“Sir,” said Randolph Mason, interrupting, “you are overlooking the important matter in your disclosure. What was this insurance scheme?”
“Oh. yes,” said the coal operator, “I was coming to that. It was our plan to secure heavy insurance on the life of Hirst, making his wife the beneficiary, and later have him disappear under circumstances indicating suicide.”
“That plan,” said Mason, drawing down the heavy muscles of his mouth, “is ancient, and infantile, and trite; worthy of blunderers—children and blunderers.”
Gilmore looked at the lawyer for a moment critically, then he continued. “I presume the scheme is not new, but I rather think Hirst's plan for carrying it into effect was somewhat novel and unusually practical. At the time Hirst proposed this scheme he was unmarried, and, as a cold business proposition, he said that I should select some woman—any woman agreeable to me, whom I should like as a wife, then he would marry her, insure his life for her benefit, make his exit, and afterwards I should marry the woman and send half of the insurance money to him in Spain or Italy, where he had determined to take up his permanent residence.
“He urged that it would be best to keep the woman totally ignorant of our plan, so that if anything should go wrong, she could not be implicated in a conspiracy, and, therefore, could not be prevented from obtaining the insurance as, she being the sole beneficiary and no fraud on her part being possible, any suspected or even assured fraud on my part would not void the policy payable to her, provided he, Hirst, could not be found within seven years.
“Hence, two considerations were necessary in selecting the woman. First, she must be so situated as to reduce suspicion of her to the minimum. And, second, she must be one whom I could marry as Hirst's widow and thereby obtain the money. This part of the plan was allotted to me to complete. You will now see with what a remarkable man I was associated, and how little regard he entertained for the customs of human society.
“In leaguing myself with this man's fortune I blundered fatally. My nature was entirely different. I could not shut out the natural emotions. I could not crowd out the human in me. I was no calculating machine like this man Hirst, and in carrying out my portion of the venture I made a frightful mistake.
“I am not now going into the details of that mistake. It will be sufficient for the purposes of this interview to say that the woman whom Hirst finally married was a good woman, the daughter of a venerable churchman residing in one of the suburban towns of Philadelphia,—such a good woman that no sooner had the ceremony taken place than I began to regret having associated her with such a cold-blooded villain as Brown Hirst, and as the days ran by, that regret grew into a very passion of remorse.”
The man paused for a moment, raised his elbows up on the arms of his chair and locked his fingers.
“I guess it was a sort of Providential judgment,” he continued, “if such things are supposed to be in this practical time. I avoided the woman as far as possible, and strove to conceal my terrible regret, but it was quite useless. Hirst knew almost before I realized the feeling myself, and harshly bade me remember that this was business, and no matter of maudlin sentiment. He had no feeling whatever for the woman, and if I could wait for a little time the plan would very shortly give her to me. He warned me against what he was pleased to call 'nonsense,' and I must admit that the powerful personality of this man forced me into a sort of stolid subjection to his will. But the feeling for the woman remained, and I hated Hirst.”