The Best Policy Part 11

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," returned Lake magnanimously. "I'll sell you all or any part of it for fifty thousand dollars."

"On the basis of fifty thousand for your entire holdings?" asked the colonel.

"No; at the set price of fifty thousand for whatever you take."

"Too much," said the colonel.

"As you please," said Lake carelessly. "The price of the control of the Bington road goes up one thousand dollars a day. It's dirt cheap at fifty thousand now, but, of course, if you don't need it, Colonel, the bargain price doesn't interest you."

The colonel did need it; in fact, the company, in its sublime confidence, had put itself in a position where failure to get it meant a considerable loss.

"On second thought," remarked Lake, "I'll have to add a thousand to compensate me for the indignity of being called a half-baked financier.

Do you remember that, Colonel?"

"We'll take it," said the colonel resignedly. Then he added reflectively: "You've made a pretty good thing out of this, Lake."

"Fair, fair," replied Lake. "After I've repaid the twenty thousand five hundred that I borrowed, I'll have thirty thousand five hundred left, not to mention an insurance policy for twenty thousand in favor of my wife, with the first premium paid. You ought to study the insurance question, Colonel. There are wonderful financial possibilities in it, and some day, perhaps, you will wake up to the fact that insurance beat you in this deal."

AN INCIDENTAL FAVOR

On the same day two women called to see Dave Murray in regard to the same matter, and that was the beginning of the trouble.

The first was Mrs. Albert Vincent. The obituary columns of the morning papers had given a few lines to the death of Albert Vincent, but Murray had not expected to hear from his widow so promptly, and she was a little too businesslike to meet his idea as to the proprieties of the occasion. In fact, there was no indication of either outward mourning or inward grief.

"Perhaps you will recall," she said, without the slightest trace of emotion, "that I wrote to you some time ago to ask if the premiums on my husband's insurance had been fully paid."

"I recall it," replied Murray.

"And you answered that they had been paid."

"I recall that also," said Murray.

"Well, he died last night," explained the widow, "and I would like to know when I can get the insurance money."

Murray looked at her in amazement. He had had to deal with many people whom necessity made importunate, but never before had he met such cold-bloodedness as this woman displayed in tone and manner. Apparently, it was no more to her than a business investment, upon which she was now about to realize.

"There are certain formalities necessary," he said, "but there will be little delay after proper proof of death has been filed. You will, of course, have the attending physician-"

"I don't know who he is," interrupted the woman.

"You don't know who he is!" repeated Murray in astonishment.

"No. But I will find out and see him at once. It is important that there shall be as little delay as possible."

Previous experiences made Murray quick at jumping to conclusions in such cases, and he now thought he had the explanation of this unusually prompt call. The woman was stylishly dressed, but that was no proof that she had the ready cash essential at such a time.

"I think I understand," said Murray delicately. "You can not meet the expenses incident to-"

"I have nothing to do with any expenses," the woman again interrupted coldly. "_She_ looked after him in life, and she can look after him now."

"She!" exclaimed Murray. "Who?"

"The nurse," replied the woman scornfully. "But she can't have the insurance-not a cent of it. And that's what she has been after."

"Let me understand this," said Murray thoughtfully. "You and your husband have not been living together?"

"Not for five years."

"And this other woman?"

"She was an old flame, and she went to him when he became ill."

"Did he send for you?"

"No. He knew better than to do that. But the insurance is in my name, and I'm going to have it-all of it. That's my right, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied Murray slowly; "I'm sorry to say that is your absolute right." The supreme selfishness and heartlessness of the woman were revolting to Murray. "The policy names you as beneficiary, and when it is presented, with proof of death, the money will have to be paid to you."

"How am I to get the policy?" asked the woman. "He had it put away somewhere."

"That is a matter upon which I can not undertake to advise you," replied Murray.

"Anyhow," declared the woman defiantly, for Murray's words and expression showed his disapprobation, "I want to serve notice on you that not one cent of the money is to be paid to any one else. It would be just like that nurse to try to get it."

"You shall have every cent to which you are ent.i.tled," replied Murray with frigid courtesy, "but nothing is to be gained by further discussion."

"I suppose," exclaimed the woman with sharp resentfulness, "that your sympathies are with that shameless nurse."

"I don't know," returned Murray quietly. "I'm not at all sure that your husband was not the one who was most ent.i.tled to sympathy."

It was unlike Murray to speak thus brutally, but the woman irritated him. Many were the examples of selfishness that had come to his notice, but this seemed to him a little worse than any of the others. That she had been living apart from her husband might be due to no fault of hers, but she impressed him as being a vain, vindictive, mercenary woman, with no thought above the rather gaudy clothes she wore-just the kind to demand everything and give nothing. Certainly her actions showed that she lacked all the finer sensibilities that one naturally a.s.sociates with true women. No matter what might lie back of it all, common decency should have prevented her from making such a display of her own small soul at such a time. At least, so Murray thought.

"She is the kind of woman who marries a man's bank account," he mused, "and considers the inability to supply her with all the money she wants as the first evidence of incompatibility of temper. Some women think they want a husband when they really only want an accommodating banker."

Murray was still musing in this strain when the second woman called.

Unlike the first, this woman gave some evidence of grief and mourning: her eyes showed that she had been weeping, and her attire, although not the regulation mourning, was as near to it as a scanty wardrobe would permit on short notice. But she was self-possessed, and spoke with patient resignation.

"Necessity," she explained, "has compelled me to come to see you at this time about Albert Vincent's life insurance policy."

"Oh!" exclaimed Murray thoughtlessly, "you are the nurse!"

"Yes," she replied quietly, after one startled look, "I am the nurse. I infer that Mrs. Vincent has been here."

"She has just left," said Murray.