ople 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 thre