explosives that he put in the bomb casings. I assume that’s what he did?
For anyone who works in industry explosives aren’t that difficult to obtain, Mr. Skinner. I have no idea exactly where or when Harold bought the explosives he packed into these particular bombs. But it should be possible for you to find out. I’m sure he bought it on the open market somewhere and made up a story about demolishing buildings or blasting out a new runway. He was known in the industry. No one would think twice about selling explosives to Harold. Now, as for the detonating devices and the other mechanical parts of the bombs, I’m sure he built those himself, either from the original specifications or from designs of his own. Such work would have been child’s play to Harold.
Yes, I’ve come to understand that much. Now there’s one further question I’d like to put to you. We know, of course, that they must have worked out a highly ingenious escape plan. I think it’s obvious, however, that we still don’t know exactly what that plan consisted of. I’m hoping that this part of the plan was discussed in your presence, as part of the make-believe you all participated in. Was it?
Well, of course. That was crucial to the game, wasn’t it? I mean, there was no point making a plan to steal all that money if you couldn’t get away with it afterward.
Yes, ma’am. Could you tell me the details of that plan?
You don’t have to lean forward so intensely, Mr. Skinner. I never mutter. Do you find it hard to hear me?
Not at all.
That’s better. Now you just sit back in that comfortable chair and I’ll tell you about the escape plan. It really was quite a marvelous scheme. We all contributed to it. I was very happy that my own ideas fitted in so well.
Which ideas were those?
Well, the idea of the window, of course, and the boat.
Perhaps you’d better describe it from the beginning.
Well, now. Let me think. The first problem was to pick a day that would give us the best weather for it.
Partial clouds?
That and the probability of low mist over Long Island Sound. In any case we decided that of course we’d have to wait for a day when those conditions applied.
Isn’t it the case, however, that your husband made an appointment with Mr. Maitland, the banker, two days beforehand?
My husband didn’t make that appointment, Mr. Skinner.
Then who did?
My brother, I’m sure. I don’t know who else could have. But Charles didn’t even know about the scheme until the very morning they put it into effect.
How can you be sure of that?
Because I slept in the same room with Charles that night. In the same bed. If he’d known they were actually going to do this thing that day, don’t you think I’d have known it? Don’t you think at least he’d have been nervous?
He wasn’t nervous at all?
We’d all been a little nervous for months. We were upset by our-our plight, there’s no other word for it, really. But Charles was no more upset or nervous that night than at any other time in the preceding several months. We both slept very well, thank you. In the morning-about half past six-the phone rang, and it was Harold calling from the factory. He wanted to talk to Charles. I put Charles on the line, and I got off. Charles talked to Harold briefly and then told me he had to go out-Harold wanted to see him over at the plant. Charles left the house at about a quarter to seven, and that was the last time I saw him.
Did he seem particularly agitated when he went out?
No. I’m sure Harold didn’t spring it on him until he arrived at the factory. You see, Harold would have done it that way. He’d have known that Charles wouldn’t have gone along with it if he’d had time to think it over. He must have presented it to Charles as a fait accompli. Told him, “You have an appointment at ten o’clock with the banker, Maitland. You’ll have to get right in the car and go.”
And your husband would have gone? Just like that?
Well, we’d been discussing the plan every day for months. We’d rehearsed it in our talks, endlessly. The only thing we didn’t know was that it was real. That Harold had actually rebuilt the bomber and armed it with bombs.
Can we get back to the escape plan, please?
Certainly. We’d worked out the timing very carefully, taking everything into account. Everything. The plane was a B-17C, the long-range model, it could stay airborne at low speeds for up to eleven hours without running out of fuel. It would take off at ten o’clock precisely and arrive over Manhattan within the half hour. There was fuel enough to keep it in the air until nine o’clock that night.
The deadline given by your husband was three o’clock.
That was for the payment of the money. The deadline for the bombs was ten minutes past five.
That gave us a good margin of fuel-nearly four hours.
Go on, please.
Well, around three o’clock Charles would signal Harold by radio that the money had been delivered to his car. Then Charles would drive away with the money while Harold continued to circle over the city to give Charles time to get away with the money.
We know that much. Where did he plan to get away to?
The route was very carefully planned. Charles would cross the Williamsburg Bridge and take the Brooklyn- Queens Expressway to the Long Island Expressway and then drive east on Long Island to Route One Oh One, where he would turn south into the Williston Park area and allow himself thirty minutes to lose his pursuit. We assumed he would be followed, you see, in spite of our instructions, and we had studied methods of “shaking a tail,” as they call it. Naturally we realized there was no way to elude the pursuit permanently on the highways, but all we really needed was a few minutes’ invisibility. For Charles, that is. We’d done a good bit of reading-detective novels, mainly. Some of them are quite ingenious, you know. I’ve been addicted to Rex Stout and John D. MacDonald for many years. I was able to find passages in their books which gave us excellent techniques for escaping pursuit by the police or anyone else.
Remarkable.
How’s that?
Nothing, Mrs. Ryterband. Do go on.
Having eluded the police, Charles was to drive his car into a certain two-car garage. Naturally we hadn’t actually gone to Williston Park to select such a garage, but I have to assume that my brother actually did so at some point, without telling us. That morning he must have given Charles the address of the garage. There are a good number of householders in those areas who have garages but don’t have cars of their own, and who therefore rent out their garages to people who want to secure their own cars off the street. We’d talked about renting one of those garages.
So we can assume that’s what Mr. Craycroft actually did.
I’m sure you can, yes. In any case there was to be a second car waiting in that garage. There were to be watertight duffel bags in the second car. As soon as Charles arrived in the garage, he was to transfer the money out of whatever containers it was in, and repack the money into the waterproof bags. This was partly to protect the money, but it was also because we’d read about cases-kidnapping and that sort of crimes-where the police had actually hidden small transmitters in the suitcases that contained the ransom money, so that they could follow the suitcases by radio direction finders.
You’d thought of everything, then.
My, yes. Don’t forget we’d been indulging ourselves with this game for months.
Yes, of course. Well, go on, if you don’t mind.
Yes. Leaving the original suitcases-empty of course-in the original “getaway car,” and transferring the money itself into duffel bags in the second car, Charles would then drive north on Route One Oh One to Port Washington, where the plan called for a rented fishing boat to be waiting at a particular dock. Again of course we hadn’t actually rented any boat or tied it up at any real dock. But again we’ve got to assume Harold did these things in secret.
Yes. I see.
