"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?"