If you catch Cranze so clearly trying it on that the Courts give
a conviction, the Company will pay you L200."
"It's a lot of money."
"My Company will find it a lot cheaper than paying out L20,000, and
that's what Hamilton's insured for."
"Phew! I didn't know we were dealing with such big figures. Well, Mr.
Cranze has got his inducements to murder the man, anyway."
"I told you that from the first. Now, Captain, are you going to take my
check for that preliminary L20?"
"Hand it over," said Kettle. "I see no objections. And you may as well
give me a bit of a letter about the balance."
"I'll do both," said Lupton, and took out his stylograph, and called a
waiter to bring him hotel writing paper.
Now Captain Owen Kettle, once he had taken up this piece of employment,
entered into it with a kind of chastened joy. The Life Insurance
Company's agent had rather sneered at ship-captains as a class (so he
considered), and though the man did his best to be outwardly civil, it
was plain that he considered a mob of passengers the intellectual
superiors of any master mariner. So Kettle intended to prove himself the
"complete detective" out of sheer _esprit de corps_.
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