“Because my publicists are booming Josephine to build interest in the race. They are promoting her with a new song that I commissioned entitled ‘Come, Josephine in My Flying Machine.’ They’ll plaster her picture on sheet music, Edison cylinders, piano rolls, magazines, and posters to keep people excited about the outcome.”

“I’d have thought they’d be excited anyway.”

“If you don’t lead the public, they get bored,” Whiteway replied scornfully. “In fact, the best thing that could happen to keep people excited about the race will be if half the male contestants smash to the ground before Chicago.”

Bell and Van Dorn exchanged another look, and Van Dorn said, disapprovingly, “We presume that you utter that statement in confidence.”

“A natural winnowing of the field will turn it into a contest that pits only the best airmen against plucky tomboy Josephine,” Whiteway explained without apology. “Newspaper readers root for the underdog. Come with me! You’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Trailed by an ever-expanding entourage of editors, writers, lawyers, and managers, Preston Whiteway led the detectives down two floors to the art department, a lofty room lit by north windows and crammed with artists hunched over drawing boards, illustrating the day’s events.

Bell counted twenty men crowding in after the publisher, some with pencils and pens in hand, all with panic in their eyes. The artists ducked their heads and drew faster. Whiteway snapped his fingers. Two ran to him, bearing mock-ups of sheet music covers.

“What have you got?”

They held up a sketch of a girl on a flying machine soaring over a field of cows. “‘The Flying Farm Girl.’”

“No!”

Abashed, they held up a second drawing. This depicted a girl in overalls with her hair stuffed under what looked to Bell like a taxi driver’s cap. “‘The Aerial Tomboy.’”

“No! God in Heaven, no. What do you men do down here for your salaries?”

“But Mr. Whiteway, you said readers like farm girls and tomboys.”

“I said, ‘She’s a girl!’ Newspaper readers like girls. Draw her prettier! Josephine is beautiful.”

Isaac Bell took pity on the artists, who looked ready to jump out the window, and interjected, “Why don’t you make her look like a fellow’s sweetheart?”

“I’ve got it!” yelled Whiteway. He spread his arms and stared bug-eyed at the ceiling, as if he could see through it all the way to the sun.

“‘America’s Sweetheart of the Air.’”

The artists’ eyes widened. They looked carefully at the writers and editors and managers, who looked carefully at Whiteway.

“What do you think of that?” Whiteway demanded.

Isaac Bell observed quietly to Van Dorn, “I’ve seen men more at ease in gun battles.”

Van Dorn said, “Rest assured the agency will bill Whiteway for your idea.”

A brave old senior editor not far from retirement spoke up at last: “Very good, sir. Very, very good.”

Whiteway beamed.