Murder Applied For. Lloyd Biggle, jr.

eyes a comically-bulging appearance. Webber felt sorry for him. He hoped that the agent hadn’t already spent his commission on Betty Parnet’s application.

      “We’d like some information,” Hendricks said. “Recently you sold some insurance to a Miss Betty Parnet. Do you remember her?”

      Jones relaxed visibly. He guffawed, and slapped his leg. “Remember her? I won’t forget her in a hurry. I don’t write a thirty-five thousand dollar case every day. In fact, that’s the biggest one in a couple of months.”

      “An investigator talked with Miss Parnet this morning,” Hendricks said. “She told him she hadn’t applied for any insurance.”

      That wiped away the grin. “Hadn’t applied—is this a gag?”

      Hendricks shook his head slowly. Jones turned appealingly to Webber, who also shook his head slowly.

      “The gal gave me an annual premium in advance,” Jones said. “One thousand, five hundred and fifty-seven dollars and eighty-five cents. I won’t forget that right away, either. You must have talked to the wrong person.”

      “Are you personally acquainted with her?” Hendricks asked.

      “Never saw her before in my life. Some of us insurance agents have coffee together at the Carter Restaurant every morning at ten-thirty. I got there early, last Saturday, and the others hadn’t come in yet. The waitress said to me, “How’s the insurance business?’ and I said, ‘Fine’ and then this gal came over to my table and said she wanted some insurance.”

      Webber glanced at Hendricks, and found him studying the polished brass trim around the fireplace.

      “What’s wrong with that?” Jones demanded. “There’s no law against selling insurance to strangers.”

      “There doesn’t have to be,” Webber told him, “as long as we investigators do our job. What did she look like?”

      “Blonde, average height, not bad looking.”

      Webber and Hendricks exchanged puzzled glances. It sounded like Betty Parnet.

      “She didn’t look particularly wealthy,” Jones went on. “I thought she probably wanted a thousand dollars or two at the most. She said she wanted a savings plan, so I told her what five thousand would cost—just to sound her out, you know. Darned if she didn’t ask me what thirty-five thousand would come to, and ten minutes later I had the application. Retirement plan at age sixty, with an annual premium.”

      “Was she carrying all that money around with her?” Hendricks asked.

      “No. We went over to the First National Bank. I waited while she drew out the money, and she paid me, and I gave her a receipt.”

      “What about the medical examination?” Webber asked.

      “The company requires two examinations for that much insurance, and they have to be on different days. I made an appointment for her for two o’clock Saturday, and another for nine o’clock Monday. Yesterday.”

      “Did she keep them?”

      “I don’t know. I suppose she did. Neither of the doctors has said anything. I offered to chauffeur her around, but she said she could manage all right by herself. Wait.”

      He bounded across the room to the telephone. It took him some time to locate both of his doctors, but he had recovered at least the front edge of his grin by the time he got back to his chair. “She kept them,” he said. “She saw both doctors. I guess you must have talked to the wrong person.”

      Webber looked at Hendricks. “He wrote the application Saturday morning, and the first examination was Saturday afternoon. Remember Frank’s notes? Betty Parnet wasn’t working today because she’d worked last Saturday.”

      Hendricks face was grim. “That slipped my mind. Thanks.”

      “Look,” Jones said. He got to his feet and stood with his hands on his hips. Anger colored his face. “No woman would pay that much money and take two examinations, and then say she’d never applied for any insurance. Women change their minds, sure, but I’ve never known one to forget a fifteen hundred dollar deposit. I’ll see this Betty Parnet tomorrow, and prove you’re wrong.”

      “You’ll see her tonight,” Hendricks said. “And so will your two doctors. And I hope you’ll be able to prove something.” He moved toward the telephone bench, and added, over his shoulder, “You’ll have to see her at Municipal Hospital. I want to know if you can identify the body.”

      Looking at the insurance agent’s stricken face, Webber pondered the mysteries of a police investigation. Hendricks attempted to hide his objective and spring it as a surprise—which was absurd, because the guilty party was forewarned anyway, and the innocent party not infrequently was able to perform simple arithmetic.

      Webber wondered that the police ever got any information at all. They treated all their informants as suspects, and perhaps they treated their suspects as informants—never having been one, he didn’t know.

      But it was certain that few policemen would make good insurance investigators.

      Jones meekly gave Hendricks the telephone numbers where the doctors could be located, and Hendricks sat down at the telephone bench, tried to get his long legs arranged, and finally stood up to dial. He did not treat the doctors as suspects. He gave them a terse, professional statement of his problem, and then he called headquarters and arranged to have a stenographer at the hospital.

      “There may be two Betty Parnets involved in this,” he said, as he hung up. “We’re not going to make much progress until we know which one was killed.”

      Jones got his grin adjusted while Hendricks was telephoning, and he began to cast glances of wistful speculation in Webber’s direction.

      “Been with National Credit long?” he asked, as they started for the door.

      “Not long,” Webber said.

      “Are you married?”

      “Not to my recollection.”

      At any moment Webber expected to hear him break out with that fatal line, “Mr. Webber, at what age do you plan to retire?” But the problem of transportation intervened. Jones insisted on driving himself, so that no one would have to be imposed upon to take him home.

      “He’s worried about the impression on the neighbors,” Webber said, as he climbed into Hendricks’s car.

      “How’s that?”

      “He’s afraid you might send him home in a patrol car, with siren screaming and a couple of uniformed officers as duo-chauffeurs. Speaking of home, would you drop me off at mine?”

      “Sure. But I thought you’d want to find out what happens, for that report on Betty Parnet.”

      “You can telephone me, can’t you?”

      “Yes—”

      “Do that,” Webber said. “I’ll be home. And awake.

      Will, insurance policies, relatives, the funeral—he’d have to pick out an undertaker—and Gloria. Someone would have to tell Gloria.

      Already the night seemed endlessly long, and he felt exhausted. And it was only the beginning.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Mrs. Cyrus Mahoney was an overly-plump, motherly individual who had been worried about Webber from the day he and Frank Milford rented an apartment from her. She thought he worked too hard, and too-long hours, and that his lack of height was somehow the result of an inadequate diet. At every opportunity she contrived to feed him something.

      She had been equally fond of Frank, and there was stark tragedy in her face when she hurried forward to meet Webber. “There’s been a gentleman to see you,” she said. “He came back twice, so I let him wait.” She jerked her head toward her living room door.