The Best Policy

“You shall have every cent to which you are entitled,” replied Murray with frigid courtesy, “but nothing is to be gained by further discussion.”

“I suppose,” exclaimed the woman with sharp resentfulness, “that your sympathies are with that shameless nurse.”

“I don’t know,” returned Murray quietly. “I’m not at all sure that your husband was not the one who was most entitled to sympathy.”

It was unlike Murray to speak thus brutally, but the woman irritated him. Many were the examples of selfishness that had come to his notice, but this seemed to him a little worse than any of the others. That she had been living apart from her husband might be due to no fault of hers, but she impressed him as being a vain, vindictive, mercenary woman, with no thought above the rather gaudy clothes she wore – just the kind to demand everything and give nothing. Certainly her actions showed that she lacked all the finer sensibilities that one naturally associates with true women. No matter what might lie back of it all, common decency should have prevented her from making such a display of her own small soul at such a time. At least, so Murray thought.

“She is the kind of woman who marries a man’s bank account,” he mused, “and considers the inability to supply her with all the money she wants as the first evidence of incompatibility of temper. Some women think they want a husband when they really only want an accommodating banker.”

Murray was still musing in this strain when the second woman called. Unlike the first, this woman gave some evidence of grief and mourning: her eyes showed that she had been weeping, and her attire, although not the regulation mourning, was as near to it as a scanty wardrobe would permit on short notice. But she was self-possessed, and spoke with patient resignation.

“Necessity,” she explained, “has compelled me to come to see you at this time about Albert Vincent’s life insurance policy.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Murray thoughtlessly, “you are the nurse!”

“Yes,” she replied quietly, after one startled look, “I am the nurse. I infer that Mrs. Vincent has been here.”

“She has just left,” said Murray.

“Her attentions,” said the nurse bitterly, “have been confined to an effort to get prompt news of her husband’s death.”

Murray knew instinctively that a little drama of life was opening before him, but his duty was clear.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “the policy is in her name.”

“In her name!” cried the nurse. “Why, he told me – ” Then she stopped short. She would not betray his perfidy, even if he had been false to her.

“What did he tell you?” asked Murray kindly.

“No matter,” answered the nurse. “I – I only wanted enough to defray the – the necessary expenses. That’s why I came. There isn’t a cent – not a cent. Even the little money I had has been used, and there are debts – But she’ll pay, of course.”

Murray was deeply distressed. Mrs. Albert Vincent was so bitter – possibly with justification, although he did not like to believe it – that she would do nothing; her feeling was simply one of deep resentment that even death could not allay. But he hesitated to say so.

“Let me understand this matter a little better,” he said at last. “I am sincerely anxious to be of any assistance possible, but the circumstances are unusual.”

The nurse fought a brief battle with herself in silence. To bare the details of the story was like uncovering her heart to the world, but she saw the sympathy in Murray’s eyes, and she was personally helpless in a most trying emergency. She sorely needed a guiding hand.

“Albert and I were engaged to be married,” she said at last, with simple frankness. “We had some trifling quarrel, and then this woman came between us. He was not rich, but he had some property and excellent prospects, and – well, they were married. It was an elopement – a matter of momentary pique, he told me afterward. God knows I never tried to interfere with their married life, and she had no reason to be jealous of me. I did not even see either of them, except at rare intervals, for a long time, but she could not forget or forgive the fact that we had been a great deal to each other. And she was selfish and extravagant. I am merely repeating the judgment of her own friends in this, for I do not wish to be unjust to her, even now. After I had forsaken society and become a trained nurse I heard something of their troubles: they were living beyond his income, and his income did not increase according to expectations. Perhaps the worry of such conditions made him less capable of improving his opportunities. At any rate, her extravagance created a great deal of comment, and he has told me since that they quarreled frequently over financial matters. Then I heard that they had separated and that he had given her nearly all of the little he had left. I was not trying to keep track of them or pry into their affairs, but there were mutual friends, and I could not help hearing what was common gossip. But I studiously avoided any chance of meeting either of them – until I heard that he was sick and alone. Then I went to him and cared for him. It was not proper, you will say? Perhaps not. It put me in a false position and invited scandal? Perhaps it did. But I went, and I would go again; I was there to soothe his last moments; I was with him when all others had forsaken him, and there is nothing in this life that I would not sacrifice for the glory of that memory!”

The light of self-sacrificing love shone in her eyes as she made this final declaration, and Murray did not trust himself to speak for a moment or two. The story had been told so quietly, so simply, that the sudden emphasis at the conclusion was almost irresistible in the sublimity of its self-denying love. The great contrast between the two women made it all the stronger.

“I shall consider it my personal privilege,” replied Murray, “to see that everything possible is done.”

“Thank you,” said the nurse.

“But there are still some points that will have to be cleared up,” continued Murray. “What made you think the policy was in your name?”

“He told me he would have it changed, so that I could pay all the bills in case of his death,” said the nurse.

