The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Straw, by William J. Smith

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Title: The Last Straw

Author: William J. Smith

Illustrator: George Schelling

Release Date: December 23, 2009 [EBook #30746]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST STRAW ***

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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 we