Title: The Last Straw
Author: Smith, William J.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Last Straw" ***


                         Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction September
    1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed.


                            THE LAST STRAW


                    Some hypotheses are rational--
                         if not logical--but,
                           by their nature,
                         aren't exactly open
                      to controlled experiment!


                         by WILLIAM J. SMITH


                   ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE SCHELLING

       *       *       *       *       *



"There's absolutely nothing we can pin it down to with any real
certainty," Kessler said. "No mechanical defects that we're sure of,
no sabotage we can put our finger on, no murder or suicide schemes,
nothing! We've put that plane back together so perfectly that it could
almost fly again! We've got dossiers an inch thick on practically
everybody who was aboard, crew and passengers. We've done six months'
work and we don't have one single positive answer. The newspapers were
yelling about the number of insurance policies issued for the flight
but none of them looks really phony."

He stood at the huge window of Senator Brogan's office, looking out at
the shimmering sunlight on one of Washington's green malls. Over the
treetops he could catch a glimpse of the Capitol dome.

Brogan sat comfortably in the big chair behind his desk. "But weren't
there an unusually large number of policies issued?" he asked. His big
hands toyed with a little silver airplane propeller, a souvenir of his
long-standing interest in the problems of commercial aviation. "You
know," he went on, leaning forward on his elbows and replacing the
propeller neatly on the base of his fountain pen stand, "this is a
matter of interest to me in more than an official sense. Eileen
Bennett was one of my wife's best friends. She was on her way to
Washington to visit us after a stopover in New York."

Kessler nodded. "I know that's one of the reasons you wanted to
compare notes." He stood with his back to the window now, a stocky man
with a jaw to match and short-cropped graying hair. "The newspapers
were quite right, of course. There were an unusually large number of
insurance policies issued for the flight but nearly all were for the
minimum amount."

"What about Pearlow?"

Kessler frowned. "Pearlow had reason to be nervous. You know he
survived a crash just three years ago. But anyway, the fact remains
that we've looked into the backgrounds of every one of those people.
None of them was facing any real financial difficulties!"

"That sounds odd in itself," George Brogan said, smiling slightly.

Kessler ran his hand over his hair and returned to sit in a leather chair
beside the senator's desk. He smiled in response. "I know it sounds odd
but it's true. Their troubles were all run-of-the-mill--getting taxes
paid, the mortgage, a new car, a long-overdue raise in salary--that sort
of thing. Nothing that anybody in his right mind would kill or commit
suicide over."

Brogan lifted a bushy eyebrow in question. "Maybe you've put your
finger on it there?"

Kessler ticked off his reply, holding up one hand. "One former mental
patient, pronounced cured ten years ago and apparently perfectly
normal; a well-established businessman; a used-car dealer; three
currently under psychoanalysis; a college girl twenty-one; a housewife
with four children; an injured veteran just out of service. None
showed any violent tendencies according to their doctors."

"Any criminals?"

Kessler regarded him wryly from beneath his eyebrows. "Don't kid me,
senator. I know you've done your own investigation on this. But to
answer your question: Evan Prewitt's your man--only one who could
qualify. Tried on a manslaughter charge for killing his brother-in-law
while they were out hunting. He said it was an accident and the jury
agreed. He was acquitted. True, he had one of the large insurance
policies, but then I'm sure you know Miss Bennett had one, too."

The senator nodded. "I knew that. But I know very little of Eileen's
financial situation otherwise. Not," he added hastily, "that I would
for a moment suspect Eileen Bennett of harming a fly. She's one person
I could rule out. It would be just like her to fall down the steps
getting off the plane, but as for her planning her own death or anyone
else's, that's out of the question. She was much too scatterbrained. I
hope that's not speaking ill of the dead."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kessler frowned. "You'll forgive me, senator, in that regard, if I
ask you a question? Miss Bennett didn't drink, did she?"

"Eileen? Heavens, no! Oh, she'd have a drink to be sociable, but it
was usually a sherry and half the time she wouldn't finish that. I
don't suppose you were envisaging the possibility that she highjacked
the plane from four officers and two stewardesses and then wrecked
it?" This time he smiled the broad toothy smile that made him a
favorite with Washington news photographers.

"Hardly. The thing is, I've gotten so I feel I knew every one of those
seventy-three people personally. You know, I've interviewed almost two
thousand friends and acquaintances of those people and I'm not quite
finished yet, just hoping I'll run across something that makes sense.
I could have told you Miss Bennett's habits with a glass of sherry,
that's why I was a little surprised."

