the policy until I’ve made a pretty thorough investigation, in addition to the usual investigation from headquarters,” announced Murray.
It took a good deal really to disturb Murray, but this case disturbed him before he got through with it. His first discovery was that Elmer Harkness had been refused insurance by another company some years previous. This information came from the home office, which had secured it through the “clearing-house.”
“The risk was refused,” said the report, “on the advice of the company’s physician.”
“Must be another Harkness,” said the doctor, when Murray told him about it. “This man was in splendid physical condition.”
“The Elmer Harkness refused,” said Murray, consulting the papers before him, “was born at Madison, Indiana, January twentieth, 1866, and that is the place and date of birth given by the man who applied to us. You don’t suppose there were twins, do you?”
“Might look it up,” suggested the doctor.
“Of course, I’ll look it up,” returned Murray. “It’s mighty funny that a man who was refused on physical grounds five years ago should be a superb risk now.”
“There’s one satisfaction,” remarked the doctor. “With the safeguards thrown around the business in these modern days, a man can’t very well beat us.”
“There’s no game that can’t be beaten,” asserted Murray emphatically. “There is no burglar-proof safe. With improvements in safes there has come a corresponding improvement in cracksmen’s methods. No man is so much superior to all other men that he can devise a thing so perfect that some other can not find the flaw that makes it temporarily worthless. The burglar-proof safes have to be watched to keep burglars away from them. The insurance system is as good as we now know how to make it, but it has to be watched to keep swindlers from punching holes in it. When we further improve the system they will further improve their methods, and we’ll have to keep on watching. The business concern that thinks it has aninfallible system to protect itself from loss is then in the greatest danger.”
“Do you think this case a swindle?” asked the doctor.
“It’s better to get facts before reaching conclusions,” replied Murray. “It may be only an extraordinary coincidence. The man who was refused insurance was not then living where the man who applied to us is now living. That’s worth considering.”
But investigation only made the case the more puzzling. From Madison, Indiana, a report was received that Elmer Harkness was born there on the date given, and that nothing was known of any second Elmer Harkness. The father of the Elmer born at Madison had been Abner Harkness, who was now dead. The name of the father of the man who had applied to Murray was given as Abner, and that also was the name of the father of the man whose application had been previously refused. Elmer, after the death of his parents, had left Madison, and nothing had been heard of him since, although he was supposed to be in Chicago.
“Strange!” commented Murray. “This Madison Harkness is our Harkness, beyond question, and he also corresponds, except physically, to the Harkness who was refused.”
So far as was known at Madison, Harkness was physically sound and well. He certainly had been considered a strong, healthy man.
“That,” said Murray, “answers the description of the man who was here, but it really means nothing, as far as the other refusal is concerned. Heart trouble was the cause of that refusal, and there hardly would have been any indication of that to the casual observer. This Madison Harkness may well have been the man who was refused or the man who applied to us, but he can hardly be both—unless you have made a mistake, Doctor.”
“I’ll examine him again,” said the doctor.
So he sent for Harkness again, on the plea that he had mislaid the record of the previous examination, and this time he gave particular attention to the heart.
“Normal and strong,” he reported. “No trouble there. It’s possible he had some slight temporary affection when he was examined for the other company. The heart is sometimes most deceptive, and there are occasionally apparent evidences of a serious malady where none really exists. In some cases I’ve discovered symptoms of heart trouble at one examination and found them absolutely lacking a little later. This man is all right.”
Nevertheless, Murray questioned Harkness closely.
“Are you sure,” he asked, the question having been previously answered when the application was made, “that you never were refused by any other company?”
“I never applied for insurance before,” replied Harkness, but there was the same shifty look in his eyes.
“Did you ever know another Harkness at Madison, Indiana?”
Harkness looked frightened, but he answered promptly in the negative.
“Where have you been since you left Madison?”
Harkness told briefly of his movements.
“Did you ever live at 1176 Wabash Avenue?”
“No.”
The case became even more mystifying. There was a record of only one Elmer Harkness at Madison, but it was evident that two had applied for insurance, for the Harkness who had been refused had given his address as 1176 Wabash Avenue.
