"Not all, of course, or at least not always, by any means, for the Guardian is only one of many companies, and only a small part, a fraction of one per cent, of the country's business comes to us. But we learn a great deal; much of it along rather surprising lines. I learned yesterday, for example, that the scandal which has been suspected to exist between the fair but probably frail Mazie Dupont and her manager is undoubtedly a matter of fact." "How could you find that out?" Helen was amazed to find herself asking. The actress was a celebrity, to be sure, yet Miss Maitland, in her own self-analysis, should hardly have evinced curiosity regarding the details of her private life. "Ownership of pretty country house up the Hudson transferred from his name to hers. Endorsement on our policy," replied Smith. "Of course that's not proof, but its pretty good presumptive evidence. We get similar cases every day. Here's a millionaire gets caught the wrong side of the stock market and needs money. We know it because his hundred thousand dollar Franz Hals goes to the art dealer's to be sold, or some big mercantile building that he owns is mortgaged to the Universal Savings Bank. Endorsement for our daily report. So they go." "Well, I shall be afraid to have our furniture insured ever again after this," said the girl, with a laugh. "Insure it with the Guardian, and I myself will see that your family skeletons are kept safely out of sight in the closets where they belong." "That's very nice of you." "I'm afraid, though, that your insurance wouldn't be very interesting, as regards sensation," the underwriter went on. "But there are lots of people the investigation of whose insurance affairs is in the field of a first-class detective agency. There are people, as you may or may not know, who make their living by having fires. These fires are fraudulent, of course, but fraud is very hard to prove. We can never secure a witness, for no one applies a match to his shop while any one is looking on; and with only circumstantial evidence and an individual pitted against a rich corporation, the jury generally gives the firebug the benefit of the doubt. Most of these people put in a claim for goods supposed to have been totally burned but which in reality they never possessed or which have been secretly removed just before the fire. Usually they have a fraudulent set of books, too, to back up their claim; and we have to keep a close watch all the time for birds of that feather." "But how can you?" "Oh, we have a pretty complete fire record compiled from loss experiences sent by every company to the publisher. All companies subscribe to this record. If a man has several suspicious-looking fires, nobody will insure him. If he gets such a bad fire reputation in one town that he can't get insurance there, he moves somewhere else, but the record keeps track of him, and finally he has to turn honest--or change his name."