The hands and the powder had done their work. The way had been paved; the preliminaries were all out of the way.

Lauretta Trent’s life depended upon a woman she had seen only once, a woman whose very existence she had forgotten about; and this woman, Virginia Baxter, had only a vague recollection of Lauretta Trent. She had met the older woman briefly ten years ago as a matter of routine.

If she tried, Virginia could probably have recalled the meeting but it was now entirely submerged in her mind, buried under the day-to-day experiences of a decade of routine problems.

Now Virginia was following the stream of passengers filing past the airline stewardesses.

“Goodbye.”

“Bye now.”

“Goodbye, sir.”

“Goodbye. Nice trip.”

“Thank you. Goodbye.”

The passengers left the jet plane, inched their way to the broader corridors of the airport, then quickened their pace, walking down the long runway toward a huge illuminated sign bearing the word, “Baggage,” with an arrow pointing downward where an escalator descended to a lower level.

Virginia Baxter steadied herself by putting her right hand on the rail of the escalator.

She was carrying a top coat over her arm, and she was tired.

In her late thirties, she had retained a trim figure and a way with clothes, but she had worked hard during her life and minute crow’s feet were beginning to appear at the corners of her eyes; there was just a suggestion of a faint line on each side of her nose. When she smiled, her face lit up; when it was in repose, there were times when the corners of her mouth began to sag ever so slightly.

She stepped from the escalator at the lower level and walked briskly toward the revolving platform on which the baggage would appear.

It was too early, as yet, for the baggage to make its appearance, but it was indicative of Virginia ’s character that she walked with nervously rapid steps, hurrying to reach the place where she would wait for several long minutes.

At length, baggage began to appear on a moving belt; the belt transported the baggage to the slowly revolving turntable.

Passengers began to pick out baggage; porters with claim checks stood by, occasionally pulling out heavy handbags and putting them on hand trucks.

The crowd began to thin out. Finally, only a few pieces of baggage were left on the turntable. The trucks had moved away. Virginia ’s baggage was not in sight.

She moved over to a porter. “My baggage didn’t come in,” she said.

“What was it, lady?” he asked.

“A single suitcase, brown, and a small oblong overnight case for cosmetics.”

“Let me see your checks, please.”

She handed him the baggage checks.

He said, “Before I start looking, we’d better wait and see if there’s another truck coming. Sometimes there’s a second section of trucks when there’s an unusually large load.”

Virginia waited impatiently.

After two or three minutes, more baggage showed up on the moving belt. There were four suitcases, Virginia ’s and two others.

“There they are now! Those two are mine,” she said. “The brown one-the big one in front-and the oblong overnight bag in back.”

“Okay, ma’am. I’ll get them for you.”

The suitcase, followed by the overnight bag, moved along the conveyor belt, then hit the slide to the revolving table. A few seconds later, the porter picked them up, compared the tags for a moment, put the bags on his hand truck and started for the door.

A man who had been standing well back came forward. “Just a moment, please,” he said.

The porter looked at him. The man produced a leather folder from his side pocket and opened it, showing a gold shield. “Police,” he said. “Was there some trouble about this baggage?”

“No trouble,” the porter hastily assured him. “No trouble at all, sir. It just didn’t come in with the first load.”

“There’s been some baggage trouble,” the man said to Virginia Baxter. “This is your suitcase?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure of it?”

“Of course. That’s my suitcase and overnight bag and I gave the checks for them to the porter.”

“Could you describe the contents of the suitcase?”

“Why, certainly.”

“Will you please do so?”

“Well, on top there’s a three-quarter-length beige coat with a brown fur collar; there’s a checked skirt and-“

“That will give us enough of a description to make sure,” the man said. “Would you mind opening it up just so I can look inside?”

Virginia hesitated for a moment, then said, “Well, I guess it’s all right.”

“Is it locked?”

“No, I just have it closed.”

The man snapped back the catches.

The porter lowered the truck so the suitcase would be level.

Virginia raised the cover and then recoiled at what she saw on the inside.

Her three-quarter-length coat was there, neatly folded, just as she had left it, but on top of the coat were several transparent plastic containers and inside these containers, neatly wrapped, an assortment of small packages.

“You didn’t tell me about these,” the man said. “What are they?”

“I… I don’t know. I never saw them before in my life.”

As though at a signal, a man with a press camera and a flash gun materialized from behind one of the pillars.

While Virginia was still trying to compose herself, the camera was thrust up into her face and her eyes were blinded by a brilliant flash of light.

The man, working with swift efficiency, ejected the bulb from the flash gun, inserted another bulb, pulled a slide back and forth on the back of the camera, and took another picture of the open suitcase.

The porter had backed hastily away so that he was not included in the pictures.

The officer said, “I’m afraid, madam, you’re going to have to come with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain it,” the officer said. “Your name is Virginia Baxter?”

“Yes. Why?”

“We’ve had a tip on you,” the officer said. “We were told that you traffick in narcotics.”

The photographer took one more picture, then turned and scurried away.

Virginia said to the officer, “Why, of course, I’ll come with you, if you’re going to try to clear this up. I haven’t the faintest idea of how that stuff got in my suitcase.”

“I see,” the officer said, gravely. “You’ll have to come to headquarters, I’m afraid. We’ll have that stuff analyzed and see exactly what it is.”

“And if it should turn out to be-narcotics?”

“Then we’ll have to book you.”

“But that’s-that’s crazy!”

“Bring the bags this way,” the officer said to the porter, closing the suitcase.

He opened the overnight bag, disclosing jars of cream, a manicure set, a negligee, some bottles of lotion.

“Okay,” he said. “This is all right, I guess, but we’ll have to look in these jars and bottles. We’ll just take both bags along with us.”

He escorted Virginia to a plain black sedan, had the porter hoist the suitcase and overnight bag into the rear seat, put Virginia in the seat behind him and started the motor.

“You’re going to headquarters?”

“Yes.”

Virginia noticed then that there was a police radio on the car. The officer picked up the microphone and said, “Special Officer Jack Andrews leaving the airport with a female suspect and a suitcase containing suspicious material to be checked. Time is 10:17 A.M.”

The officer replaced the microphone on a hook, pulled away from the curb, and guided the car expertly and swiftly in the direction of headquarters.

There Virginia was placed in charge of a policewoman and kept waiting for around fifteen minutes, then an officer delivered a folded paper to the policewoman. She looked at it and said, “This way, please.”

Virginia followed her to a desk. “Your right hand, please.”

The policewoman took Virginia’s right hand before she realized what was happening, then grasping the thumb firmly, rolled it over a big pad and placed it on a piece of paper, rolling out a fingerprint.