Lindbergh tore open the envelope, read the note, with Condon and Breckinridge looking on.
When I made a move to look at it, Slim’s boyish face was cold; he shook his head, no.
“You’re not part of this, Nate,” he said. “We’ll take the professor’s car. You drive into mid-Manhattan and join the IRS boys. And wait.”
I sighed, irritably. “You don’t usually order me around, Slim. I’m not sure I like it much.”
He lifted a hand, as if about to place it on my shoulder, then saw from my expression that it wouldn’t be appreciated.
He said, “I know you don’t approve of how I’m going about this. But you’re just a consultant—you’re not really part of the police, here. I don’t want you knowing where we’re going…” He was clutching the note, wadding it a bit. “…and I don’t want you following us.”
“What good would it do me? You’ve got my gun.”
He smiled shyly, embarrassed, and went ahead and put the hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Promise me, Nate.”
People kept asking me to make promises I didn’t feel like keeping. But I nodded anyway.
“Thank you.” He looked at Breckinridge. “Would you stay here, with the professor’s family, Henry?”
Breckinridge nodded in his sad, dignified way.
Condon’s daughter brought her father his coat and hat and helped him into them, telling him to be careful. The professor, bug-eyed, red-faced, calm as a walrus in heat, said, “Allow me to handle the parcel,” and grabbed up the cord-wound, split-apart, jam-packed ballot box, as well as the separate package with the twenty grand in gold notes.
That was fine with Lindbergh, who viewed the money with disinterest and even disdain, and the two men hurried out to the Ford coupe and, Lindbergh behind the wheel, Jafsie with the loot on his lap, disappeared down the street and turned south.
Now it was almost midnight; four hours later, in the Morrow library, and no sign of Lindbergh or the professor.
“They could be dead in a ditch somewhere,” I suggested.
“If they are,” Wilson said, “it won’t be our fault.”
“Tell that to the press,” Irey said glumy.
“Success, gentlemen!”
The booming, overly well-modulated voice belonged to none other than Professor John F. Condon, who entered the chamber with his arms outspread as if looking for someone to embrace. I wasn’t volunteering.
Lindbergh and Breckinridge came in on the professor’s heels; all three men were still in their topcoats and hats, except for Slim who was hatless to begin with. Two Morrow butlers hurried after the men, who had burst into the apartment without any of the usual amenities, and began collecting coats and hats.
“We delivered the ransom,” Lindbergh said, digging in his jacket pocket, “and we have been given directions.” He smiled, and the smile mingled joy with desperation. “We can find Charlie if we follow this.”
He placed a small note on the conference table, and we all gathered round. It said:
the boy is on Boad Nelly it is a small Boad 28 feet long, two person are on the Boat. The are innosent you will find the Boad between Horseneck Beach and gay Head near Elizabeth Island.
It lacked the usual circles, and holes signature, but the handwriting was as before.
“I’ve already called for an amphibian,” Lindbergh said, eyes bright as glowing coals, “and as soon as it’s light, we’ll take off.”
“Sit down, gentlemen, please,” Irey said, gesturing to the table, looking first at Lindy, the professor and Breckinridge, but at myself and Wilson, too. We all gathered around the table, and sat.
Lindbergh and Condon told the story, the former doing most of the talking, but the latter taking over at the points when center stage of the melodrama became his.
The note the cabbie had delivered directed them to follow Tremont Avenue east until they reached 3225, a nursery, J. A. Bergen Greenhouse and Florist. There they would find a table outside the florist shop entrance, and underneath the table would be a letter covered by a stone. The letter directed them to cross the street, walk to the next corner and follow Whittemore Avenue to the south. They were to bring the money. Condon was to come alone. He would be met.
“As we approached Whittemore Avenue,” Condon said, leaning forward, his eyes rheumy but intense, “I realized that these wily kidnappers were duplicating their precautions from the previous meeting.”
“Why is that?” Irey asked.
Wilson was taking notes.
“Whittemore Avenue,” Lindbergh said, “is a dirt road running parallel to St. Raymond’s Cemetery.”
Another graveyard.
The professor raised a finger in the air like a Bible-beating preacher making a point about heaven, or hell. “For the second time,” he said, “our meeting was on a Saturday night. And for the second time, our rendezvous took place…” He looked at each of us significantly; his expression, in the orange reflection of the nearby fireplace, was that of a senile scoutmaster telling a singularly unscary ghost story around a campfire. “…in the city of the dead.”
And me without any marshmallows to roast.
“As I told the Colonel,” Condon confided, winking at Irey, who acknowledged the wink not at all, “I have heard
