Stolen Away

touched the hand, but did not look back at him.

“You can guard against the high percentage of chance,” he said, “but not against chance itself.”

She nodded wisely. She’d heard him say it before.

I said, “You’re right, Colonel. But don’t go writing off everything you don’t understand as happenstance. In my business we learn to look at coincidence with a jaundiced eye.”

He nodded, but I wasn’t sure he’d paid any attention. He said, “Have you had any breakfast, Nate?”

“No, sir.”

“Let’s round you something up. I’d like a word with you.”

We excused ourselves to the ladies. He walked briskly and I followed along, till he came to a sudden stop in the foyer, beyond earshot of his wife and mother-in-law.

“This fellow Red Johnson is being brought around today,” he said.

“Yes.”

“He isn’t technically under arrest, you know. The Hartford police have turned him over to the custody of the state police, here. He’ll be held in Newark.”

“Well, that’s good.”

He put his hands in his pockets, rocked gently on his feet. “This is going to be hard on Miss Gow, if this beau of hers was using her for information.”

I thought, Yeah, and so fucking what?

But I said, sympathetically, “Yes, I know.”

“You know, she was badly embarrassed when the papers were full of that Scotty Gow nonsense.”

The first several days after the kidnapping, the press and the cops of several cities had latched onto the notion that one Scotty Gow, a Purple Gang member in Detroit, was the brother of Betty Gow. Miss Gow had worked in Detroit, and Lindbergh’s mother lived in Detroit, so everybody put two and two together and came up with three hundred and five.

“He wasn’t her brother,” I said.

“Of course not. Understand, I’m in general pleased with Colonel Schwarzkopf’s handling of this situation, but this persistent, sometimes boorish questioning of my staff does not please me.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

“I’d appreciate it, Nate, if you would do two things for me.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t pester my servants with questions-don’t be part of this inquisition. And let me know if you see Schwarzkopf or his chief bully, Inspector Welch, overstepping the line.”

“Sure. But, Slim…there is reason to suspect an insider was involved. The cops are just doing their job.”

“It’s silly,” he said impatiently. “This thing was obviously the work of seasoned professional criminals. This is the underworld’s doing, not my damn household staff!”

“The underworld could have recruited somebody from your…”

“Perhaps they recruited Red Johnson. But that’s as far as I can see it going. I’m going to keep out of the way of the police when they interrogate him, so be my eyes and ears, if you would.”

“Fine,” I said, surprised that he’d bow out of the Johnson questioning. “Is something else up?”

Then he headed into the kitchen, talking as he went.

“I’ll be tied up most of the afternoon with an in-law of mine,” he said. “There’s a possibility the kidnappers have tried to make contact with us through an outside party.”

“Really?”

“I can’t say any more, at this point, and please don’t mention what I just said to anyone.”

I nodded.

Then we were in the kitchen; Elsie Whately was slicing a cucumber on a wooden counter using a wide, thick knife. She smiled wanly at Lindbergh, who asked her to fix me some eggs and toast.

“How do you like them?” he asked me. He was getting a pitcher of orange juice out of the Frigidaire.

“Scramble the eggs and keep the toast light, if you would,” I told her.

Her mouth flinched in surly acknowledgment, and she left the cucumber half-sliced and went to work on my breakfast.

Lindbergh had poured us both full glasses of orange juice. He brought the pitcher to the table.

I sipped my juice, and he gulped his.

“You seem optimistic today,” I said.

“I am. It’s foolish to be any way at all-better to just take every day and move through it in a straight line. Win out over it.”

“I feel the same way,” I said. “Only I usually settle for breaking even.”

“By the way, I haven’t had any luck freeing up a hotel room for you. The reporters have everything locked up at Gebhart’s. And that’s the only hotel in Hopewell. I may be able to get you something at Princeton. It’s only ten miles from here, and I’ve a secondhand car for you, that the servants had been using for grocery shopping and such, before we went under siege. Now we’re having everything brought in.”

“Well, a car-that’s swell. I hope I prove worth all this trouble.”

“What kind of per diem are you on, Nate?”

“Four bucks a day.”

“Food?”

“And lodging.”

“I thought something like that might be the case.” He lowered his voice so the cook couldn’t hear. “I hope this won’t offend you…but I’d like you to accept fifty dollars a week from me, as long as you’re here, to help defray the expenses you’re going to have.”

I grinned. “You got it backwards, Slim. Chicago cops take offense when you don’t offer ’em money.”

He grinned back. “Okay,” he said. “Colonel Breckinridge will give you an envelope, each Friday.”

“Well, thanks. I hope I won’t have to collect many of those from you.”

Lindbergh poured himself another glass of orange juice. “Was your trip to see the fortune-teller worth the time?”

“I’m not sure.”

“That’s what Henry said.”

“I want to have a couple things checked out by the feds. Do you have a number where Agent Wilson can be reached in New York?”

“Yes,” Lindbergh said, and fished out a small black book; he gave me the number and I wrote it down in my notebook.

Then Lindbergh polished off his orange juice and, with a little wave and a shy smile, left me to my breakfast, served up by the sullen Elsie Whately. The eggs were dry and the toast was dark. Just as I was finishing up, Betty Gow came in to get herself a cup of coffee.

She looked very pretty, as usual, wearing a dark green dress with tiny white polka dots and a white collar; she was neat as a pin-neater. She glanced at me nervously, and, coffee cup in hand, was moving back toward the servants’ sitting room when I called out to her.

“Join me for a moment, won’t you, Miss Gow?”

She hesitated, and a flinch of a smile crossed her face; then she haltingly approached me and sat down.

“Say, Elsie,” I said, friendly as an election-year politician, “could I talk you out of a cup of that stuff?”

“Yes sir,” she said, unenthusiastically.

“Cream and sugar, Elsie?” Betty asked.

Elsie nodded curtly.

“How are you bearing up under all this, Miss Gow?” I asked.

“It’s a bit of a trial, isn’t it, Mr. Heller?”

“I wish you’d call me Nate.”

“All right.”

But she didn’t suggest I call her Betty.