Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders and his face relaxed a trifle. “I’ve missed planes before,” he admitted. “But my bag is already checked.”

“Take mine and check it instead,” the man said hurriedly. “Tell the porter there’s been a mixup and this is actually your bag. Have him bring yours back. You can get it at the gate.” He forced the two one-hundred dollar bills into Shayne’s big palm.

Michael Shayne was scarcely conscious of closing his knobby fingers over the two bills. His thoughts were wholly in New Orleans, occupied with a slim, brown-haired girl whose shining brown eyes were now probably cold with anger and full of tears. He visualized a deserted, locked-up office and the lonely emptiness of it without Lucy Hamilton behind the reception desk. He knew, now, that it had all been a mistake.

He had run away from Miami once to escape certain memories, and then he had run away from New Orleans to escape certain other things. Suddenly he knew Lucy was right. The whole thing had been wrong from the beginning. She deserved a vacation from him. He looked again at the clock, saw that the minute hand was covering the hour hand at twelve o’clock, and the smaller second hand was rapidly swinging past flight time. The loud-speaker was urgently announcing this fact.

“I’ve already given up my apartment,” he muttered aloud, “but it’s probably still vacant, and I can get it back.” He whirled and caught the arm of a passing porter.

“This gentleman and I have got our bags mixed,” he explained rapidly. “They’re both Gladstones and look a lot alike. Mine is loaded on Flight Sixty-two instead of his. Here-” He took a five-dollar bill and his baggage check from his pocket and thrust both into the porter’s hand. “If you can get my bag off the plane and his on in place of it there’ll be another five in it for you.”

“You bet!” The porter glanced through the window at the big airliner with the passenger loading platform still pushed up against the side of it. A couple of attendants stood at the foot of the stairs nervously looking at their watches and at a passenger list one of them carried. “I’ll fix it, boss,” the Negro said, snatching up the suitcase and sprinting away.