Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-06-12
sLEUTHs IN INSURANCE LINE.

I "l was always interested Ill the l work of clever detectives, but I've 4 come to the conclusion that the only q real 'sleuth' nowadays is right in my I own line,' said a prominent New 1 York life insurance man to the Com mercial Advertiser. T Detectives! in the life insurance business?" was asked. ..H tE I Certainly. Gan you conceive of a RI business more likely to need detec- .t tives? There's hardly an insurance company in America that has not it's l own organized staff of rubber shoe men and not one of them fails to save from three to four times the cost .l of maintaining the men,"
 N ''They run down frauds, of course" jl was suggested. T Some of the most carefully planned I frauds ever matched by the brains of desperate men. Why, the cases un- gl earthed in violation of the suicide II clause alone would surprise you. As l most people know, nearly all life in | surance policies read that no payments I shall be made in case the insured com l mits suicide within year of the date l of the policy. Some desperate ones .l try to beat that provision for the sake Il of relatives left behind, and then the Il work of our detectives comes in. .I Mot long ago we had complicated .l case of this kind in Missouri. One of our old policy holders in that section I doubled the amount of insurance he had been carrying and shot himself T under circumstances intended to point to accident. One of the queer est imaginable detective jobs led to the solution of the mystery. From the suspicious fact that the man died shortly after increasing his insurance we were led into deeper investiga- l tion to satisfy ourselves fraud had not been attempted Upon examining the dead mans business affairs we found he had made investments that had gone wrong.
 Even his bank account had been depleted to a few hundred dollars. And there was our case half cleared. The dead man, who had retired from business with a fortune early in life, had not the means to swing himself to the top, and with poverty and a family of half-grown daughters star ing him in the face, about all he could do to provide for them was to insure himself heavily and blow his head off.
 Particulars as they were told to us seemed straight. The dead man had taken out his revolver to clean it. He was alone in his dining room at the time. The hour was late at night, and most of the family had retired. The report of the revolver brought the family to the scene and they found the assured shot through the head. By his side on table was a saucer filled with kerosene, several rags, damp with the oil, and smudgy with stale powder, and five cartridges I which he had drawn out of the re- l volyer as a seeming precaution The T weapon with the sixth cartridge fired was clasped in the hand of the dead man. Every incident, you will notice, was carefully planned and
 mapped out to make things appear accidental
 I "one of the first things we found upon closer investigation was that a mortgage on his estate would have
 met him within three days had not he killed himself
 I Under the circumstances, naturally, we declined payment until we had ill- yestigated further. There was no doubt that the family was perfectly sincere in thinking the death of the husband and father accidental. But our detectives frankly stated their sus- pfeions. When they asked to look through the dead mans papers so far as they might concern us, the permis- sion was readily given Then came a regular Sherlock Holmes surprise.
 Tt seems in earlier years the dead 1 oTsxv 3INs% .1
 written a number of short stories. The original manuscripts of these were found and among them the story of a proud bankrupt and the father of family who sacrificed his life. pre-
 cisely as our man had done-bv being shot accidentally while cleaning a revolver.
 "Only the eldest son of the family l was taken into the confidence of the detectives and he steered the women
 clear of reefs and so far as I know none ever learned the truth of the re-
 markable case which was unearthed
 by manuscript written all of 20 years ago.
 'In some instances our men run across cases that look like murder.
 The temptation to take human life. es- pecially when small fortune falls to a schemer by the death of an objection able man, ik something we must al- ways reckon with. I recall in partic-
 ular case which we paid up because we were unable to prove foul play,
 but which to me always had all the earmarks of a sly murder
 "A shoe dealer in Boston insured his wife's life for $1,O00 with our company and within six months served notice that she had been killed by accidental leakage of gas in her sleeping room. Apparently the man was honest and
 above board, and 1t was not until he disappeared suddenly from the city,
 after his wifes death that we suspect
 ed something was wrong.
 .'The man said he had bought for
 his wife a drop light shortly before she was killed, and that she was unac
 customed to handling the light, and therefore met the fatal accident It
 was the woman's habit to read in her