Senator Brogan shook his head. "Oh, no, I didn't mean to suggest
anything like that. It's just that Eileen was ... well, clumsy is an
unkind word ... unco-ordinated I guess, though she tried to make a
joke of it. She was always bumping into things, spilling her glass of
water and things like that, but not because she had been drinking too
much."

"As for drinking," Kessler said, "there were quite a few real guzzlers
on the plane. I don't mean that actor, who was notorious. He'd just
lost a part because of his drinking and he was sober for a change. But
it's amazing what you'll turn up about respectable people when you
start investigating."

"I'm very interested in that aspect, as you may know," Brogan said.
"We periodically get bills which would outlaw drinking aboard planes.
What are your ideas on that subject?"

"Well, I don't mind a drink aboard a plane myself. Helps me relax. But
I have seen some pretty unpleasant things develop during a flight when
you get a nasty drunk riled up."

"Did you find any suggestion of that?"

"Not really. The plane took off from Chicago just after lunch time and
a good many of the people who got on there had had a drink or two, but
there wasn't really enough time to make trouble. The plane had hardly
cleared the runway. All the passengers, except one, had their seat
belts fastened."

"Now there is something I didn't know! Who was this?"

"Preston, a lawyer from New Jersey. You know how tentative any
reconstruction of events must be under the circumstances, but we're
pretty sure of this, especially since there was no fire. Preston
apparently broke a fingernail trying to fasten his seat belt and one
of the stewardesses had brought him a little first-aid kit. He had
torn open a Band-Aid and was trying to fasten it around his finger.
Obviously this was just before the crash."

"But how do you know he did it with the seat belt?"

"Guesswork, except that it wasn't fastened and we think maybe it just
got overlooked after he hurt himself."

"Was he one of the drinkers?"

"No, not at all. Never touched it. In point of fact, nobody was really
drunk at the time of the take-off. The flight engineer however had had
two drinks at lunch."

Brogan raised his eyebrows. "You _were_ thorough. You're sure?"

Kessler nodded. "Brown was a problem drinker though it didn't seem to
interfere with his work. The two drinks are all he had that day so far
as we can determine. He showed up for lunch at a girl friend's
apartment with a black eye. Made some joke about walking into a door
and wouldn't tell her anything else about it. She gave him the drinks
at his request, and a big lunch, and put a little makeup on his eye
because he'd been pulled from a flight a few months before when he
showed up looking as though he'd been in a scrap."

"How did he really get the black eye?"

"There you've got me. Maybe he was telling his girl friend the truth.
He had an estranged wife, incidentally, but she hadn't seen him for
years. Good riddance, she said."

Senator Brogan picked up the propeller again and rolled it
reflectively between his palms. He looked intently at Kessler.
"Nothing seems really conclusive, does it? You know some of the wild
rumors that have been going around about this crash?" Kessler nodded
and started to speak. Brogan held up his hand. "Let me finish. You
know and I know--or at least we think we do--that there's nothing to
most of these rumors. And I'm not even talking about the wilder ones,
like the little people from outer space who are knocking our airplanes
down without leaving a trace. You get three or four of these
unexplainable accidents and somebody is sure to come up with a really
crackpot idea. The general public will not be convinced that this sort
of thing can happen with no discoverable reason. Usually we have no
way of reconstructing what happened before the accident. Just a couple
of unintelligible remarks on the radio, as there were here, and then
everyone is dead, the plane is totally demolished, and witnesses on
the ground come up with ten different hysterical accounts--if there
are any witnesses at all!"

"But this was a little different, after all, senator," Kessler
interjected.

Brogan held up his hand again. "Just let me have my say. You know we
folks down here in Washington always have a lot to say and we hate
being interrupted." He smiled briefly. "This sort of thing has been
going on in aviation history for the last fifty years--these
unexplained accidents--and there's nothing especially new about this
last one. You're shaking your head, but let me continue. One of the
reasons they are now getting so much attention is that with the big
jets the loss of life is apt to be pretty appalling when an accident
does happen, but the actual number of accidents per flight--as you
well know--is far fewer than it used to be and has been going down
steadily over the years."

