Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/327

 victim to take out insurance in his favour. In suicide cases, the insured does so himself. Just after his return home, young Phelps, who carried fifty thousand dollars already, applied for and was granted one of the largest policies we have ever written—half a million."

"Was it incontestible without the suicide clause?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes," replied Andrews, "and suicide is the first and easiest theory. Why, you have no idea how common the crime of suicide for the sake of the life insurance is becoming. Nowadays, we insurance men almost believe that every one who contemplates ending his existence takes out a policy so as to make his life, which is useless to him, a benefit, at least, to some one—and a nightmare to the insurance detective."

"I know," I cut in, for I recalled having been rather interested in the Phelps case at the time, "but I thought the doctors said finally that death was due to heart failure."

"Doctor Forden who signed the papers said so," corrected Andrews. "Heart failure—what does that mean? As well say breath failure, or nerve failure. I'll tell you what kind of failure I think it was. It was money failure. Hard times and poor investments struck Phelps before he really knew how to handle his small fortune. It called him home and—pouf!—he is off—to leave to his family a cool half-million by his death. But did he do it himself or did some one else do it? That's the question."

"What is your theory," inquired Kennedy absently, "assuming there is no scandal hidden in the life of