But Lola reveals makes known Phyllis’ complicity in a series of grisly murders and that Phyllis also reveals that she is secretly dating Lola’s former boyfriend Nino Sachetti. Like Frank Chambers, who pursued Madge, Huff moves on to a new lust object – Phyllis’ stepdaughter Lola. But after the two commit the perfect murder, a faked suicide, they are estranged, because Huff’s employers – led by Keyes, the claims chief – shadow Phyllis’ every move. Huff explains his plan to collect on the double indemnity feature offered in case of death on a railroad journey. She asks questions that make him suspicious, but her intentions complement his desire to dupe his employers, and he joins her in a plot to murder her husband. Walter Huff meets Phyllis Nirdlinger just as Ruth Snyder met her beaux, when he comes to her door selling insurance. This time Cain stayed even closer to the Snyder-Gray trial, making his protagonist an insurance salesman. Part reworking of Postman, part recollection of his youth selling insurance, the novel Double Indemnity (1941) portrayed a corporate/legal control of life that amounted to “double jeopardy” and appealed to Depression readers’ sense of helplessness. Cain (right) had written an eight-part serial, “Double Indemnity,” for Liberty magazine in 1936.
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