There was a long pause. He could hear her cutting the meat on her plate.
'Why? Ask me another! I thought he had money. I thought I was escaping from the things girls like me want to escape from. Okay ... I made a mistake. Now I'd like to be a widow.'
Anson leaned forward. He felt the need of the flickering flames. His body had suddenly turned cold.
He heard her push back her chair, then she came and sat near him.
'You're interested in me, aren't you?' she said. 'Why?'
'Why?' Anson gripped his glass so tightly his knuckles turned white. 'Because I think you are the most exciting woman I have ever met.'
She laughed.
'I haven't had anything said to me like that since I was stupid enough to get married.'
'Well, there it is. I'm saying it.'
'Come to that if we are going to hand out compliments, I think you're pretty nice yourself.'
Anson drew on a long, slow breath.
'The moment I set eyes on you I thought you were wonderful,' he said. 'I've had you on my mind every hour since we first met.'
'These things happen, don't they?' She reached for a cigarette, lit it and blew the smoke towards the fire.
'Two people meet: there is a sudden chemical explosion and bingo ... !' She turned her head slowly and looked directly at him, her cobalt blue eyes inviting. 'Don't let's waste time, John. Time is always running out on me. You want to love me, don't you?'
Anson set down his glass.
'Yes,' he said huskily.
She flicked her cigarette into the fire.
'Then love me,' she said.
A log dropped onto the red hot bed of ashes and flared up, lighting the room for a brief moment. Meg moved away from Anson and getting down on her knees, she put more logs on the fire and stirred the fire into a blaze.
'Like a drink?' she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.
'No ... come back here,' Anson said.
She didn't move. Poker in hand, she continued to stir the fire, making lively shadows on the ceiling.
'Look at the time,' she said. 'It's after nine. Can you stay the night?'
'Yes.'
She lit a cigarette, then squatting before the fire, the light from the flickering logs on her face, she went on, 'Tell me about this idea of yours ... this idea for a story.'
Anson stared up at the moving shadows on the ceiling. He was relaxed and happy. Their love making had been violent, exciting and satisfying. The ghosts of every girl he had made love with slid through his mind: that's all they were now: faded, dull ghosts.
'John ... tell me about your idea,' Meg said.
'Yes, all right, I will have a drink.'
She made two drinks, gave him a glass and then sat on the floor again before the fire. 'Tell me ...'
'I don't know anything about story telling, but I think this more or less is how it goes,' Anson said, staring at the ceiling. 'An insurance salesman needs money badly. One day he calls on a woman who has made an inquiry about a fire coverage. He falls in love with her and she with him. She is unhappily married. He persuades the husband to take out a life policy. Between the two - the salesman and the wife - they concoct a plan to get rid of the husband. Because the salesman knows how to handle the set-up, they get away with it. It is in the working out of the details that the story is interesting,' He took a long; drink and set down his glass. 'Like the idea?'
She reached for the poker and again stirred the fire into a blaze.
'It's not very original is it?' she said doubtfully. 'When we first met you said it was very difficult to swindle an insurance company and yet you say these two get away with it.'
'It's not only difficult, but dangerous, but the insurance salesman knows how to handle it. If he wasn't in the racket himself, it would be more than dangerous.'
'And isn't it contrived?' She put down the poker and turned to look at him. 'I mean the reader would have to accept the fact that the husband would be willing to take out an insurance policy. But why should he? What I mean is, suppose it was Phil that was the husband. I know for certain he would never insure his life. He is against taking out an insurance policy.'
'That depends of course on how the story is set up,' Anson said. 'But okay, just for the sake of discussing this, suppose the man was your husband, you were the unhappily married woman and I was the salesman.'
There was a short silence, then without looking at him, Meg said, 'Well ... all right ... let's just suppose ...'
'I am certain that I could sell your husband an insurance policy,' Anson said. 'It's the way I'd approach him that would hook him ... I'm sure I could do it.'
'How would you approach him?'
'Knowing he needs capital,' Anson said, 'I wouldn't try to sell him a policy as a life insurance. I'd sell him the policy as security to get a loan from the bank. Banks accept life policies as securities for a loan, and as he is so keen to set up on his own, I would have him half sold already.' Meg shifted to a more comfortable position. 'You're clever,' she said. 'I hadn't ¦ thought of that.' 'That's only the start of it,' Anson said. 'I know I wouldn't be able to sell him anything larger than a five thousand dollar coverage. That's not much good, is it? It's all right for him: he could raise a three thousand dollar loan on that coverage, but if he died suddenly, it wouldn't be much use to you, would it?'
She shook her head, staring into the fire.
'It wouldn't be much use to me either, but fifty thousand dollars would be ... wouldn't it?' She looked at him. 'Yes, but...'
'The trick in this is I could insure him for fifty thousand and he would imagine he was insured only for five thousand.'
Again there was a long pause, then Meg said, 'It's beginning to be interesting. Just suppose Phil did take out an insurance coverage for fifty thousand dollars ... then what happens?'
Here was the danger spot of the plan, Anson thought. He would now have to move very carefully. Maybe he was rushing this too fast.
'Don't let's keep this story on such a personal basis,' he| said. 'I was using your husband because it makes it more believable. Let's now imagine, shall we, we have a man - any man - insured for fifty thousand dollars although he doesn't know it... his wife and an insurance salesman who are in love with each other ... okay?' 'Yes ... of course.'
'These two are in love and they need money. If the husband dies, the wife will get fifty thousand dollars, which she will share with her lover, but it isn't going to be that easy because the husband shows no signs of dying. So these two begin to think about how to get rid of him. The wife mustn't have anything to do with the ... the getting rid of the husband.
That would be completely fatal. His death must appear to be an accident without the wife being involved in any way.'
'You've really thought about this, haven't you, John?' she said, looking at him, her cobalt eyes intent. 'Go on... so what happens?' 'Suppose the husband is keen on gardening. Suppose he has a miniature pond,' Anson said, his voice a little husky. 'One Saturday afternoon, the wife goes down to the shops, leaving her husband working in the garden. He falls off a ladder and hits his head on the side of the pond ... his face goes into the water and when the wife returns, she finds him drowned. Of course, what really happened is the insurance salesman has knocked the husband over the head and drowned him in the pond.'
Neither of them looked at each other. Anson felt rather than saw Meg suppress a shudder. She said, 'But what about this man you were talking about... Maddox? The man in charge of the Claims department?'
Anson took another drink. He had nothing to worry about now, he told himself. She was ready to co-operate with him.
