The Clue of the Gold Coin

Swirls of heavy snowflakes, driven by a brisk wind that whistled across the vast expanse of concrete runways that is New York City’s Idlewild Airport, dashed against the big picture window in the Personnel Lounge and spiraled back into the murky whiteness of the winter morning. Inside the comfortable room, four girls, all dressed in the trim, blue uniform of Federal Airlines stewardesses, sat in soft leather armchairs.

“Of all the luck!” One of the girls, a tall brunette, grinned as she shook her head in mock despair. “Here it is, the middle of the worst winter we’ve had in years, and what do I draw as my new assignment? New York to Chicago! The two coldest towns in the world! And you two, you lucky kids, get the Florida run!”

Vicki Barr tucked a strand of her ash blond hair in place, and her laugh tinkled like Chinese chimes stirred by a gentle breeze.

“Your trouble, Sue,” she said, “is that you don’t wish on stars. Now the other night, flying down from Boston, I looked out the window and there was Venus hanging up in the sky as bright and pretty as you please. So I just said, ‘Star light, star bright, first star I’ve seen tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might get the wish I wish tonight ...’”

“Oh, now, go away!”

“No. I really mean it. I said, ‘I wish I am assigned to the Florida run.’ And the next morning the Chief Stewardess called me into her office and told me that my new assignment was New York to Tampa.”

Sue chuckled. “Vicki, you little vixen, I don’t know whether to believe you or not. But just the same I envy you. When I think of Chicago in this weather ...” She shuddered. “B-r-r-r-r! And I do mean B-r-r-r!”

“I envy you,” one of the other girls spoke up. “You kids are really going to have fun! I was reading the other day about the big pirate carnival they have every year about this time down in Tampa. It’s supposed to be as gay and giddy as the New Orleans Mardi Gras.”

“That’s the Gasparilla Pirate Festival,” the fourth girl, Vicki’s co-stewardess, volunteered. Cathy Solms was a tall, slender girl about Vicki’s own age, with flaming red hair that contrasted sharply with the pale blue of her perky cap. “And you’re right. Vicki and I are going to have buckets of fun.” She winked at her flight partner and grinned. “By the way, Vicki, I wonder what big things are happening out in Chicago this winter.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Sue said. She glanced at the pattern of snow swirling up against the wide window. “If this keeps up, it doesn’t look as if any of us will get away from New York.”

“Maybe not you,” Vicki replied. “But we go out on schedule. I checked with operations as I came in, and south of Washington there’s not a snow cloud in the sky. Remember, it’s the weather at landing, not at take-off, that counts.”

At that moment, Johnny Baker, copilot on Vicki’s flight, stuck his handsome, crew-cut blond head in the door.

“Let’s go, kids. No day off for you two,” he said with a wide grin. “We’re taking off on the nose. Meet you in five minutes at Gate Five.”

Vicki and Cathy picked up their flight bags and topcoats, and headed for the door that Johnny had closed after him.

“Give our love to the ice on Lake Michigan,” Cathy said over her shoulder.

“And don’t slip on the ice when you walk away from your ship,” Vicki added with a smile.

“Get out,” Sue said, “before we throw you out. And oh, yes,” she added, a smile twinkling in her eyes, “give our best to that pirate fellow!”

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