The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

They were having a leisurely early lunch at home, at The Castle, before Vicki started out for Chicago. It was Thursday, February twelfth, Lincoln’s Birthday, an appropriate day to be in Lincoln’s state, Illinois. The holiday explained why Mr. Barr was not teaching at nearby State University that day. The holiday did not account for Vicki’s presence at home. As a flight stewardess, she often worked on holidays.

  Vicki popped in and out of The Castle between assignments, whenever she could. That wasn’t often. Perhaps now that Federal Airlines was transferring her to the Electra and one of its transcontinental runs, she might be lucky enough to see her family more often.

  Her mother was wondering about the same thing. “Will your being based in San Francisco mean that we won’t see much of you?”

  Vicki went over her schedule again with her family. She and Jean Cox would fly regularly with the same crew on the New York-Chicago-San Francisco run, and return flight. They would have at least an overnight stop in Chicago, and some rest days in New York and San Francisco, “mostly in San Francisco where our plane will be serviced.” Also, since passenger traffic was sometimes heavier in the East, Vicki and Jean would occasionally fly the New York-Chicago and Chicago-New York “turn-around” run. The fast cruising speed of the Electra—up to five hundred miles per hour—made these schedules possible.

  “Anyway, I’ll be in and out of Chicago,” Vicki told her family. “If I haven’t time to run down to Fairview to see you, maybe you’ll drive up to Chicago to see me?”

  “I’ll come up,” her mother promised. “Now if you don’t start for Chicago, young lady, the Electra may take off for New York without you.”

  “Heaven forbid! I’ve been studying, practicing, and dreaming jet-props!” So had her stewardess friends, so had pilots and navigators—all of them had been training intensively for the new aircraft at Federal Airlines’ schools in New York and Texas. “I wouldn’t miss today for anything!”

  Her family drove Vicki to the Fairview station in plenty of time for the noon train to Chicago. Freckles, their spaniel, sensed Vicki’s excitement and ran around the platform so wildly that for safety they had to lock him in the car.

  “Do you think, dear,” Mrs. Barr asked Vicki, “that you’ll meet any especially interesting people on this new plane?”

  “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  They could hear the train coming. In another minute it pounded in alongside the platform. Vicki’s mother and sister hugged her. “Good luck! See you soon!” Mr. Barr picked up her overnight kit, helped her aboard the train, and found her a seat. He bent over to kiss her.

  “You look mighty little to be flying coast to coast, Victoria.”

  “I feel like an eagle in the sky—you know, the words of the spiritual? Dad! The train’s starting to move!”

  He got off, and then her family was waving to her, and the train slid quickly out of the station. She was on her way.

  * * * *

  By three o’clock Vicki was in Chicago, and a little before four she reached Midway Airport. That allowed comfortably for an hour’s preflight ground duties before departure time at five P.M. In the stewardesses’ lounge, Vicki changed into her blue uniform and cap, then picked up her topcoat, purse, and overnight kit. She walked over to the operations area where she initialed the crew check-in sheet, wrote in the time, and noticed that Jean Cox had signed in five minutes ago.

  Vicki found Captain Jordan in the busy meteorologist’s room. Jean was there, too.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Jordan—Jean. Reporting in for our very first Electra flight!”

  The pilot, a graying, solidly built man in blue uniform, smiled at her and Jean grinned. Jean Cox looked like a good-natured imp, with her cropped brown hair and twinkling eyes. Vicki knew that her fellow stewardess, despite the elfish grin, was absolutely reliable—just as their million-mile Captain Tom Jordan was a rock of strength. He told his two stewardesses:

  “Dan McGovern will be our copilot, and Chuck Smith our navigator. Good men, both of them. I expect the five of us will work together fine as a unit. Now, then—”

  Captain Jordan gave Vicki and Jean the flight plan and briefed them on the route and the flight conditions for this trip. Vicki knew that the passengers who asked questions about the flight might include anyone from a businessman who flew his own private plane to an aviation engineer, so she listened carefully. The pilot planned to fly above the day’s overcast, at an altitude of around 22,000 feet. “Our cruising speed will be about 400 to 420 miles per hour,” he said.

