Little Sweden, strange to say, is not in Europe, but on the near-north side in Chicago. It is a place to eat, a unique and interesting place. There buxom maidens in white aprons and quaint starched caps do your bidding. It is a place of marvelous abundance. You do not order food. It is there before you on a long table. You pay for a meal, then help yourself. On the long board tables are great circles of chopped meat—beef, veal and chicken cooked in the most delicious manner. Salads, also done in circles, and luscious fruits, strange cakes and curious loaves of brown bread. It is as if all that is best in Sweden had been carried across the sea and reassembled for you and for your guests.
Our four friends, Rosemary, Jeanne, Danby and Willie had been whisked away from the airport to this remarkable place. A half hour after Florence had asked the question, “Where is Little Sweden?” they might have been found shut away in a small private dining room of the place, holding a conference over cakes and coffee.
Rosemary was on a forty-eight hour rest period. This is a regular thing for all stewardesses when they arrive at their home port. During the past twelve hours Rosemary had seen much of Petite Jeanne, and she had found her to be a very charming person. Simple in her tastes, modest, kindly, ever ready to serve others, Jeanne was, she thought, altogether lovely. During that twelve hours Danby Force had kept the wires hot in a vain search for some clue that might lead him to the dark-faced woman who had so mysteriously vanished.
Willie VanGeldt had been admitted to the conference because, as Rosemary had discovered, beneath his apparently happy-go-lucky and altogether haphazard nature there was a foundation of pure gold. He liked folks and was ready to help them, to “go the limit,” as he expressed it, if only they would tell him what might be done. He had been quite entranced with the company of the little stewardess and was more than ready to aid her friends.
“First of all,” Rosemary was saying, “I want you all to keep in touch with me as far as that is possible. I have a radio in my room. You have radios on your airplanes. We will see that they are in tune. When I am here I’ll be in my room from eight to eleven in the evening. Should you have anything to report or be in need, call the numbers 48—48, give your location if you can, then deliver your message. I’ll not be able to reply by radio, but I’ll help in any way I can.”
“And I’ll take you round the world in my plane if need be,” said Willie.
To this he received a strange reply from the little stewardess: “You’ll not take me off the ground, no matter what happens.”
“Why? Why won’t I?” He stared in unbelief.
“I’ll answer that later.” She cast him a half apologetic look. “Mr. Force has something to show us.”
“This,” said Danby Force, “is a picture of the lady who threatens to ruin our happy community.” He held the photograph before them.