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Taking down his report on his latest case, Effie gets in a joke on Sam. A vending machine baron comes to Sam with a problem. Vandals are breaking his gum-ball machines, not to take the money, but to take the gum-balls. He hires Sam to be body guard over 300 gum-ball machines. Before heading out, Effie tells Sam about her new hobby of collecting pennies. When he spots a woman with a hatchet, tearing into a machine, he picks up a penny for luck as he makes his get away.
She turns out to be Thelma Darling, and she mistook Sam for her partner in crime. She tells about a valuable pearl that was stolen, then hidden in haste in a gum-ball machine. Does the story check out with the vending baron of the Eagle Vending Company? A murder, and a scrawled note offer a clue to Sam.
Does the maintenance man know something about any valuables, or a guy named Merle, or that cute red head, Thelma? What does the term, ‘Quarter Eagle’ mean? Sam walks into a trap, but he learns more about that valuable quarter eagle gold piece. The valuable coin creates dissention in the ranks of the bad guys, and a killer is turned out. There’s still a matter of that missing coin. Whatever happened to it?
