Coming back, the control assistant asked Don if he would stay until the assistant slipped across the runways to his boarding place for a ten o’clock cup of coffee and some cold lunch. Don agreed.
Getting his coat, the assistant caught his arm in an older garment hanging on a peg, and it fell to the floor.
They all heard the clink and jingle of some metallic object as it flew out of the vest hung under the coat and also dislodged.
The man bent, picking it up.
“What’s this?” he wondered aloud. “The Chief ought not to have keys loose like that in his old duds—Doc might knock them down the way I did and be too busy mooning over something to hear the noise—and a key would be lost.”
“Golly-to-Chriminety!” exclaimed Chick, running across to him, “let’s see that key, Chubby! It might be that it fits the cabinet where I keep the blue-prints—the one the blue-print of the ship plan was taken out of.”
“Oh, no! The Chief isn’t that sort. Anyway he lost a tracing, too!”
“I don’t accuse him of that!” there was a hidden meaning in Chick’s tone, “but somebody might have put this where you found it!”
“That’s right! Here! Try it!”
Don remained on duty, allowed the man to depart, and then waited expectantly while Chick rushed away on his errand.