“Don’t worry about me,” Vicki assured her. “I have some shopping to do to get myself ready for Havana.”
After the girls had departed, Vicki telephoned Mr. Quayle’s office and made an appointment to see him in half an hour.
In the taxi going to the airport, she fell to wondering about the identity of the third man, the masked pirate in the black cloak. He had known that she was staying at the Curtins’. The only people in Tampa who knew that were Mr. Quayle and the Federal Airlines personnel. Could the pirate be connected in some way with the airline? Well, she decided, the riddle was too much for her now. But she was going to do her best to find the answer!
When she entered the FBI investigator’s office—he had now taken up more or less permanent quarters in the airport’s administration building until the gold coin case was solved—his secretary looked up.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Barr,” she said. “You had no sooner hung up than Mr. Quayle called to say that he was detained. I told him about your call and he asked if you could see him at ten.” She looked at her watch. “It’s only nine-fifteen now. I’m terribly sorry if this holds you up.”
“No indeed.” Vicki smiled. “I’ll go sit in the passenger lounge and watch the planes land and take off.”
The secretary grinned. “Isn’t that sort of a busman’s holiday, Miss Barr?”
Vicki strolled through the terminal waiting room, then decided to go outside and stand in the sun. She still couldn’t get over the wonderful fragrance of the perfume-laden Florida air. She couldn’t seem to get enough of it. “I guess I’m just a hick from Illinois,” she chided herself.
As she sauntered along the walk outside, breathing in refreshing lungfuls of the scented breeze, a familiar voice hailed her:
“Hi there, Miss Vicki! Wait up!”