dropped his interest in Manning's health with alacrity.

"Well," he said, "during the past year we've been taking quite a beating on joint life policies. There have been seventy-two thousand, one hundred and ten cases of husbands and wives taking out joint policies and then of one of the couple dying within a matter of days."

"The dangers of matrimony," Manning said. "All of the policies sold by the same man?"

"The same two. Sam Warren and Jaba Woo, an Algolian. They've been working together for some time and both have excellent records. I'd hate to think they were involved."

"Any other suspects?"

"A couple," J. Barnaby said. "All of the cases have taken place within a radius of two lightyears of Canopus. Warren and Woo have their headquarters on Canopus One. Unfortunately, the similarity between all these cases did not come to our attention until about a month ago. We've done some preliminary checking. In each case, the official records show that the deceased husband or wife died from natural or accidental causes, but in no case was there an autopsy. And in each case, there was a quick funeral, all handled by the same undertaker."

Manning looked his question.

"A Canopusian outfit," said J. Barnaby, "called the Happy Asteroid Mortuary. It's run by someone named Encycla Grave. He's probably an Algolian."

"Asteroid mortuary?"

"Yeah," J. Barnaby grunted. "He specializes in fancy funerals. Each one of the insured was buried on a small asteroid which was then power-driven into space. That's why we haven't been able to get an autopsy on a single one of them. Incidentally, in each case, the cost of the funeral was exactly one-half the amount of the insurance policy."

"Clever," Manning said. "Is that all you've got on him?"

"Not quite. We've had one bit of luck. Last week the patrol was over near Betelgeuse searching for smugglers. They stopped to investigate a stray asteroid. It was one of the asteroid-crypts. When they saw what was on it, they threw a magnetic-plate on it and brought it in. I got the report yesterday. A Mrs. Henry Orbson, Terran, was buried on it. She died about six months ago while she and her husband were spending their vacation on Canopus. A week before she died, she and her husband had taken out joint policies. Her husband collected two hundred thousand credits from us. The death 

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