  Captain Jordan then handed Vicki and Jean the Stewardess Briefing Book, which they quickly read and initialed. He answered a couple of questions for them, discussed the ETA—estimated time of arrival—and said, “See you aboard.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Jean, for both of them.

  The two girls hurried back to the stewardesses’ lounge. There they prepared the necessary report forms for the trip.

  “Do I look all right, Vic?” Jean asked.

  They both checked their appearance—a stewardess had to be perfectly groomed and turned out—before leaving the operations area of the building.

  They hurried down a flight of stairs into Hangar One. In the vast high shed, Captain Jordan had two men in blue uniform with him. The five of them met beside a DC-7 which a repair crew was tuning up. The engines roared; Captain Jordan had to shout.

  “Miss Vicki Barr, Miss Jean Cox, this is our first officer, Dan McGovern—”

  The girls shook hands with their copilot, who was a large, quiet, serious-looking man.

  “—and our navigator, Chuck Smith.”

  Chuck Smith was young, small, and wiry, with an ingratiating grin.

  “See you aboard,” they all said.

  The two stewardesses went outdoors onto the windy airfield. A little distance away their immense silver Electra stood waiting for them. The plane was 104 feet long with a 99-foot wing span. Its sheer size took their breath away.

  Vicki and Jean had forty minutes’ work to do before the passengers came aboard. They had many things to check—it would be just too bad if, once aloft, they discovered there was not enough water for making coffee, or found the ventilation or heating system wasn’t functioning perfectly. Hurrying up and down the long cabin aisle, they took pride in their handsome Electra. Wide reclining chairs were upholstered in blue, in beige, and a few in pumpkin color; the silver-beige walls and curtains and coral-colored carpet harmonized. Vicki took special satisfaction in the semicircular observation lounge with its wide windows in the rear of the plane.

  While Jean checked their service kit, all emergency equipment, cabin and lavatory lights, seat belts, and a dozen or more other items, Vicki was busy in the buffet area amidship. The two tall, wide, metal buffets, facing each other, held drawers and compartments for everything she and Jean would need to store, heat, and serve sixty-eight dinners, and to brew gallons of fresh coffee. Vicki found it a big job to check every item. Next, the caterer brought aboard precooked dinners on individual trays, water, bags of coffee, and Vicki checked all items off on her report form. She called through the open service door to the commissary men on the ground:

  “We’re short one dinner.” She saw the fueling crew hosing kerosene for the plane’s four jet engines into the storage tanks inside the wings. Daylight was fading; the first of their passengers were gathering behind the wire gate, looking on.

  Captain Jordan came aboard and went into the cockpit. In a minute or two his copilot and navigator followed. The cockpit door stood open until departure time; Vicki could see the complex instrument panel, and the three airmen at work with their air maps and weather charts. She turned on the music—a little early, but they all were keyed up about this flight, and it helped to have lilting music fill the cabin.

  Twenty minutes later Vicki and Jean were breathless but ready. They repowdered their faces, and smi
led expectantly at each other. Jean said:

  “I must say you look poised and calm.”

  “Calm? Who, me? Well, here’s wishing us good luck.”

  Jean said a fervent amen, and then pressed down on the switch which released a folding staircase from the plane to the ground. Slowly the stairs for the passengers’ use dropped down into place. Then Jean took up her post just inside the main entrance door, to greet their passengers. Vicki stood smiling in the aft cabin to greet them and assist them in getting seated.

  Mothers with babies and small children straggled aboard first. Vicki directed them to window seats in the quieter locations.

  “Miss, will you be able to heat my baby’s bottle?” one mother asked her.

  “Yes, I’ll be glad to.”

  Vicki turned to a young couple who looked like honeymooners. Their faces shone, and the girl wore flowers. “Welcome aboard,” Vicki said to them, and nearly added, “Congratulations.” She suggested the forward cabin compartment which was smaller and more private.

  Most of the passengers, many of them businessmen with brief cases, found seats by themselves in the large main cabin and, beyond the buffet area, in the aft cabin. For several minutes the wide aisle swarmed with people.

