The Red Widow

"[...] At first glance Bernard Boyne, as he stood there in his shirt-sleeves, was an excellent type of the steady, reliable insurance agent, with no soul above "proposals" and "premiums." They constituted his sole aim in life, now that his "dear wife" was dead. Nobody suspected the man who so piously passed round the bag in St. George the Martyr on Sundays to be a man of mystery. Nobody, indeed, would ever have dreamed that the active man in question would be placing cheques to his account of such value as seven thousand odd pounds. "I wonder how long I shall remain here?" he whispered to himself. "I wonder what all these good people would say if they but knew-eh? If they knew! But, happily, they don't know!" He chuckled to himself. He was silent for a moment as he crossed to rearrange the dusty old[...]."