“I am tempted,” said Murray later, “to make a strong adverse report. At the same time I don’t want to do an injustice and refuse a man who is rightfully entitled to insurance. My refusal, coupled with the mystifying record, would make it practically impossible to get insurance anywhere at any time, and he may be all right.”
“If there’s a fraud in it anywhere,” remarked the doctor, “there are some clever and experienced people behind it.”
“Quite the contrary,” returned Murray. “The experienced people are the people we catch, because they do things the way one naturally expects. As a general thing, you will find that the police are fooled, not by the professional criminal, but by the novice who is ignorant of the ways of the crook, and the same rule applies to insurance swindles. If there is anything wrong here our difficulty lies in the fact that this fellow and those behind him are not experienced and are not going at the thing the way an experienced swindler would.”
An attempt to identify the Harkness who had applied for insurance as the Harkness who had lived at 1176 Wabash Avenue failed utterly, owing to the fact that the woman who had formerly conducted a boarding-house at that number had moved and it was impossible to find her. It was a simple matter, however, to verify other statements made by Harkness. He was now living at 2313 Wesson Street, and was employed by a large wholesale grocery firm. His employer spoke highly of him, but knew nothing of his personal affairs. He might or might not be married. The employer had been under the impression that he wasa bachelor, but could not recall that Harkness ever had said so. This confusion was partly explained at the Wesson Street boarding-house, for Harkness had recently told the landlady that he expected his wife to join him soon. He explained that she had been visiting relatives during the six months he had been at this house, but that they were planning to take a small flat. They had previously had a flat, the address of which he gave, and the agent for the building remembered that Elmer Harkness had been among his tenants for two years. He knew very little about them, except that Harkness had paid his rent promptly and had been a model tenant.
“And there you are!” grumbled Murray. “He’s all right, and I wouldn’t hesitate a minute, except for this other Harkness who hailed from the same place, lived in Wabash Avenue, and was refused insurance. Who was he? How can there be two Elmers from a town that produced only one?”
“Possibly it is the same Elmer,” suggested the doctor. “Possibly he was refused owing to some temporary trouble that deceived the first physician. Possibly he did live at the Wabash Avenue place, but thought his chance of getting insurance would be better if he denied that he ever had been refused, and, having once told that story, he has had to stick to it.Of course, he had no means of knowing our facilities for getting information.”
“I don’t see,” returned Murray, “that our facilities have succeeded in doing more than confuse us in this case. However, I’ll submit the whole matter to the home office.”
After taking some time for consideration, the home office decided that there was no reason for refusing the risk.
“If you are sure this man is physically all right,” was the reply received, “and that he is the man he represents himself to be, there would seem to be no reason for refusing the risk. There may have been some attempt at fraud, with which he had nothing to do, in the other case, and none in this. In any event, if the man who applied to you is a good risk physically, and a man of good reputation, as your report indicates, we are willing to give him the policy.”
In these circumstances there was no reason for refusal. Harkness was a man of good reputation. Because of the other apparently mythical Harkness, he had been investigated more thoroughly than was usually deemed necessary, and his references had proved to be good. The inquiries had been made cautiously and circumspectly, to avoid giving offense, and the replies had been generally satisfactory. Nevertheless,Murray had another talk with him before delivering the policy.
Harkness told whom and when he married, and the truthfulness of this statement was capable of easy verification. His wife, he said, had been away for some time, but was now returning.
“We shall take a small flat again,” he explained. “I have already selected one in Englewood—on Sixty-fourth Street. A fellow can get more for his money out there than he can nearer the city.”
Then Harkness got his policy, and a little later he notified the company that he had moved to the Sixty-fourth Street flat. Murray puzzled his head a little over the mysterious Harkness, and once took the trouble to learn that the Harkness he had insured was still employed by the wholesale grocery firm. Then other matters claimed his attention, and the Harkness case was forgotten. There seemed to be no doubt that it was a good risk, even if there was a mystery back of it somewhere.
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, wasflawless. 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, whichcoincided 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.