The Non-Statistical Man Read online

  The woman’s face showed instant dismay. “Oh, dear— I hope there’s nothing wrong now. Your payment came through so quickly, and I was able to pay—”

  “No, no—there’s nothing wrong,” Mr. Bascomb said hastily. “Just a routine check we always make to determine if the policyholder has been entirely satisfied with our service.”

  “Oh, yesl It’s been more than satisfactory,” exclaimed Mrs. Davidson. “Your payment came through so promptly, and I don’t know what we would have done without it. John went so suddenly, you know. It seems like a miracle that we thought of taking out insurance on him just before it happened. He’d always been so violently opposed to insurance all his life, you know—never would consider it until just now, when it was so badly needed. We didn’t know it was going to be needed, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Bascomb. “Our medical examiner passed Mr. Davidson as being in good health at the time of application; otherwise, the policy could not have been issued.

  “We share your feelings of gratitude that you were fortunate enough to have the policy in force at the time of Mr. Davidson’s illness. And so you feel you are satisfied with the service our company has given you?”

  “Indeed I do!”

  “It seems strange there was no earlier indication of your husband’s condition. Hadn’t he ever noticed it before?”

  “Never. He was always so strong and healthy; that’s why he despised insurance salesmen so—said they always made him feel as if he were going to die next week.”

  “But he did finally change his mind. That is the thing I am most interested in, Mrs. Davidson. You see, we realize we have a service of positive value to offer people; but sometimes, as in the case of your husband, we simply have no means of making them understand it. So naturally, we are most interested to know what finally breaks down a great prejudice against us. You would be doing us a great favor if you could help us in presenting better appeals to other people.” V ,.

  “I see what you mean, but I don’t know how I could help you. It just seemed like the thing to do; both John and I felt that way about the same time. It just seemed to be the thing to do.”

  Mr. Bascomb felt a trifle numb for a moment. There seemed to be a coldness in the air he hadn’t noticed before. It was as if Sarah were there, standing in front of him.

  “You just felt like taking out some insurance?” he said faintly.

  Mrs. Davidson nodded. “I don’t suppose that’s much help, is it? But it’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. Surely you know how those things are, though? You get a hunch something ought to be done, without knowing why. That’s the way it was with us. I know it seems silly to most people, but I believe in hunches—don’t you, Mr. Bascomb?”

  Bascomb felt that he had to get away quickly. He nodded and picked up the briefcase from the grass where he’d dropped it. “Yes, I do.” he said, backing toward the street. “Hunches are invaluable—especially in matters of this kind!”

  He drove partway around the block, and stopped to consider. He was irritated with himself for his reaction to Mrs. Davidson’s talk. What had he expected? A profound selfanalysis as to just why she, as a customer of New England, had chosen that particular policy? Or, rather, why her husband had? _ .

  He’d probably get even more of the same kind; it’s what you had to take when dealing with individuals. That was why statistics had to be invented—because people were so unstable and irrational, taken one at a time.

  Bascomb wished that he could forget the whole thing right now. But he couldn’t; his encounter with Mrs. Davidson had only convinced him that there must be an absolutely sound statistical explanation for the run of short is policy claims. He started the car and drove to the next address on his list, three blocks away.

  Things were better here; the customer was a young physician who had just opened up a small, neighborhood clinic. He had made a liability claim when a patient stumbled on a hose lying across the walk.

  “I always feel it necessary to be protected this way,” he said amiably to Bascomb’s question. His name was Dr. Rufus Sherridan. “It’s the only sensible way to look at it.”

  “Absolutely,” agreed Bascomb; “it’s the thing we’ve been trying for years to drum into the heads of the public. Be protected. Juries act as if they’re crazy nowadays when they hand out somebody else’s money in a damage suit.”

  “As to my making a substantial claim within three weeks of paying my first premium—well, that’s why we have insurance companies, isn’t it?” said Dr. Sherridan, smiling. “I was never able to understand the figures and statistics of how you work these things out, but the idea is to spread the risk of such unfortunate coincidences, is it not?”

