Identify a children's story - 1970s era; hero uses "Beltane" as distress signal

Cafe Society
1

I’m thinking of a story I read 50-some years ago - maybe in Boys’ Life or Children’s Digest. As the story opens someone tells the hero-kid about the holiday of Beltane which occurs on May 1st. Later, when the kid is held by criminals who force him to have a normal conversation with someone on the phone, the kid says something like “Oh yeah, and tell Mr. So-and-So that I hope his Beltane is good.” When the person on the other end of the phone conveys that message, the adults figure out that something is up, because Beltane = 5/1 = May Day = Mayday!

Any ideas?

2

Hm, there’s a guy around here who’s really good at identifying stories. Maybe we should page hi-- oh, wait.

That sort of cleverness sounds like the sort of thing that Asimov would come up with, though of course if it were Asimov I’d probably already know, and you certainly would.