“I shall take this matter to court!” declared Hinse.
“Do!” advised Murray. “Take it anywhere, so long as you take it out of this office.”
“You shall hear from me again!” said Hinse at the door.
“I’d rather hear from you than see you,” retorted Murray. “You annoy me.”
Nevertheless, when Hinse had departed, Murray had the matter looked up, and found that such a policy actually had been issued, that it was non-forfeitable after three years, and that about four hundred dollars was due on it as a result of the premiums that had been paid. Murray was eminently a just man—he wished to take unfair advantage of no one. There might be merit in the claim advanced, and some woman, entitled to the money, might be in great want. Still, it was not his business to seek for ways of disbursing the company’s funds. He reported the matter to the home office, and was advised to give it no further attention unless suit actually was brought. Then it should be fought. Insurance companies do not like lawsuits, but they like still less to pay out money when there is doubt as to the justice of a claim. When one of them goes into court, however, it fights bitterly. Hinse knew this, and he had not the slightest intention of bringing suit.
If Mrs. Moffat had had any more money, so that there would have been a chance to exact further fees, he might have sued for the mere sake of getting the fees, but she could not even advance court costs. So Murray waited in vain for the threatened suit, but the possibility of it kept the case in his mind. The claim probably was fraudulent, but, if not, the woman unquestionably was poor and unfortunate: the very fact that she had taken the case to such a shyster as Hinse was proof of that. Somehow, the well-to-do people do not get into the hands of shysters. Murray believed it was a fraud, but he always came back to the possibility of being mistaken in this. And injustice—the injustice of passivity as well as of activity—was abhorrent to him.
The day Murray ran across a newspaper item to the effect that a Mrs. Thomas Moffat had been evicted for the non-payment of rent, he disobeyed the instructions from the home office and looked her up. In theory it was all right to wait for a beneficiary to bring in the necessary proofs; in practice it was horrible to think of taking advantage of the ignorance or helplessness of a woman in trouble.
Murray found Mrs. Moffat and her two children in a little back room near the somewhat larger apartment from which she had just been evicted. She was trying to sew and care for the children at the same time. It was evident, however, that she had long since overtaxed her strength and was near the point of physical collapse.
“The neighbors has been good to me,” she explained, “but they got their own troubles an’ they can’t do much.”
Murray had primed himself with such facts as to Thomas Moffat as the books of the company and the old insurance application gave, and, after explaining his errand, he asked when and where Thomas Moffat was born. The weary woman, too long inured to disappointment to be really hopeful now, brought out a little old Bible and showed him the entries relating to birth and marriage. They corresponded with the dates he had. Murray took up the little Bible reverently, and he then and there decided that this woman was the widow of the Thomas Moffat who had been insured in his company. Even her maiden name, as given in the Bible, corresponded with the name he had taken from the books. Nevertheless, he questioned her closely on all the other details that he could verify. She gave the address at which they were living when the policy was taken out, and also told of the various changes of residence during the time that the premiums were being paid.