Kessler, slumped deep in his chair, fingers arced together before him,
stared morosely but said nothing. "Secondly," Brogan went on, "it is
not true that these accidents are happening more to American planes
than foreign ones. Again it is chiefly that we are scheduling more and
more flights. On the law of averages we are doing very well. You know
how many crashes the foreign carriers have chalked up in the last
year. And just about the same proportion are these so-called
unexplainable crashes. It's not that they are unexplainable! It's
simply that we don't have the information that would explain them! The
very circumstances preclude that. Am I making any sense?"

Kessler nodded. "Yes, senator, I suppose you are, but it doesn't make
me any happier. I want to find out why and stop them."

"So do I, I assure you. But let me finish briefly. Among the other
wild rumors are suggestions that we are being sabotaged by foreign
agents or by their tools. Well now, I'd be the last one in the
world--you know my record--to deny the possibility of some folks doing
this if they thought they could get away with it. If I thought for one
moment--or if I thought that you thought for one moment--that there
was some international sabotage going on here, I'd say go on with your
investigation till you get the answer!"

Brogan flung himself back dramatically in his big chair, throwing out
his arms. "Meanwhile, what are you accomplishing? You've spent--and I
happen to know this for a fact--almost a million dollars on this
investigation. By your own account you have personally talked to two
thousand people about it! You have kept this accident in the public
eye and given it far greater importance than it deserves--through no
malicious fault of your own, to be sure! But what have you got?
Nothing. Exactly what I came up with. Nothing. Tell me, for example,
where you got with the political possibilities of this thing. I know
you didn't overlook it!"

Kessler smiled wearily. "Just about everything you say is true,
George. Only, you see, I would probably never have ended up running
this investigation if I were the sort of person that comes up with a
question mark for an answer. I said 'human error' in my report, but
that doesn't satisfy me. I want to know what human error. I don't
think anything happens without a reason. Somehow I feel that it's all
there, the answer, in those couple of million details we've pieced
together about the plane and the crew and the passengers and it's
staring me in the face if I could only see it."

"I agree with you." Brogan raised his hand again in his imperious
gesture then dropped it to the desk. "No. I asked to have my say. Now
you have yours." He sat patiently.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kessler grinned. "Thanks, senator. As for the political sabotage
possibilities, you've undoubtedly seen a copy of my confidential
report. Three of the passengers had definite subversive connections in
the past. I know, I'm not trying to make much of this. Their
associations all date back to the 1930s and one of them was just a
girl flirting with a Communist fellow student, but we didn't want to
overlook any possibilities. Pearlow, on the other hand, was Russian
born. He's the one who barely survived another airline crash three
years ago."

"Pearlow was perfectly loyal. Just an ironic coincidence, that's all.
I know the papers tried to make something out of it but I find it hard
to believe that you took it seriously. As for Stepowski, he testified
openly about his past here in Washington five years ago."

"I know. I even know that Stepowski's favorite television program was
'I Led Three Lives.' I tell you there's very little I don't know about
anybody who was aboard, with one possible exception."

Brogan was alert. "Who's this?"

"Oh, it's no great mystery, senator. Robert J. Spencer, of Keokuk,
Iowa. We know quite a bit about him, actually, but it's all third
hand. He was a retired court stenographer, seventy-three years old,
going to New York for his sister's funeral at the time of the crash.
He boarded the plane at Chicago. He took a train to Chicago because he
didn't like to fly, then he got sick there, apparently from some
mushrooms he picked at home and had for lunch before he left. He had
to lay over in Chicago for a day and then he got on the plane at the
last minute so he wouldn't miss the funeral."

"Sounds to me as though you knew everything about him."

"Funny thing, though," said Kessler, "I have yet to speak to a single
person who ever exchanged ten words with Robert J. Spencer. He lived
alone, a complete recluse. Neighbors never saw him. Probably his
sister would have been able to tell me something about him but she's
dead. Actually, while I'm here in Washington I'm going to stop by and
see an old acquaintance of his, a Miss Valeria Schmitt. They worked
together as court stenographers in Iowa City more than twenty-five
years ago. They were engaged but they never married. She moved here
during World War II and they never saw much of each other after that."
He shrugged. "I know it's a long shot, but I don't want to miss a
chance."

Senator Brogan shook his head, smiling. "I have to admire you,
Kessler. But may I express some little reservation? Do you really
think looking up an acquaintance of Mr. Spencer's from twenty-five
years ago is going to help materially in solving the mystery of a
plane crash that occurred just last February? Or that the taxpayers
could be very happy at this sort of expenditure of their money?"