  “Please be seated,” Vicki said to them as they passed her, “and then I’ll hang up your coats.”

  A white-haired, well-dressed couple came very slowly down the aisle. They must be in their mid-sixties, Vicki thought. The elderly woman looked pleasant, but the heavy-set man was scowling and grumbling about something. He had a look of authority, of command.

  Vicki went forward to help them. “Good afternoon. Would you like to sit here?”

  The man nodded curtly. He helped his wife into the window seat, then placed her hatbox up on the luggage rack.

  “If you don’t mind, sir,” said Vicki, “may I put that hatbox in the closet? It might bounce off the rack during flight, and the sharp corners might hurt somebody.”

  The elderly man sat down as if he had not heard her. Then he remarked, “The hatbox can stay where it is.”

  Vicki gulped, and said with her sweetest smile, “Yes, of course, if you prefer.” The man’s wife half smiled at her as if to say, “You mustn’t mind.”

  CHAPTER II

  Vicki Meets the Bryants

  All the passengers were aboard now. Jean had closed the main cabin door.

  Captain Jordan flashed on the “No Smoking—Fasten Seat Belts” sign. Vicki went up and down the aisle checking to see that passengers had fastened their seat belts. The airplane began to vibrate. She made her welcoming announcement over the plane’s public-address system, adding, “Captain Jordan will keep you informed of flight data en route.” Then both stewardesses found seats—the observation lounge was the only vacant place—and strapped in for the take-off.

  Suddenly the Electra was taxiing and in instants they were racing past the end of the runway. Even more suddenly—no wail, no warm-up of the engines—zoom! Whoosh! Up they went!

  Jean and Vicki were so amazed that they stared at each other. “Jet engines!” they exclaimed. “Look at our rate of climb! And steep—almost straight up!”

  The plane tore into the sky. The “No Smoking—Fasten Seat Belts” sign went off. Here in the cabin there were music, air at a comfortable temperature and pressure, newspapers, magazines, and pillows which Vicki and Jean distributed. The captain’s call button sounded on the board in the buffet area, and he spoke over the plane’s communications system to the two hostesses.

  “Everybody comfortable?”

  “Yes, Captain,” said Vicki.

  “You can tell our passengers we reached our cruising altitude within five minutes after take-off. Anyone especially interesting aboard?”

  “We’ll tell you soon, sir,” said Vicki.

  The passengers were interested in the Electra and asked questions. With sixty-eight aboard, Vicki and Jean could not stop to visit. But they chatted with the passengers while they set up at each seat the tray tables for dinner and spread linen tablecloths. The white-haired couple, Vicki learned, were Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Bryant. The lady told her this; the elderly man had fallen asleep, as if overtired. One genial man was a movie star, perennially young, even though he had five children. Several passengers recognized him, judging by their interested glances. He asked Vicki several stiff technical questions about the jet-propelled Electra.

  From across the aisle a woman touched Vicki’s sleeve. “My two youngsters are getting hungry, I’m afraid. Could you please—?”

  “Yes, indeed, we’ll serve dinner soon. And we always serve the children first.”

  Vicki made her way along the slightly swaying plane toward the buffet area. She was waylaid by only three passengers on the way. One man wanted to know if there was a razor aboard which he could borrow. There was. A woman asked Vicki how to adjust the individual air vents and reading lights. And a determined-looking man announced to the stewardess that he was a vegetarian.

  “Y-yes, sir,” said Vicki, and made her smiling way to the sky kitchen. Once inside the closed accordion curtains, Vicki lost her smile and her face became as desperate as Jean’s, in her struggle with several oven drawers full of turkey dinners.

  “Hi,” Jean greeted her. “Better put your smock on, like me. I’m scared we’ll still be serving dinners ten minutes after landing in New York.”

  “We’ll do fine,” Vicki said without believing it, and started to make coffee.

  “Parsley, parsley, where’s the parsley?” Jean muttered. “Somewhere in this overgrown filing cabinet—oh, yes, here.”

  “Can we spare extra rolls for some hungry kids?” Vicki peered in the roll warmer. “Yes, we can.”

