“It sure looks as if the guy was given a shot on the aircraft which put him out.”

“But it could have been taken orally,” argued the young doctor.

“Or been self-administered,” put in the pilot.

“There is no sign of a hypodermic needle in his pockets,” stated the Security Officer.

“There might be a disposable hypo in the garbage,” contributed the young doctor, eagerly.

“Not in the garbage of Flight 212,” replied the Security Officer. “We checked. We can double check, though, we kept the garbage stored, there was good time for that.”

“Nice work, Joe,” approved the man from Homicide. “What’s this about no hand baggage?”

“No hand baggage,” stated the Security Officer with assurance he showed in every utterance.

“Did he bring any on board?” inquired the man from Homicide.

This police officer was rather small, plump and pink; he looked less like a New York policeman than anyone present. He was dressed in a well-cut suit and had only one mannerism: raising his right eyebrow from time to time, either speculatively or because he had a twitch. His dark hair was smoothed over his cranium so that streaks of white pate showed through, and the parting was incongruously close to his right ear. Everything about him suggested a man of great personal carefulness; even his hands, the nails of which were manicured although not a particularly good shape.

“He had one small bag,” answered the captain.

“Don’t they search hand baggage in Tucson?” asked Homicide.

“They search it these days,” answered the pilot, “but they don’t make out a schedule, Sergeant. If a man’s clean of weapons or smuggled goods, he’s clean. All these passengers were clean. There was one guy with something in his case which ticked like a bomb but it was his alarm clock, he never trusts hotel clerks to wake him. One guy and a woman had guns, and these were taken away so they had to pick them up at the baggage claim.”