waited uncomfortably, watching his watch. A minute went by—two minutes. Suddenly there was a voice, old and tired. Immeasurably tired.
“Hello?”
“Maude Milford?” the operator asked.
“Yes.”
“Go ahead.”
Webber said “Hello.”
“Hello. Is this Frank?”
“I’m a friend of Frank’s, Mrs. Milford. I’m sorry I have to tell you this. Frank has been killed in an automobile accident.”
“Oh,” she said dully. “Oh dear.”
The receiver fell with a crash. Confusion welled up around the telephone, and the man’s voice returned. “Couldn’t you have told me? Did you have to call at this damned hour?”
“Sorry,” Webber said. “I had to notify somebody, and her name was the only one I found in Frank’s stuff.”
“I see. What was it you wanted?”
“Arrangements have to be made. I can look after them myself, but if Frank has any relatives who would prefer to do it—”
He left the sentence unfinished.
“I see. Frank didn’t have any relatives except our family—none that I know about, anyway. Mother took care of him after his own mother died. That was in Carter City. We haven’t seen him for years, but I guess he and mother wrote now and then.”
“Then you have no objection to my looking after things?”
“Gosh, no. Mother is an invalid. She couldn’t come down there, and she wouldn’t be any help if she did. I doubt if my wife or I could get away.”
“Are there any other relatives who should be notified?”
“My sisters, maybe. Both of them are in California.”
“Should I call them? Or send them telegrams?”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll let them know.”
“All right.” Webber said. “I’ll take care of things. The funeral will probably be the end of the week. I’ll send you a telegram as soon as I know.”
“That shouldn’t be necessary. But—all right. We probably won’t be able to get away. And say, did Frank have insurance, or enough money to handle things?”
“I don’t think there’ll be any problem there.”
“Well, good. Fine. Thanks for letting us know.”
“Please convey my sympathy to your mother,” Webber said dryly.
He hung up. Across the room, the angel was leering fiendishly.
Webber thought for a moment, dialed Police Headquarters, where genial Sergeant Pete Adams was on the desk. “Pete,” Webber said, “I need some fatherly advice.”
“So? Haven’t you got a father?”
“I have to look after the funeral arrangements for Frank Milford, and I lack experience. Can you recommend an undertaker in the medium low-price field? I want the thing respectable, but I don’t want someone who specializes in platinum caskets.”
“Mmm—know just what you mean. Clark Brothers, I think. They’re out on Lake Street. Just a moment—I’ll get the address.”
“I can look it up. Thanks loads, Pete.”
“Any old time. You got something you want buried just call me.”
Webber called Clark Brothers, and got a grumpy response that brightened wonderfully with the awareness that a customer was on the telephone.
“Tonight,” Webber said. “Right now. Immediately.” He didn’t want Frank Milford left in the sterile indifference of that hospital room a minute longer than necessary.
“Certainly, sir,” Clark Brothers said easily. “We’ll be at the hospital in twenty minutes.”
Webber hung up, and thumbed his nose at the angel. He took the copies of Milford’s reports to his own desk, and glanced through them.
Except for the Parnet case, they were all for small life insurance applications—several for ten thousand, the rest for less. Routine stuff. Webber shook his head in admiration as he looked them over. Milford had gone after every one of them as if a quarter of a million was at stake, and what an investigator he was! Good natured and friendly, with a sly sense of humor, he loved people and he loved talking to people. By the time he finished with a hostile housewife she was telling him things she wouldn’t tell her own husband.
It came through in every line of his scribbled notes. This woman had a nervous breakdown five years ago. This man has a heart condition. Sees his doctor on the sly, and hasn’t told his family. X runs a roofing repair business in his spare time-–broke his leg in a fall two years ago. Y spends her leisure hours at home with a bottle. Little things that would loom large under the careful scrutiny of a life insurance underwriter.
And fortunately not common things. The overwhelming majority of life insurance applicants, Webber knew, were readily insurable and had nothing to hide. Among the minority, some were completely honest, and some held out on the general premise that what the insurance company didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it. The company knew perfectly well that what it didn’t know could hurt it badly. So there were investigations.
He looked carefully at every line for a misplaced clue, for anything that would tie in with the Parnet case, but there was nothing. Finally he pulled his typewriter toward him, and started typing.
The telephone rang. “Ron.” a voice said. “I want to see you.”
Bells, and singing, and a hint of perfume vibrating in every word.
“Gloria!” he exclaimed. “Have you—heard?”
“I heard. Ruth called. She heard it on the radio. I want to see you. Now.”
“Where?” Webber asked.
“Here.”
“No,” Webber said firmly.
“Perhaps you’re right, perhaps—do you know the Crow Bar?”
“By its reputation—which isn’t good.”
“I’ll meet you there. In half an hour.”
“All right.”
* * * *
It was a dive. A juke box pounded out a rhythmic blare, a slatternly waitress with a soiled white apron gave Webber a sly wink, and at least two of the arguments along the long bar threatened to end in violence. The hefty bartender was keeping an eye on both, but he managed to give Webber a long stare.
She