  “That’s it exactly,” said Mr. Bascomb. “Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Doctor.” He extended a hand. “I hope you will always find our service as satisfactory as it was this time.”

  “I’m sure I shall; thank you for calling,” said Dr. Sherridan.

  Bascomb had hoped to contact all twenty seven cases in Victorburg in one day; by five o’clock, however, he had reached only number eighteen. Most of them had been somewhere between Mrs. Davidson and Dr. Sherridan, and Bascomb was exhausted. He longed for his desk and his figures, the world where he knew what was going on.

  Number eighteen turned out to be the worst of all, a considerable number of notches below Mrs. Davidson. She was willing to talk for one thing; it took Bascomb almost twenty minutes to get to his critical question.

  “Why did we decide at this particular time to buy a policy with your company?” Her name was Mrs. Harpersvirg, and she had a habit of putting her arms akimbo and fixing him with narrowed eyes, head cocked sharply to one side.

  “We knew we were going to need it, Mr. Bascomb, That’s why we bought a policy. Oh, I know you’ll say a it person can’t know those things, and it’s true for most people. But once you learn how to realize what’s the right and proper action to take under any circumstance, it’s just like getting a breath of really fresh air for the first time in your life.”

  Bascomb leaned back on his heels as she edged toward him. “You have come to such an understanding, Mrs. Harpersvirg?” he asked tentatively.

  “You bet! And all I can say is, it’s wonderful! You don’t have to grovel around with your nose in the mud, wondering where you’re going and what’s going to happen next and what you ought to do about it. You can do something about it. Of course, I didn’t believe it when Dr. Magruder said it would be that way; but the way this insurance policy paid off convinced me once and for all. I’m glad you called, Mr. Bascomb. I’ve got to rush now. You can tell your company we’re very happy with their service!”

  She banged away and left Mr. Bascomb standing there struggling with his final question: who was Dr. Magruder?

  But it was obviously of no importance—probably he was some semi-quack family practitioner in the neighborhood. Bascomb turned and almost fled toward the sanctuary of his car; Mrs. Harpersvirg was the final straw in a day that would exhaust the best of men.

  And then, somewhere along the seventy-five mile drive back home, it hit Bascomb like a rabbit punch in a dark alley. The common factor.

  In statistics you look for the common factor in order to lump otherwise dissimilar items in a single category. And the common factor here was that each of the policyholders he’d interviewed claimed to have bought in with New England on the basis of a hunch—intuition. From Mrs. Harpersvirg on up to Dr. Sherridan—well, maybe the Doctor could be excepted, but certainly none of the others could.

  No high pressure sales talk had sold them; they weren’t attracted by more than cursory interest in the company’s fancy literature and advertising. They had bought simply because they’d felt it the thing to do; almost every one of them had used nearly those exact words.

  Intuition—a random factor that ordinarily made no impression on statistical analysis.

  These people were making it work!

  Bascomb slo
wed the car at the impact of the thought. He finally pulled off to the side of the road to check his interview notes. The damning words were repeated in every possible variation, but they were there:

  “We just figured it was time we ought to have some insurance.”

  “It’s hard to say—I guess we were just impressed to buy when we did."

  “I don’t know. I felt it was the thing we needed as soon as l heard your company was opening an office here.”

  Bascomb closed the book shakily, and resumed driving —slowly. It was tempting to jump to conclusions in a thing like this, but that was absolutely the thing you couldn’t do. There was really no basis for assigning a positive correlation between die short policy claims and the intuitive purchasing by the holders. That was the kind of thing on which a man could trip himself up badly; and he certainly wasn’t going to fall into the trap on this thing, Bascomb told himself. It was an interesting coincidence, but pure coincidence nonetheless—a sound, statistically understandable causation would be forthcoming in due time.

  With that comforting thought, Bascomb completed the remainder of the trip and reached home.

