“Not at all,” Wray said. “In fact, I’ve been rather anticipating you’d want to see it and have had Rosa dig it out of the safe.”
“Rosa the girl in the outer office?” Mason asked.
“Yes, Rosa Hendrix.”
“Been with you long?”
“Not very — four or five months. Very efficient and very attractive.”
Mason nodded and unfolded the legal-backed document which Wray handed him. After he had read it, he nodded and said, “That seems to be well drawn.”
“It is,” Wray assured him. “Counsel for the insurance company checked it over after our lawyer had drawn it.”
Mason said, “As I understand it, when you executed that agreement, you automatically froze the value of a one-half interest in this partnership as twenty thousand dollars. If the partnership assets were worth a great deal less that that, the surviving widow would, nevertheless, receive twenty thousand dollars. And if, on the other hand, the partnership assets should increase in value, the widow couldn’t possibly receive more than twenty thousand dollars.”
“We intended to take care of that by increasing the insurance in the event the partnership assets should show any sudden increase,” Wray explained.
“I see,” Mason observed. “Would you mind giving me an offhand estimate of the actual value of the partnership assets?”