Kessler flushed darkly and leaned forward in his chair, clasping his
hands. "Senator," he said, his voice cracking a little, "the taxpayers
are not spending a cent currently on this investigation. My staff has
been dismissed or returned to their regular duties. I went off the
payroll three weeks ago. My final report has been submitted. I'm doing
this at my own expense because I feel that I have to. I'm not
satisfied. There has to be an answer!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Brogan turned the emotion away from himself with professional skill.
"Bob, look," he said, addressing Kessler by his given name for the
first time during their interview, "I'm not criticizing you personally
for a second. And that's not why I asked you to stop by. I asked you
to come over and see me as a favor. You're not working for me and I
don't pretend to be in any position of authority as far as your
investigation goes. I asked you here because I'm deeply concerned
myself about these accidents and I wanted to know if you could
enlighten me in any way. May I say one personal thing though? Aren't
you getting emotionally involved in this?"

"Of course I'm emotionally involved!" Kessler burst out. "I'm sorry,
George." He passed his hand over his face and went on in a lower
voice. "It's just that I've been eating, breathing, sleeping, dreaming
this thing for the last six months. I feel as though I knew everyone
of those seventy-three people personally. The Patterson girl, who
looked as though she might be going to have a little good luck for a
change. I even know that the pilot nicked himself shaving that
morning. His friends called him Mike even though his name was Edward.
He had a fight with his wife the night before. She wanted to eat out
and he wanted to stay home. He was working with this crew for the
first time though they all knew each other very well."

"Really?" Brogan perked up. "I suppose I knew that. Is it possibly
significant?"

"Possibly, possibly. Everything is possibly significant but nothing
really adds up. The routines were all standard, the four men were all
vets. Aside from the pilot they had all worked together for years, off
and on."

"Still, couldn't wires have gotten crossed as a result of some
misunderstanding with a new pilot aboard?"

"Sure they could. What with the flight engineer being a souse and the
pilot new to the crew and the co-pilot just back after a two-month
layoff because of a ski accident. 'Human error,' that's what I said."

"Ski accident? I thought it was the stewardess that had the ski
accident? I'm not going to trip you up in your own bailiwick now, am
I?"

"Stewardess?" Kessler frowned. "You must be mistaken, senator."

"I felt quite sure," Brogan said musingly.

"I know your reputation for a fact, senator," Kessler said
uncomfortably, "but a stewardess with a ski accident. Oh! Oh, yes.
But not recent. That was Miss Sosnak, but it was almost a year before.
The newspaper accounts got garbled. Both she and the other stewardess,
Miss Prentiss, were ski enthusiasts. They were thinking about spending
the weekend at Stowe after they got to New York, even though they had
both broken ankles previously. Their friends in San Francisco were
joking with them about it before they left. They gave Miss Sosnak a
doll with a cast on its leg as a gag. The doll was found in the
wreckage. Apparently Miss Sosnak had given it to the little girl who
was killed on the flight, Barbara Patterson, who actually had a cast
on her leg at the time. She had fallen and hurt herself a few days
before."

       *       *       *       *       *

A buzzer on Senator Brogan's desk hummed two short discreet hums.
Brogan made no attempt to answer it. He stood and came around the
desk, putting his hand on Kessler's shoulder. "Don't get up just yet,"
he said. "My secretary buzzes me every fifteen minutes in case I want
to show my constituents how busy I am. If there's anyone waiting, let
them wait. There's just a little bit more I'd like to say." He sat in
the wide embrasure of the window and leaned forward on a crossed knee.
He looked the picture of negligence but he was obviously pausing to
choose his words with care. Kessler shifted his chair to face him.

"I won't mince words," Brogan said, "because I think we understand
each other. We always have. Thanks to your splendid investigation, and
my only little efforts perhaps, we know more about the circumstances
of this crash than any other in aviation history. I had exactly your
feeling that the answer ought to be there. But I don't see it and you
don't see it. We know absolutely everything but one thing. We don't
know what caused it. And we're never going to know that. I really
think you are doing the aviation industry, yes and the country itself,
a real injury by going on. I won't say what I think you're doing to
yourself because it will sound like a sentimental appeal and you've
known me too long not to know I'm pretty hard-headed."

"The investigation is over," Kessler said sullenly.

