To answer frankly and correctly those questions had been an ordeal. Those queries were so cleverly arranged that if, after death, the replies to any of them are found to be false the company would be able to resist the claim upon it. To give a true and faithful account of your parents' ailments and your own illnesses is difficult enough, but to give an equally true account of those of another person is extremely difficult and presents many pitfalls. And none knew that better than Ena Pollen.
After lunch, she rested for an hour, as was her habit in summer, and then she took a taxi to Pont Street, where she had tea with Lilla Braybourne.
To her she related her adventures among the medicos, adding:
"All is serene! There's nothing the matter with Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn! She's in excellent health and may live to be ninety. Hers is a first-class life!"
"Bernie predicted it," said the wife of the humble insurance agent of Hammersmith. "You were passed fit in the Fitzgerald affair—you recollect."
"Yes," snapped the handsome woman. "What a pity the sum wasn't five thousand instead of five hundred."
"I agree. But we didn't then realise how easy was the game. Now we know—a few preliminary inquiries, a plausible tongue—which, thanks to Heaven, you've got, Ena—a few smart dresses, and a knowledge of all the devious ways of insurance and assignments—and the thing is easy."
"Well, as far as we've gone in this matter all goes well—thanks to Bernie's previous inquiries regarding the good lady of Carsphairn."
"She's a bit of a skinflint, I believe. Can't keep servants. She has a factor who is a very close Scot, and things at Carsphairn are usually in a perturbed condition," Lilla said. "Bernie has gone back to Bridge Place. What an awful life the poor dear leads! Fancy having to live with that deaf old woman Felmore!"
"Yes. But isn't it part of the game? By living in Hammersmith, and being such a hard-working, respectable man, he acquires a lot of very useful knowledge."