“Possibly,” remarked Murray, “he thought he could, but to permit a change in the beneficiary without the consent of the original beneficiary would be a blow at the very structure of life insurance. It would put a true and devoted wife at the absolute mercy of an unscrupulous or thoughtless husband: he could change the policy without her knowledge; he could sell it for the cash-surrender value; he could transfer it to a loan-shark to meet his personal or business needs – in fact, it would be no more than so much stock that could be reached by any creditor, and the trusting wife might find herself penniless. In this particular case the inability to make such a change may work injustice, but the ability to make it would work far greater injustice in practically all other instances. Mr. Vincent may have thought he could do this, and it is the very exceptional case when I most heartily wish it had been possible, but he doubtless made inquiries and found that it was not. When the beneficiary can be deprived of her interest without her knowledge and consent the value of insurance will be gone.”

“Then that is what he learned,” she remarked, as if a question had been answered. “He was dreadfully worried before he became too ill to give much thought to business matters,” she added by way of explanation. “I thought it was because I was using my own little hoard to pay expenses, and, on the doctor’s advice, I went with him twice in a cab to see about some things that were worrying him, although even then he had no business to leave his bed. It was the lesser of two evils, the doctor said, for his mental distress was affecting his physical condition seriously. He said he never could rest until he had provided for those who had been good to him in adversity. But he didn’t mean me!” she exclaimed quickly. “He meant the doctor and some others who had been generous in the matter of credit. He knew why I – ” She paused a moment, and then added: “But he wanted the others paid, and there was no one else he could trust.”

“I quite understand,” said Murray encouragingly.

“He made me stay in the cab both times,” she went on, “and the second time – when he had me sign his wife’s name – he seemed – ”

“Had you sign his wife’s name!” exclaimed Murray. “To what?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “It was a formality, he said, to straighten out some tangle, so I did it. I would have done anything to ease his mind and get him back to bed.”

Murray gave a low whistle. He was beginning to understand the situation.

“Pardon me, Miss – ” he said.

“Miss Bronson – Amy Bronson,” she explained.

Murray had heard of Miss Bronson some years before. She had suddenly given up society to become a trained nurse, and there had been vague rumors of an unhappy love affair. Later, her father’s death had left her dependent upon her own resources, and society had commented on what a fortunate thing it was that she had already chosen an occupation and fitted herself for it. He never had known her, and only a bare suggestion of the story had come to his notice, but it was sufficient to make him more than ever her champion now.

“Miss Bronson,” he said, “I fear there are greater complications here than I had supposed. Did Mr. Vincent get any money on either of those trips?”

“Yes. On the second he told me that he closed up an old deal, and he was more contented after that. After the first he was so dreadfully disturbed, that I never dared ask him any questions.”

“Do you know where the insurance policy is?”

“No. I searched for it before coming here, but could find no trace of it.”

Murray was as considerate as the circumstances would permit, but he had become suddenly business-like. Aside from the question of sympathy, the matter was now one to interest him deeply. He had been groping blindly before, but with light came the possibility of action.

“You are alone?” he asked.

“Entirely so.”

“If you will go back,” said Murray, reaching for his desk telephone, “Mrs. Murray will be there as soon as a cab can carry her. I would go myself, but I think I can be of better service to you for the moment by remaining here.”

As soon as she had gone and he had telephoned to his wife, Murray made some inquiries of the clerks in the outer office and learned of a sick man who had asked about the possibility of changing the beneficiary of a policy. The visit had been made some time before, but the man was so evidently ill and in such deep distress that the circumstances had been impressed on the mind of the clerk who had answered his questions.

“That accounts for one trip,” mused Murray. “Now for the loan-shark that he saw on the other. We’ll hear from him pretty soon, and then there will be some lively times.”

Murray had had experience with the ways of loan-sharks before, and he was confident that he now had the whole story. Vincent was out of money and desperate; he knew that Miss Bronson had been using her own money, and that not one cent of it would his wife pay back; he had tried to have the beneficiary of the policy changed, and had failed. Then, determined to get something out of the policy, he had gone to a loan-shark. The unscrupulous money-lender, getting an exorbitant rate of interest, could afford to be less particular about the wife’s signature. He would run the risk of forgery, confident that the policy would be redeemed to prevent a scandal, no matter what happened. Indeed, in some cases a loan-shark would a little rather have a forgery than the genuine signature, for it gives him an additional hold on the interested parties and lessens the likelihood of a resort to law over the question of usurious interest.

“The scoundrel will come,” said Murray, and the scoundrel came by invitation. A formal notification that he held an assignment of the policy arrived first, and that gave his name and address and enabled Murray to telephone him. A loan-shark does not lose much time in matters of this sort. Neither did Murray in this case, for his invitation to call was prompt and imperative, even to setting the exact time for the call. And a message was sent to Mrs. Albert Vincent, also.

“What’s your interest in that policy?” asked Murray.

“A thousand dollars,” replied the money-lender.

“A thousand dollars!” ejaculated the startled Murray. “What the devil did he do with the money?”