"Yes, I know, officially, but you've just told me you're going on with
it personally."

"It's one last remote chance."

"Well, tell me this, Bob, if this last remote chance doesn't work out,
will you call it quits and not start in on another last remote chance?
Will you and Margaret get on up to that place of yours in Maine and
take a good long vacation?"

Kessler smiled wryly. "Margaret has ideas of her own along that line.
She's followed through on this with me all the way but she came down
to Washington to meet me today and she says she's going to drag me off
when I'm through here."

Brogan smiled his famous smile. "Good girl, Margaret. If she's here
and has a leash on you, I know I don't have anything to worry about.
There's nothing I admire more than a woman who has a mind and uses it.
I'll tell you something else," he said, standing and permitting
Kessler to rise this time. "I was truly sorry about Eileen Bennett's
death on this plane, but Eileen was getting along like me. Sarah
Pollitt's was the really tragic case, to have accomplished so much so
young and with that fearful handicap! From childhood, too, wasn't it?"

[Illustration]

"Actually, she was about seventeen. Someone threw a firecracker in a
car in which she was riding, but she could see partially with one
eye."

Brogan nodded. "But a beautiful woman, for all that. And then to have
achieved so much. I understand nothing about chemistry but I know her
international repute. She had just become head of the chemistry
department at Wellesley, hadn't she?"

"Radcliffe."

Brogan laughed loudly. "I might have known I couldn't trip you up. But
tell me this," he added slyly, "did you know that Dr. Pollitt had once
been a good friend of Bergmann?"

"Our former Commie on the plane? Yes, as a matter of fact, we came
across that quite accidentally. You did a good job, senator."

"Well, you know we have some sources not generally accessible."

"Then you undoubtedly found out that though Sarah Pollitt and friend
Bergmann knew each other well at one time she dropped him like a hot
cake when he suggested she do a little undercover work for the
Commies. Their being on the same plane was the sheerest coincidence."

Brogan stood with his hand on the door with led to the corridor. He
nodded. "That was a little hard to take, wasn't it? We really thought
we had something there for a while." He sighed. "It's like the whole
thing, Bob, irrational and unexplainable. And believe me, I hope I
haven't sounded critical of the job you did. I hope we can call on you
whenever we need really expert advice?"

"Of course, senator, though I don't feel much like an expert on
anything right now."

"You did your best, Bob." He patted him on the shoulder in farewell.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kessler walked down a long marble corridor to a rotunda. His wife
waved to him from across a staircase. She looked pert and cool and
girlish in her ice-blue suit and perky hat. "Here, darling! Oh, you
look so discouraged! Did George give you a hard time? He can be a
brute when he wants to."

"Not really. He thinks I ought to call it quits."

"And don't you think so, dear?" she asked, taking his arm as they
started down the stairs.

"Who me?" He grinned with sudden boyishness. "You know me. Never say
die! If I thought we ought to give it up would I be trying to find
this old bag Valeria Schmitt or whatever her name is? Brogan was
right, that's just about as farfetched a notion as has come down the
pike in a long time."

"Well, it may be farfetched, but she's not an old bag. I called her to
make sure she'd be at home. I didn't know how long you'd take in
there. She was very excited that you were coming to see her."

"Did she know who I was?"

"Of course, even aside from the letters. She's been following the
investigation very carefully. She didn't seem to think it was at all
curious that you wanted to see her because she knew someone
twenty-five years ago."

Kessler laughed as they stepped out into the hot sunlight. "Well, if
she's not a bag she's a bat. The more I think about it the crazier it
seems. Suppose we get it over with now and start for Maine tonight.
We'll be all set to go."

"Good! Good! That's the way I like to hear you talk. We'll make it a
second honeymoon."

Margaret was still musing dreamily when they finally got to the car
and started off in the direction of Silver Spring, where Valeria
Schmitt lived in maiden retirement. "It will be just wonderful, dear,"
she said and then sighed. "Oh, but it reminds me of those poor
Valentes, going off on their honeymoon."

"Now, now. I'm the one who's supposed to be obsessed with the crash,
not you."

"Oh, but that was so sad. He was so handsome. And she was a pretty
little thing, too, if you could tell from the wedding pictures. And
then having postponed the wedding twice, too! It seems just like some
fate was dogging them."

Kessler chuckled. "I don't think mumps really qualifies as an evil
fate."