  Sarah was waiting anxiously, her supper schedule upset by the uncertainty of his time of arrival. She demanded at once: “Tell me all about it, Charles.”

  He’d thought he’d brush over it lightly in the telling. Somehow he didn’t feel like describing the exhausting details of the interviews with his wife. But within a couple of hours after supper she had it all—through proper questioning, which was one of the skills in which she excelled.

  Even down to Dr. Magruder.

  “You mean you went away without even asking who he was?” Sarah demanded.

  “It wasn’t important,” said Bascomb, irritated now by the cross-examination. “Besides, she’d already slammed the door in my face.”

  “You should have found out about him,” said Sarah thoughtfully looking across his left shoulder. “I feel there’s something important about him. Magruder— I’ve heard that name somewhere. Dr. Magruder—”

  She went for the paper on the other side of the living is room and came back, opening it in front of them. “There!” she said. “I thought I remembered.”

  Bascomb stared at the four inch, two column advertise* ment indicated by his wife’s Firehouse Red fingernail.

  “Are you a living vegetable—or are you living?” it asked. “If you are dissatisfied with life, let Dr. J. Coleman Magruder show you. the way to better health, vitality, and happiness. Half-alive is no better than dead. Hear Dr. Magruder Wednesday night at 8 p.m.—”

  “I guess that takes care of the importance of Dr. Magruder,” said Mr. Bascomb with a slight feeling of triumph.

  Sarah Bascomb looked thoughtfully at the advertisement for a long time, then slowly closed the paper. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “I’ll bet that if you go back to every one of those people you talked to today, you’ll find they have taken Dr. Magruder’s course.”

  “Nonsense!” Bascomb cried, more sharply than he intended. “That’s ridiculous! What grounds have you got for suggesting such a coincidence?”

  “It’s no coincidence, darling; I’m just sure that’s the way it is. What Mrs. Harpersvirg said proves it—”

  “It proves no such thing! Just because one flippety female said Magruder—what the devil did she say? I’ve forgotten now, but it doesn’t prove all these people fell for this quack’s line!”

  “Ask them,” said Sarah.

  He left Dr. Sherridan until last. After all the rest had confirmed Sarah’s hypothesis, Bascomb fought against the final prospect. It was absurd in the extreme even to suppose that Dr. Sherridan had attended quack Magruder’s lectures.

  But he had to know.

  Dr. Sherridan smiled amiably and waved his hand in disparagement of any significance attaching to his enrollment with Dr. Magruder. “It was mostly for laughs,” he said; “you know how those things go. You work hard all day without much relief from the constant pressure, and something comes up that tickles your funnybone. You go through with it just for kicks, and find you get a whale of a lift out of it; that’s the way it was with this Magruder thing.”

  “He’s a complete phoney, of course, a quack?”

  “Oh, naturally, but I went along with it all. I even took his pills after I had them analyzed and found out they were genuine vitamins with a harmless filler. Pretty low on vitamins, of course.”

  “He has pills?”

  “Yes. Several colors for different days of the week.”

  “How did you come to—ah, enroll with Magruder in the first place?”

  “I found my patients talking about him all the time. He came through here giving his lectures and enrolled most of the females over twenty-five—he’s got a good line, and a nice bedside manner—and one half the neurotic males. Big crowd. So I went down to the first one of his second series to see what went on. That’s how I got in; it was rather amusing, all told.”

  “I see. Well, I was just curious. Wife’s become interested, and I wondered if it might be something the police ought to know about. Thanks for your time.”

  “Not at all. You might try signing up yourself, if you feel in need of a laugh.”

  Before he went back to Landbridge, Bascomb made a check. He didn’t want to have Sarah suggesting it first. And he was right; Dr. Magruder had also been to Topworth and Burraston, and all of the four other cities showing insurance claims anomalies.

  He confessed this additional information as soon as he got in the house that evening, in order to forestall Sarah. He should have known better than to try.

