"Known what?"
"No need to get sore, Huff. But you've got to admit it looked funny."
"It didn't look funny at all. It happens every day. Now if they had tried to insure him, without him knowing, that would have looked funny."
"That's right. Leave Huff out of it."
"All I'm saying, Keyes, is that—"
"Huffs record shows that if there had been anything funny, he'd have noted it and we'd have known it. You better find out something about your own agents."
"All right, skip it. He takes out this policy in absolute secrecy. Why? Because he knew that if his family knew what he had done, they would know what he was up to. They knew what was on his mind, we can depend on that, and when we go into his books and his history, we'll find out what the trouble was. All right, next point, he fractured his leg, but didn't put a claim in. Why? That looks funny, don't it, that a man had an accident policy, and didn't put a claim in for a broken leg? Because he knew he was going to do this, and he was afraid if he put a claim in the family would find out about this policy and block him off."
"How?"
"If they called us up, we'd cancel on him wouldn't we? You bet we would. We'd return his unused premium so fast you couldn't see our dust, and he knew it. Oh no, he wasn't taking a chance on our doctor going out there to look at his leg and tipping things off. That's a big point."
"Go on."
"All right, he figures an excuse to take a train. He takes his wife with him to the station, he gets on the train, he gets rid of her. She goes. He's ready to do it. But he runs into trouble. There's a guy out there, on the observation platform, and for this he don't want any company. You bet he doesn't. So what does he do? He gets rid of him, by putting some kind of a story about not having his ticket, and leaving it in his briefcase, and as soon as this guy goes, he takes his dive. That was the guy I just talked to, a man by the name of Jackson that went up to Frisco on a business trip and is coming back tomorrow. He says there's no question about it, he had the feeling even when he offered to get Nirdlinger's briefcase for him that he was trying to get rid of him, but he didn't quite have the heart to say no to a cripple. In my mind, that clinches it. It's a clear case of suicide. You can't take any other view of it."
"So what?"
"Our next step is the inquest. We can't appear there, of course, because if a jury finds out a dead man is insured they'll murder us. We can send an investigator or two, perhaps, to sit in there, but nothing more than that. But Jackson says he'll be glad to appear and tell what he knows, and there's a chance, just a chance, but still a chance, that we may get a suicide verdict anyway. If we do, we're in. If we don't, then we've got to consider what we do. However, one thing at a time. The inquest first, and you can't tell what the police may find out; we may win right in the first round."
Keyes mopped his head some more. He was so fat he really suffered in the heat. He lit a cigarette. He drooped down and looked away from Norton like it was some schoolboy and he didn't want to show his disgust. Then he spoke. "It was not suicide."
"What are you talking about. It's a clear case."
"It was not suicide."
He opened his bookcase and began throwing thick books on the table. "Mr. Norton, here's what the actuaries have to say about suicide. You study them, you might find out something about the insurance business."
"I was raised in the insurance business, Keyes."
"You were raised in private schools, Groton, and Harvard. While you were learning how to pull bow oars there, I was studying these tables. Take a look at them. Here's suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by locality, by seasons of the year, by time of day when committed. Here's suicide by method of accomplishment. Here's method of accomplishment subdivided by poisons, by firearms, by gas, by drowning, by leaps. Here's suicide by poisons subdivided by sex, by race, by age, by time of day. Here's suicide by poisons subdivided by cyanide, by mercury, by strychnine, by thirty-eight other poisons, sixteen of them no longer procurable at prescription pharmacies. And here—here, Mr. Norton—are leaps subdivided by leaps from high places, under wheels of moving trains, under wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from steamboats. But there's not one case here out of all these millions of cases of a leap from the rear end of a moving train. That's just one way they don't do it."
"They could."
"Could they? That train, at the point where the body was found, moves at a maximum of fifteen miles an hour. Could any man jump off it there with any real expectation of killing himself?"
"He might dive off. This man had a broken neck."
"Don't trifle with me. He wasn't an acrobat."
"Then what are you trying to tell me? That it was on the up-and-up?"
"Listen, Mr. Norton. When a man takes out an insurance policy, an insurance policy that's worth $50,000 if he's killed in a railroad accident, and then three months later he is killed in a railroad accident, it's not on the up-and-up. It can't be. If the train got wrecked it might be, but even then it would be a mighty suspicious coincidence. A mighty suspicious coincidence. No, it's not on the up-and-up. But it's not suicide."
"Then what do you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
"...Murder?"
"I mean murder."
"Well wait a minute, Keyes, wait a minute. Wait till I catch up with you. What have you got to go on?"
"Nothing."
"You must have something."
"I said nothing. Whoever did this did a perfect job. There's nothing to go on. Just the same, it's murder."
"Do you suspect anybody?"
"The beneficiary of such a policy, so far as I am concerned, is automatically under suspicion."
"You mean the wife?"
"I mean the wife."
"She wasn't even on the train."
"Then somebody else was."
"Have you any idea who?"
"None at all."
"And this is all you have to go on?"
"I told you, I have nothing to go on. Nothing but those tables and my own hunch, instinct, and experience. It's a slick job, but it's no accident, and it's no suicide."