"No, but can you imagine! First him and then her! If it had been only
one or the other they would both be alive and happy today."

"Alive anyway. I talked to some of his friends who suggested he was a
mean one even before he had mumps." He smiled at his wife. "Even if he
was good-looking. And now will you look out for Miss Schmitt's number
before I pile us up and we miss out on our second honeymoon?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Schmitt proved to look as well as sound much younger than Kessler
knew her to be, a bright and plump little woman with very very blond
hair tightly curled. Margaret had come along into her little apartment
without much urging. Miss Schmitt had apparently been expecting both
of them because she had three flower-painted glasses out for lemonade.

"I suppose I'm old-fashioned," she was saying cheerfully before they
were even settled, "but I don't hold by cocktails. Nothing more
cooling than good old lemonade. Real lemons, too, not this bottled
stuff. You know what they say--you can take them out of the country
but you can't take the country out of them!" She laughed breathlessly.
"I've been living in the big city for twenty-five years now but I'm
still an Ioway girl. Get back almost every year, too, still perfectly
at home there. I'll be sitting out on the veranda next month drinking
lemonade and shooing flies like I'd never been away!" She laughed her
breathless laugh again.

Margaret was obviously enjoying herself as much as Valeria Schmitt.
Even Kessler was relaxed now, leaning back in the choice chair by the
window with his collar pulled open. His search _had_ been a neurotic
one, he decided, as he listened to Miss Schmitt's pleasant chatter. He
realized he would learn nothing here, but now he was not angry even
with himself.

Miss Schmitt had taken the first opportunity to explain that she was a
lot younger than her old boy friend, who had died in the crash at the
age of seventy-three. "Of course my family were against Bob Spencer
for that reason, too. He was almost fifteen years older than me."
Kessler suppressed a smile. He knew the difference in age was more
like ten years, but Miss Schmitt was secure in her blond, plump good
cheer. "It's a little too much," she went on, "fifteen years, but then
we never really did hit it off. Never really broke off, either." She
held up her hand, displaying a ring. "See. Just got it out a few
months ago. Haven't worn it for I don't know how many years. When I
left Iowa City--"

"I thought it was Keokuk?" Margaret interrupted. She was perfectly at
home with Valeria as she sipped her lemonade.

"No, honey." It was girl-talk now and Kessler was happy to let it go
on, feeling suddenly very tired. "We worked together as stenographers
in Iowa City. I was from right near there, but Bob was from Keokuk.
That's where he retired to. Anyway I got this job in Washington during
the war--World War II, that is--and I went back pretty often and saw
Bob but I was young and foolish at the time and kept putting off and
putting off the wedding and then it just never did happen. I offered
Bob his ring back but he wouldn't hear of it. Said maybe it would
still work out for us. Course by this time I knew it never would."

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Kessler caught the note of real sincerity in
Margaret's voice. "That seems too bad."

"Oh, why be sorry?" Valeria asked gaily. "I'm not. Bob was real sweet
in his way but he was a real stick-in-the-mud even when I first met
him."

"I understand he was actually a recluse in his later years," Kessler
said.

"Later years! Lord, he was a recluse when he was thirty-five. Worried
about everything. I never regret it. My friends used to say I was
snapping him out of it but I could never see much sign of it. Wore
gloves all the time to protect his hands and so he wouldn't get any
germs. It must have been the lemonade I was making a little while
ago, Mrs. Kessler, when you called, reminded me of one time when he
was visiting me back in Iowa. Just like I said, we were sitting on the
veranda drinking lemonade I do believe and swatting flies and Bob was
laughing and talking along with everyone else. Well, he was in a
rocker just like this one and I gave him the fly swatter because he
was laughing at me and I said, 'O.K., mister, you go ahead and try to
hit one if you're so smart.' And he gave a great big swing, laughing,
and that rocker went right over the edge of the veranda!" She laughed
her breathless laugh till she had to dab at her eyes.

Kessler and Margaret smiled at her innocent memories. Kessler
suppressed a yawn. "Oh, my," Margaret said, "the poor man! How
embarrassing if he was that shy."

Miss Schmitt examined her lacy handkerchief in sadly smiling
recollection. "I shouldn't laugh now," she said, "but it was so funny.
He didn't think so, of course! He stomped right out of the yard
without a word. I wouldn't have thought it was funny then if I'd known
how bad he hurt himself. He was laid up for about three weeks. I guess
that was the beginning of the end for us. Bob said every time he went
out something terrible happened to him. Poor fellow. He was right at
that. Just a bad luck artist."

