The Poisoned Pen [13]
safe-cracking business, I'd make you the head of the firm." "And now," said Craig, "let us go back to New York and see if we can find Mrs. Branford." "Of course you understand," explained Blake as we were speeding back, "that most of these cases of fake robberies are among small people, many of them on the East Side among little jewellers or other tradesmen. Still, they are not limited to any one class. Indeed, it is easier to foil the insurance companies when you sit in the midst of finery and wealth, protected by a self-assuring halo of moral rectitude, than under less fortunate circumstances. Too often, I'm afraid, we have good-naturedly admitted the unsolved burglary and paid the insurance claim. That has got to stop. Here's a case where we considered the moral hazard a safe one, and we are mistaken. It's the last straw." Our interview with Mrs. Branford was about as awkward an undertaking as I have ever been concerned with. Imagine yourself forced to question a perfectly stunning woman, who was suspected of plotting so daring a deed and knew that you suspected her. Resentment was no name for her feelings. She scorned us, loathed us. It was only by what must have been the utmost exercise of her remarkable will-power that she restrained herself from calling the hotel porters and having us thrown out bodily. That would have put a bad face on it, so she tolerated our presence. Then, of course, the insurance company had reserved the right to examine everybody in the household, under oath if necessary, before passing on the claim. "This is an outrage," she exclaimed, her eyes flashing and her breast rising and falling with suppressed emotion, "an outrage. When my husband returns I intend to have him place the whole matter in the hands of the best attorney in the city. Not only will I have the full amount of the insurance, but I will have damages and costs and everything the law allows. Spying on my every movement in this way - it is an outrage! One would think we were in St. Petersburg instead of New York." "One moment, Mrs. Branford," put in Kennedy, as politely as he could. "Suppose - " "Suppose nothing," she cried angrily. "I shall explain nothing, say nothing. What if I do choose to close up that lonely big house in the suburbs and come to the city to live for a few days - is it anybody's business except mine?" "And your husband's?" added Kennedy, nettled at her treatment of him. She shot him a scornful glance. "I suppose Mr. Branford went out to Arizona for the express purpose of collecting insurance on my jewels," she added sarcastically with eyes that snapped fire. "I was about to say," remarked Kennedy as imperturbably as if he were an automaton, "that supposing some one took advantage of your absence to rob your safe, don't you think the wisest course would be to be perfectly frank about it?" "And give just one plausible reason why you wished so much to have it known that you were going to Palm Beach when in reality you were in New York?" pursued Maloney, while Kennedy frowned at his tactless attempt at a third degree. If she had resented Kennedy, she positively flew up in the air and commenced to aviate at Maloney's questioning. Tossing her head, she said icily: "I do not know that you have been appointed my guardian, sir. Let us consider this interview at an end. Good-night," and with that she swept out of the room, ignoring Maloney and bestowing one biting glance on Blake, who actually winced, so little relish did he have for this ticklish part of the proceedings. I think we all felt like schoolboys who had been detected robbing a melon-patch or in some other heinous offence, as we slowly filed down the hall to the elevator. A woman of Mrs. Branford's stamp so readily and successfully puts one in the wrong that I could easily comprehend why Blake wanted to call on Kennedy for help in what otherwise seemed a plain case. Blake and Maloney were some distance ahead of us, as Craig leaned over to me and whispered: "That Maloney is impossible. I'll have to shake him loose in some way. Either we