“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, 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.