"Then what are we going to do?"
"I don't know. Give me a minute to think."
He took a half hour to think. Norton and I, we sat there and smoked. After a while, Keyes began to bump the desk with the palm of his hand. He knew what he meant, you could see that.
"Mr. Norton."
"Yes, Keyes."
"There's only one thing for you to do. It's against practice, and in some other case I'd oppose it. But not in this. There's a couple of things about this that make me think that practice is one of the things they're going to count on, and take advantage of. Practice in a case like this is to wait, and make them come to you, isn't it? I advise against that. I advise jumping in there at once, tonight if possible, and if not tonight, then certainly on the day of that inquest, and filing a complaint against that woman. I advise filing an information of suspected murder against her, and smashing at her as hard and as quick as we can. I advise that we demand her arrest, and her detention too, for the full forty-eight hours incommunicado that the law allows in a case of this kind. I advise sweating her with everything the police have got. I particularly advise separating her from this accomplice, whoever he is, or she is, so we get the full value of surprise, and prevent their conferring on future plans. Do that, and mark my words you're going to find out things that'll amaze you."
"But—on what?"
"On nothing."
"But Keyes, we can't do a thing like that. Suppose we don't find out anything. Suppose we sweat her and get nothing. Suppose it is on the up-and-up. Look where that puts us. Holy smoke, she could murder us in a civil suit, and a jury would give her every nickel she asks for. I'm not sure they couldn't get us for criminal libel. And then look at the other side of it. We've got an advertising budget of $100,000 a year. We describe ourselves as the friend of the widow and orphan. We spend all that
for goodwill, and then what? We lay ourselves open to the charge that we'd accuse a woman of murder even, rather than pay a just claim."
"It's not a just claim."
"It will be, unless we prove different."
"All right. What you say is true. I told you it's against practice. But let me tell you this, Mr. Norton, and tell you right now: Whoever pulled this was no punk. He, or she, or maybe the both of them, or the three of them or however many it took—knew what they were doing. They're not going to be caught just by your sitting around hoping for clues. They thought of clues. There aren't any. The only way you're going to catch them is to move against them. I don't care if it's a battle or a murder case, or whatever it is, surprise is a weapon that can work. I don't say it will work. But I say it can work. And I say nothing else is going to work."
"But Keyes, we can't do things like that."
"Why not?"
"Keyes, we've been over that a million times, every insurance company has been over it a million times. We have our practice, and you can't beat it. These things are a matter for the police. We can help the police, if we've got something to help with. If we discover information, we can turn it over to them. If we have our suspicions, we can communicate them to them. We can take any lawful, legitimate step—but as for this—"
He stopped. Keyes waited, and he didn't finish.
"What's unlawful about this, Mr. Norton?"
"Nothing. It's lawful enough—but it's wrong. It puts us out in the open. It leaves us with no defenses—in case we miss on it. I never heard of a thing like that. It's—tactically wrong, that's what I'm trying to say."
"But strategically right."
"We've got our strategy. We've got our ancient strategy, and you can't beat it. Listen, it can be suicide. We can affirm our belief that it's suicide, at the proper time, and we're safe. The burden of proof is on her. That's what I'm trying to say. Believe me, on a keg of dynamite like this, I don't want to get myself in the position where the burden of proof is on us."
"You're not going to move against her?"
"Not yet, Keyes, not yet. Maybe later, I don't know. But so long as we can do the conservative, safe thing, I don't get mixed up with the other kind."
"Your father—"
"Would have done the same thing. I'm thinking of him."
"He would not. Old Man Norton could take a chance."
"Well I'm not my father!"
"It's your responsibility."
I didn't go to the inquest, Norton didn't, and Keyes didn't. No insurance company can afford to let a jury know, whether it's a coroner's jury or any other kind of jury, that a dead man is insured. It just gets murdered if that comes out. Two investigators were sent over, guys that look like everybody else and sit with the newspaper men. We got what happened from them. They all identified the body and told their story, Phyllis, the two conductors, the red-cap, the porter, a couple of passengers, the police, and especially this guy Jackson, that pounded it in that I tried to get rid of him. The jury brought in a verdict "that the said Herbert S. Nirdlinger came to his death by a broken neck received in a fall from a railroad train at or about ten o'clock on the night of June 3 in a manner unknown to this jury." It took Norton by surprise. He really hoped for a suicide verdict. It didn't me. The most important person at the inquest never said a word, and I had beat it into Phyllis' head long before that he had to be there, because I had figured on this suicide stuff, and we had to be ready for it. That was the minister that she asked to come with her, to confer with the undertaker on arrangements for the funeral. Once a coroner's jury sees that it's a question of burial in consecrated ground, the guy could take poison, cut his throat, and jump off the end of a dock, and they would still give a verdict, "in a manner unknown to this jury."
After the investigators told their story, we sat around again, Norton, Keyes, and myself, in Norton's office this time. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. Keyes was sore. Norton was disappointed, but still trying to make it look like he had done the right thing. "Well, Keyes, we're no worse off."
"You're no better off."
"Anyway, we haven't done anything foolish."
"What now?"