  She collected nine rolls on a tray, one for each of the children aboard. On her way back to the buffet area with her empty tray, Vicki noticed that something was wrong in the Bryants’ area. Two men passengers were standing over Mr. Bryant, one loosening his collar and tie, and the call button rang. Vicki hurried to them. The people nearby were considerately snuffing out their cigarettes and opening air vents.

  “My husband has a heart condition,” Mrs. Bryant said anxiously to Vicki. “I don’t think he’s having a heart attack, but he—”

  Vicki concealed her alarm and looked at Mr. Bryant who was lying back weakly in his chair. He was conscious but exhausted, breathing with some difficulty. His face was pale and sweaty.

  “Uncomfortable—” he muttered.

  “He needs oxygen,” Vicki said. “I’ll get the oxygen bottle, Mrs. Bryant. Is he in any pain?… No? That’s good. I’ll be right back.” To the two men standing by rather uselessly, Vicki said, “Thank you, gentlemen. I am trained to give first aid.”

  The men nodded and resumed their seats. Vicki sped to the storage compartment, being careful to look calm for the benefit of the other passengers, and hurried back down the aisle carrying a walk-around oxygen bottle and a blanket. She paused a moment at the buffet area.

  “Jean, is there a doctor aboard?”

  “Not among my passengers. Who’s sick?”

  “That elderly man. Mr. Bryant. Heart condition.”

  “Want me to notify Captain Jordan for you?” Jean asked.

  “Yes, phone him. I’ll report soon. Please start serving dinners, Jean. We must keep it pleasant aboard just as usual.”

  Vicki hastened back to the Bryants. She covered the man with the blanket.

  “Miss Barr, I must tell you”—Mrs. Bryant made an effort to control her trembling voice and hands—“that my husband is more exhausted than ill. He had three quite tiring days in Chicago on business, and it’s been hard on him.”

  Vicki said soothingly, “Certain people need extra oxygen at high altitudes, where the air is thin. Our cabin air is pressurized, but for someone who is a cardiac, and for other special needs, we carry extra ox
ygen.”

  As she talked, she placed the oxygen bottle on Mr. Bryant’s lap; he was able to hold it steady. Vicki opened the bottle’s knob, then adjusted the constant-flow mask snugly over Mr. Bryant’s mouth and nose.

  Almost at once his breathing grew easier. A little color returned to his face. When he seemed comfortable again, Vicki removed the mask and closed the knob. Just the same, she was worried. He was still weak, and he was an elderly person with an impaired heart.

  “Mr. Bryant, Mrs. Bryant, if you wish to have a doctor’s care within just a few minutes,” Vicki said earnestly, “we can arrange it for you. The pilot can make an emergency landing. Captain Jordan will radio ahead to the nearest airport to have a doctor and ambulance waiting to meet our plane.”

  Mrs. Bryant murmured, “That’s wonderful. What do you think, Marshall?”

  “No. Not necessary. Make myself conspicuous. Inconvenience all these people.”

  “Not at all, sir,” Vicki said. “Captain Jordan probably will be able to make up the time.”

  “No. I’m all right. Only a weak spell. Thank you, anyway.”

  Vicki asked respectfully, “Did a doctor give his permission for you to fly, sir?”

  “The doctor most certainly did not—” Mrs. Bryant started, but the man interrupted. “Fool doctors would keep me in a rocking chair. I have to do what I think is right.”

  Vicki mentioned briefly the regulation for Federal and all airlines: a person with a serious heart condition was not supposed to fly unless he had a doctor’s written permission to do so, on the grounds that the trip was necessary, and unless he had someone to accompany him who could nurse him. The airlines relied on cardiacs not to board a plane without such certification.

  “If we had known in advance, Mr. Bryant,” Vicki said, “we would have been obliged to keep you off the plane.”

  “Well, you took excellent care of me, young lady. It worked out, didn’t it?”

  Mrs. Bryant shook her head. “You are so self-willed, Marshall. So stubborn.”

  Vicki turned to her. “The oxygen I gave your husband is only first aid, you know. Do you feel a doctor should see him immediately?”