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Schmitt was prepared to reminisce indefinitely. Kessler decided
he had better come to the point. "I don't suppose, Miss Schmitt," he
asked, "that you and Mr. Spencer ever discussed politics?"

She shrugged. "Why, yes, I guess we did a little, being among
politicians in court and all. We were both good solid Republicans
though, so we didn't have much to say back in those days. I voted for
Roosevelt in 1940 but Bob didn't mind."

"This may sound farfetched, Miss Schmitt, but to your knowledge was
Mr. Spencer ever interested in Communism?"

"Bob?" she asked incredulously. "Bob interested in Communism? We
didn't even know what Communism was out there. Never! You can count
that out, mister."

"I'm sure we can," Kessler said. "Did he drink?"

"Not a drop! I wouldn't have put up with that myself."

"Would you ever have thought he was suicidally inclined?"

She thought about this one. "You mean he might have put a bomb on the
plane? Like that fellow did a few years ago?" She shook her head
slowly. "I can't believe Bob would kill anybody else just to kill
himself. What would be the point?"

"Exactly. He left no one behind him. Didn't even take out an insurance
policy. But, of course, people sometimes do crazy things."

Miss Schmitt's plump little face was silent and reflective. "Bob was
an odd one. And, of course, I haven't seen him for years but I got a
Christmas card and a little note every single year and he always
seemed perfectly sane to me. As for killing himself or anybody else,
I'd say he was much too timid a man for that. God forgive me if I'm
being cruel to an old friend who's gone now, but he was afraid to step
outside the house. I don't know how he got to work. He was always
getting sick or getting hurt and staying home for weeks. I think he
welcomed sickness just so he could hide at home safe." There were
tears of another sort in Miss Schmitt's eyes now. Kessler thought he
detected a brightness in his wife's eyes. "No," Miss Schmitt said,
"Bob was afraid of life. Just plumb scared." She refused to let the
tears flow. "Oh, but I'm being a terrible hostess! I have so few
visitors now. How about some more lemonade?"

Margaret flicked a glance at her husband and gave him the floor.
"You've been a wonderful hostess," Kessler said, rising, "and I want
to thank you for being good enough to talk to us."

"Well, I'm afraid I haven't been much help," she said, rising to
flutter over the glasses.

"That's not your fault," Kessler said. "As you know, we haven't come
up with an answer on this investigation, but at least they can't say I
didn't try."

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Schmitt waved to them from the window of her apartment as they
got in their car. "She was sweet, you know," Margaret murmured as she
waved back gaily. "Sad about them, too."

"Well, investigation's over," Kessler smiled at Margaret as he drove
away. "Results, nil. Second honeymoon, anyone? We've got nothing to
keep us now. How do we get to the highway from here?"

"Yes, dear," Margaret murmured, still bemused by Miss Schmitt. "But
wasn't it a shame they never got married? He was such an unhappy man.
She might have brought him out of it."

"I doubt that," Kessler said, adjusting the sun blind against the
evening glare of the sun.

"Like she said, he was a hard luck artist. It's a personality type, it
doesn't change."

"What?" Kessler asked, maneuvering a corner in heavy traffic.

"Accident prone. You know, everything happened to him. Like those
mushrooms he got sick on just before he left home; falling off the
porch. No wonder he didn't want to leave home."

They drove in silence for some time, Kessler intent on the evening
flood of traffic, Margaret almost drowsing in the evening sunlight and
the cool of the breeze in her hair. When Kessler pulled up at a drug
store she said, "What?" sleepily.

"Phone call I have to make. You wait here," he said. She nodded.

Kessler got through to Senator Brogan's office quickly. "Hello, Miss
Persons? I'm glad you're still there. This is Bob Kessler. Do you
have any idea where the senator is now? Good, would you put me through
to him?"

Brogan sounded anything but sleepy. "Yes Bob? Finally wind it up?"

"I think maybe I have," Kessler said. "I've seen Miss Schmitt."

"Ah, Spencer's old flame? And what did you learn?"

When Kessler was finished telling him there was a long pause. "Are you
still there, George?" he asked.