  “Oh, I could have told you last night that I felt Magruder had been to all those towns; but I knew you’d say it was silly. Anyway, I’m glad you found out. I made reservations for both of us for his full course, starting tonight. We’ll have to hurry, if we’re to get through dinner and everything before we leave.”

  He tried to assess his feelings as he stood before the mirror later in their bedroom, trying to adjust his tie. Only two days ago, Hadley had shown him an innocent problem concerning claims anomalies. Tonight, as a direct result, he was signed up for a quack health and development course. A kind of fogginess seemed to develop in his mind when Bascomb tried to trace the intervening steps of this cause and effect relationship. It made no sense whatever.

  He wasn’t quite sure why he didn’t put his foot down— even now—and declare the whole thing ridiculous, as it actually was, and refuse to go. It felt almost as if he’d been drawn into a swiftly-moving current from which he didn’t have the stamina to withdraw. But that was ridiculous, too; there was nothing about the whole affair that wasn’t.

  Except the cold, unavoidable fact that people by the dozen had bought New England policies and made claims a month or two later.

  Charles Bascomb had a sense of cold foreboding as he looked at himself in the mirror now.

  3

  The doctor had rented the most plush assembly room in the town’s best hotel, and it was filled to the limits of the gray velvet drapes upon its walls. They wouldn’t have had a seat at all if Sarah hadn’t insisted they hurry.

  Charles Bascomb glanced about as he sat down, assessing the crowd who had turned out to hear Magruder. They were easily typed: Ninety percent of them were heavily loaded with psychosomatic ills that had already blossomed into heart trouble, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes in two thirds of them. This year they were here to listen to Magruder. Last year it had been Hongi, or something like that, from India; the year before, the sour cream and road tar molasses man; next year somebody else. Always the same crowd, minus the ones who died in between, augmented by the gullible newcomers—

  Bascomb felt sorry for them; he wished he could have taken them to his office and shown them his statistics. There was the record of what would happen to this group —and all the Magruders, Hongis, and sour cream men in creation couldn’t change it.

  Why was he here—when he had claims anomalies
to analyze!

  A solid round of applause indicated that the performance was about to begin. Somebody had stepped to the platform and was holding a hand up for attention. Bascomb thought this was Magruder, at first—but it turned out to be only the proprietor of the local health food store, who was sponsoring the course and was about to introduce his star.

  He took quite a while, but Magruder finally came onstage. This was a shock. Bascomb had been expecting a barrel-chested, big-biceped character of the kind usually photographed in high society surroundings, with his arms carelessly about the waists of a couple of movie star devotees.

  Instead, Dr. Magruder was a rather wizened, pinched-up little man of better than fifty. He peered myopically at his audience through broad lenses and began speaking in scratchy tones that grated on the ears.

  Bascomb sat up at attention. This was decidedly different from the show he’d expected. Something was definitely not right about Magruder; he just wasn’t the type of character to be putting on a show of this kind. Bascomb decided to listen.

  He would have been better off if he hadn’t, he decided at the end of an hour. With the aid of an incredible pseudo-biochemistry, and large charts that bore no resemblance to any structure in the human body, Dr. Magruder gave out the usual line. He spoke of “corporeal vibrations”, the “ethereal stream”, the “prescience aura”, and a dozen other coined phrases of nonsense. He spoke of the correlating affinities, which his little colored pills were guaranteed to organize within the body, and of the “Cosmic mono-regression” which his set of seventy-five special mental and physical exercises was sure to nullify.

  It was sheer gibberish, and the audience ate it up.

  Including Sarah.

  She beamed happily as she received their copies of the first six of the fabulous exercises and a week’s rainbow assortment of pills.

  “You aren’t going to take those things, I hope!” Bascomb whispered.

  “Of course I am; and so are you. Don’t you think it’s wonderful that the Doctor has discovered all these things about human beings, that people have been trying to find out for so long?”