“Some time later, Miles Mackenzie appeared in this town of Elmwood. With him was his young wife and a stout servant woman.
“This Mackenzie was such a living image of the awfully afflicted Jason Templin that the latter’s daughter, a few weeks ago, caught sight of Mackenzie’s white beard and hair, and mistook him for her father, whose remains she had believed were lying in a vault at San Francisco.
“When Miss Templin saw the disguised Mackenzie, he had just paid a premium on a one-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.
“Her mistake led to an investigation.
“The fact turned up that Mackenzie had five one-hundred-thousand-dollar policies.
“A little further investigation showed that in two years he had paid, in premiums, over sixty thousand dollars.
“There was not enough left of the seventy-five thousand dollars to pay another year’s premiums, and still the unfortunate, helpless Templin, hidden away by the man who was masquerading as his able-bodied double, didn’t die, and give them a chance to collect the insurance.
“So a crisis in their plans approached, and the murder, which they had hoped to avoid, seemed to be inevitable.
“Meanwhile, Mackenzie had singled out a physician in high standing at Elmwood, as his chosen friend and confidant.
“He succeeded in winning this doctor’s friendship, and by correctly describing the symptoms, so well known to him as a doctor, of a deadly disease, prepared the deceived friend for the news of his sudden death.