Brogan's voice was heavy. "Yes, Bob, I'm still here. Where are you
calling from? A public phone? Well, I think maybe you'd better come up
here. We have more to say than you have dimes and it won't hurt to
keep this to ourselves if we can--or till we're sure. Better bring
your complete files. Good. One point, though! Did anything I said this
afternoon help? I wondered. I couldn't really believe it myself. If
you'd said something, I wouldn't have felt I was going crazy. I've
been sitting here wondering if I should see a head doctor."

Margaret smiled philosophically when Kessler told her he had to go
back to see Brogan. "Some second honeymoon," she complained. "Well,
anyway, what about that drink and a steak dinner. I'll get us a hotel
room. Maybe tomorrow, like I always say."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was nearly ten o'clock when Kessler and Brogan met Margaret at the
hotel dining room. "It's about time!" she declared. "I'm starving.
Hello there, George. What are you doing to my husband? Or vice versa?
We were going to go on a second honeymoon and now he has that
fiend-for-work look in his eye!"

"My dear Margaret," Brogan said, holding her hand and smiling
gallantly, "I must deeply apologize for keeping Bob. And I'm almost
frightened to say that it looks as though it will be for some time
longer. We will have to go back after dinner and it may be some days
before either of us has much free time."

Margaret looked at them suspiciously, with the brightness in her eye
that came from her first martini. "What are you two up to now? Some of
this top secret stuff? I might know! I can't get away from it! Never
mind, I'll worm it out of Bob when I get him alone. If that ever
happens!"

They carefully avoided any further reference to the investigation
until they were halfway through dinner in the nearly deserted dining
room. Margaret, mellowed by a second martini and all of her steak
which she ate, sighed. "Poor Miss Schmitt," she said. "I've been
feeling sorry for her all evening when I haven't been feeling sorry
for myself."

"Why Miss Schmitt?" Kessler asked, chewing.

"Oh, I shouldn't, I know. Bob Spencer would probably have been a worse
husband than you are. But at least I'm glad I went along with you to
visit her. I settled something that's been bothering me."

"What was that, dear?" Kessler asked, raising a juicy morsel of steak
to his lips.

"Why, that he was accident prone."

Kessler lowered his fork. "Yes, you mentioned that before," he said
carefully. "I was telling George about it. But why did you think he
might be?"

Margaret looked at their startled faces. She fluttered her hands.
"Well, everyone else on the plane was."

The three of them stared at each other. "Did I say something wrong?"
she asked nervously. "Well, they were, you know! The stewardesses both
had broken their legs. And the flight engineer got a black eye walking
into a door. You remember, Bob, you couldn't be sure how it happened,
but that must have been it. Even the pilot had cut himself shaving.
That very morning!"

Kessler and Brogan had stopped eating and were watching her intently.
"Stop staring," she said indignantly. "You're making me nervous.
What's wrong?"

"Nothing, dear," Kessler said quietly. "It's very interesting. Go on."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Well, when it comes to the
passengers! What do you mean? You know all this!"

"Go on," Brogan said.

"Well, one man was even in another plane crash before. I forget his
name."

"Pearlow," Kessler murmured.

"Pearlow, yes. And Dr. Pollitt who was blinded in an accident. I don't
really know about your friend Miss Bennett, senator."

Brogan nodded. "She qualifies."

"And the little girl, Barbara? Who had the automobile accident? The
veteran? Prewitt, who accidentally killed his brother? At least two of
those people were going to psychiatrists. Well, Mr. Spencer had me
worried because I didn't know if the mushrooms qualified him as
accident prone. Then, of course, when I found out about him definitely
I figured the Valentes qualified, too, with the mumps. The man who
broke his fingernail! Oh, just about everybody I think."

Kessler and Brogan glanced at each other. Brogan nodded. "Just about
everybody," he said. "And all on the same plane. It's something that
would happen once in ten thousand times. Like being dealt a solid suit
in bridge. But it can happen. It seems to have happened this time. And
I think maybe it's happened before. Maybe one person who was not
accident prone could make the difference. But when I think about a
plane taking off with those particular seventy-three people aboard it
really scares me."

Margaret looked from Brogan to Kessler, confused. Kessler put his hand
over hers on the table cloth and gripped it tightly. "Darling," he
said, "when we have finished our coffee, George and I are going back
to his office and I think maybe you'd better come along with us. We
have a lot of thinking to do, the three of us, and we could use a
feminine touch."

       *       *       *       *       *





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Last Straw" ***

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