"Now? I follow practice. I wait her out. I deny liability, on the ground that accident is not proved, and I make her sue. When she sues, then we'll see what we see."
"You're sunk."
"I know I'm sunk, but that's what I'm going to do."
"What do you mean you know you're sunk?"
"Well, I've been talking to the police about this. I told them we suspect murder. They said they did too, at first, but they've given up that idea. They've gone into it. They've got their books too, Keyes. They know how people commit murder, and how they don't. They say they never heard of a case where murder was committed, or even attempted, by pushing a man off the rear end of a slow-moving train. They say the same thing about it you say. How could a murderer, assuming there was one, be sure the man would die? Suppose he only got hurt? Then where would they be? No, they assure me it's on the up-and-up. It's just one of those freak things, that's all."
"Did they cover everybody that was on that train? Did they find out whether there was a single one of them that was acquainted with his wife? Holy smoke, Mr. Norton, don't tell me they gave up without going into that part. I tell you, there was somebody else on that train!"
"They did better than that. They covered the observation car steward. He took a seat right by the door, to mark up his slips for the beginning of the trip, and he's certain nobody was out there with Nirdlinger, because if anybody had passed him he would have had to move. He remembers Jackson going out there, about ten minutes before the train pulled out. He remembers the cripple going by. He remembers Jackson coming back. He remembers Jackson going out there again with the briefcase, and Jackson coming back, the second time. Jackson didn't report the disappearance right away. He just figured Nirdlinger went in a washroom or something, and as a matter of fact it wasn't till midnight, when he wanted to go to bed and he still had the briefcase that he supposed had Nirdlinger's ticket in it, that he said anything to the conductor about it. Five minutes after that, at Santa Barbara, was where the Los Angeles yard-master caught the conductor with a wire and he impounded Nirdlinger's baggage and began taking names. There was nobody out there. This guy fell off, that's all. We're sunk. It's on the up-and-up."
"If it's on the up-and-up, why don't you pay her?"
"Well, wait a minute. That's what I think. That's what the police think. But there's still considerable evidence of suicide—"
"Not a scrap."
"Enough, Keyes, that I owe it to my stockholders to throw the thing into court, and let a jury decide. I may be wrong. The police may be wrong. Before that suit comes to trial, we may be able to turn up plenty. That's all I'm going to do. Let a jury decide, and if it decides we're liable, then I pay her, and do it cheerfully. But I can't just make her a present of the money."
"That's what you'll be doing, if you allege suicide."
"We'll see."
"Yeah, we'll see."
***
I walked back with Keyes to his office. He snapped on the lights.
"He'll see. I've handled too many cases, Huff. When you've handled a million of them, you know, and you don't even know how you know. This is murder ...So they covered the porter, did they. Nobody went out there. How do they know somebody didn't swing aboard from the outside? How do they know—"
He stopped, looked at me, and then he began to curse and rave like a maniac. "Didn't I tell him? Didn't I tell him to drive at her right from the start? Didn't I tell him to have her put under arrest, without waiting for this inquest? Didn't I tell him—"
"What do you mean, Keyes?" My heart was pounding, plenty.
"He was never on the train!"
He was yelling now, and pounding the desk. "He was never on the train at all! Somebody took his crutches and went on the train for him! Of course that guy had to get rid of Jackson! He couldn't
be seen alive beyond the point where that body was to be put! And now we've got all those sworn identifications against us—"
"Those what?" I knew what he meant. Those identifications at the inquest were something I had figured on from the start, and that was why I took such care that nobody on that train got a good look at me. I figured the crutches, the foot, the glasses, the cigar, and imagination would be enough.
"At the inquest! How well did any of those witnesses see this man? Just a few seconds, in the dark, three or four days ago. Then the coroner lifts a sheet on a dead man, the widow says yes, that's him, and of course they all say the same thing. And now look at us! If Norton had thrown the gaff into her, all those identifications and everything else about it could have been challenged, the police would have waked up, and we might be somewhere. But now—! So he's going to let her sue! And just let him try, now, to break down those identifications. It'll be impossible. Any lawyer can crucify those witnesses if they change their story now. So that's being conservative! That's playing it safe! That's doing what -the old man would have done! Why, Huff, Old Man Norton would have had a confession out of that woman by now. He'd have had a plea of guilty out of her, and already on her way to do a life stretch in Folsom. And now look at us. Just look at us. The very crux of the thing is over already, and we've lost it. We've lost it...Let me tell you something. If that guy keeps on trying to run this company, the company's sunk. You can't take many body blows like this and last. Holy smoke. Fifty thousand bucks, and all from dumbness. Just sheer, willful stupidity!"
The lights began to look funny in front of my eyes. He started up again, checking over how Nirdlinger got knocked off. He said this guy, whoever he was, had left his car at Burbank, and dropped off the train there. He said she met him there, and they drove down in separate cars, with the corpse in one of them, to the place where they put the body on the track. He figured it up that she would have time to get to Burbank, and then get back in time to buy a pint of ice cream at the drugstore at 10:20, when she showed up there. He even had that. He was all wrong on how it was done, but he was so near right it made my lips turn numb just to listen to him.