"Oh," I said. That explained it. A law that had snuck through the World Finance Code Commission while the insurance lobby wasn't looking. "But you see the point," said Henderson. "This cash-return form arrived two weeks after the client's death." "You said there weren't any beneficiaries," I pointed out. "Of course. But the form was sent in by the man's partner, one Ab Karpin. McCann left a hand-written will bequeathing all his possessions to Karpin. Since, according to Karpin, this was done before McCann's death, the premium money cannot be considered part of the policy, but as part of McCann's cash-on-hand. And Karpin wants it." "It can't be that much, can it?" I asked. I was trying my best to point out to him that the company would spend more than it would save if it sent me all the way out to the asteroids, a prospect I could feel coming and one which I wasn't ready to cry hosannah over. "McCann died," Henderson said ponderously, "at the age of fifty-six. He had set his retirement age at sixty. He took out the policy at the age of thirty-four, with monthly payments of fifty credits. Figure it out for yourself." I did--in my head--and came up with a figure of thirteen thousand and two hundred credits. Seventy-five per cent of that would be nine thousand and nine hundred credits. Call it ten thousand credits even. I had to admit it. It was worth the trip. "I see," I said sadly. "Now," said Henderson, "the conditions--the circumstances--of McCann's death are somewhat suspicious. And so is the cash-return form itself." "There's a chance it's a forgery?" "One would think so," he said. "But our handwriting experts have worn themselves out with that form, comparing it with every other single scrap of McCann's writing they can find. And their conclusion is that not only is it genuinely McCann's handwriting, but it is McCann's handwriting at age fifty-six." "So McCann must have written it," I said. "Under duress, do you think?" "I have no idea," said Henderson complacently. "That's what you're supposed to find out. Oh, there's just one more thing." I did my best to make my ears perk. "I told you that McCann's death occurred under somewhat suspicious circumstances." "Yes," I agreed, "you did." "McCann and Karpin," he said, "have been partners--unincorporated, of course--for the last fifteen years. They had found small rare-metal deposits now and again, but they had never found that one big strike all the Belt prospectors waste their lives looking for. Not until the day before McCann died." "Ah hah," I said. "_Then_ they found the big strike." "Exactly." "And McCann's death?" "Accidental." "Sure," I said. "What proof have we got?" "None. The body is lost in space. And law is few and far between that far out." "So all we've got is this guy Karpin's word for how McCann died, is that it?" "That's all we have. So far."