Vanished

except the empty bed and the two women bound and gagged by their attackers. He nodded, made notes, and the others called for more police. In half an hour, the house was ablaze with lights, and two-dozen policemen were searching the house inside and out, for clues of any kind. But so far, there was nothing.

The servants were all awake and lined up now, as Sergeant O'Connor questioned each of them, but no one had seen anything, or knew anything at all. And then suddenly Marielle realized that both Patrick and Edith were missing. She had never trusted them, and suspected they hated her, whatever their reasons. And now she wondered if their hatred would lead them to take Teddy. It was difficult to believe but anything was possible, and everything was worth looking into. She signaled their absence to the police, and a description of them, and of Teddy, was put out on the police radios.

“The quicker we find him, the better it is,” Sergeant O'Connor explained. He didn't tell her that it gave them less time to do damage to him, to spirit him too far away, or worse, to kill him. Even then she remembered only too well that the Lindbergh child had most likely been killed the night they took him.

The sergeant warned her too that putting a bulletin on the police radio meant that the press would arrive soon, but if putting a police bulletin out for the child could mean finding him at once, she knew it was a risk well worth taking. She also knew she had to call Malcolm before he heard it on the radio or read it with his morning coffee, but the house was already swarming with police, and the FBI arrived before she had time to call him. It was all like a nightmare, or a very bad film, police running up and down stairs, throwing open windows, pulling back drapes, moving furniture, tearing up the garden, putting searchlights into bushes, stopping pedestrians, and questioning the servants. It was totally frantic and unreal, and through it all she had a continuing sense that it really hadn't happened. It was all a bad dream, and she would awake in the morning. It would turn out to be one of those terrible nightmares she had with her migraines.

“Mrs. Patterson.” Sergeant O'Connor was standing next to her, surrounded by half a dozen men in dark suits. They all seemed to be wearing hats, save one, who was apparently their leader. He was about forty or forty-two, tall, lean, serious, with brown hair and piercing blue eyes that seemed to run right through her. He looked hard as steel as he stared down at her, and he looked as though he always got what he wanted. “Mrs. Patterson.” Sergeant O'Connor spoke to her as gently as he could in the confusion. “This is Special Agent Taylor. He's with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he's been assigned to your case.” Her case…what case?…what had happened? Where was she? Where was Malcolm?…and where was their baby?…

“How do you do.” She shook his hand woodenly while he watched her, and like the rest of him, his eyes were cool. He gave away nothing as he listened to the few details she gave him. He'd been on the Lindbergh case too, but it was too late by then. It had all been so botched by the time they brought in the FBI, and in the end it didn't make much difference. Kidnapping was his specialty, and at least now they could get in on it from the first. But so far there was very little to work with. The chauffeur and maid had disappeared, and there was an all points bulletin out on them, but other than that, there was nothing. No ransom notes, no clues, no fingerprints, no description of the men, nothing at all except their M.O., the chloroform and the fact that the child was gone. He'd heard it all, but what intrigued him was this woman. There was something absolutely terrified in her eyes, as though at any moment she would lose control, and her hands shook visibly, but other than that she seemed completely calm and collected, and she was painfully polite and deliberate when she spoke. But for a moment, he was almost afraid she would snap and go crazy. She was barely hanging on by her fingernails, he knew. And she was genuinely terrified. Yet through it all, standing there in her nightgown and robe, she looked like an empress at a ball, quiet, aloof, and unbelievably pretty.

“Is there somewhere quieter for us to talk?” he inquired, looking around at the police tearing her house apart, while the servants stood by and watched them.

“Yes.” She motioned him to Malcolm's study. It was a handsome room, filled with rare books, leather couches and chairs, and the huge desk Malcolm worked on, the desk where he had sat only that morning. The sight of the room reminded Taylor that he hadn't seen her husband. He asked her about it, as she invited him to sit down, She sat down, shivering, on one of the couches as she answered.

“He's away. In Washington. I spoke to him about two hours before I discovered… before I went upstairs…” She could not bring herself to say the words that Teddy had been kidnapped.

“Have you called him yet?” She shook her head, looking deeply troubled. How would she tell him?

“I haven't had time to call him,” she said softly, suddenly feeling it was all her fault.

He nodded, watching her, deeply intrigued by this woman. He came from a totally different world, and he had never met anyone quite like her. So distinguished, so polite, and at the same time so warm and gentle.

He had grown up in Queens, and came from a desperately poor family. He'd been in the Marines, in the big war, and came out and joined the FBI right after. He'd been with them now for twenty years, and he had just had his forty-second birthday. He had a wife and two kids, and he loved them deeply, but as he sat facing her, trying to concentrate on the case, he had to admit to himself, he had never seen a woman like this one. Even in her nightclothes, she looked aristocratic and dignified. Her face was so innocent, her eyes so full of pain, that all he wanted to do was put his arms around her.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Patterson.” He had to force his mind back to the case, for her sake. “Tell me about it again, exactly the way it happened.” At first he just closed his eyes and listened to her, and then from time to time he'd open his eyes and watch her face, as though to see if there was some discrepancy there, something wrong, some untruth, the kind he had an uncanny sense for. But there was something different here, no lie, but some intangible terror. He waited until she was through, and then he asked her, “Is there anything else? Anything else you might have seen, tonight, or in the last few days…anything that frightened you, or that might make sense to you now, in light of what has happened?” But she shook her head again, unwilling to share her private terrors with a stranger. “Is there anything you'd like to share with me, anything you want to say, before the rest of the world gets in on this…even your husband?” At other times, he had asked women about boyfriends, lovers, friends, but somehow here it seemed wrong. She didn't feel like that kind of woman…to him, she looked like the kind of woman you wanted to die for. “Is there anyone in your life, or even from your past, who might want to do something like this to you…anyone you can think of?”

There was a long, long silence this time, and then she shook her head with a look of visible pain. “I hope not.”

“Mrs. Patterson…think carefully…your child's life may depend on the information you give me.” And as she thought of him, her heart turned over. Was it possible that she was still willing to protect him now?…could it even be him?…but could she take the chance and not tell Agent Taylor? Before she could say another word, Sergeant O'Connor knocked briefly and walked into the room to announce that the maid and driver were home, and the child wasn't with them. “Where are they?” The FBI man looked annoyed. He had sensed that she was wrestling with herself, and had been about to tell him something important.

“They're in the living room, and John…” He looked conspiratorially at him, and then apologetically at Marielle. “They're drunk as skunks, the pair of them, and she's wearing one hell of a ball gown.” He glanced at Marielle again. “I'd bet my bottom dollar it's yours and you don't know she's got it.” But all of that seemed unimportant now. The question was, where was her son, and who had him?

“Take them to the kitchen and give them as much black coffee as you can get into them till they puke, and then call me.” The policeman nodded and disappeared, as John Taylor turned his attention back to the child's mother. And then the officer returned again, as though to tell her something.

“Mrs. Patterson, we called your husband.” She wasn't sure whether to thank him or not. She felt guilty for not calling him herself, but relieved too. She had wanted to spare him the shock of hearing it from a stranger. There was no way to gentle this news, and all she could think was how much he loved Teddy.

“What did he say?” She looked terrified, as the inspector watched her reaction.

“He was very upset.” He glanced at John, and didn't tell her that her husband had cried openly on the phone, but he hadn't asked to speak to his wife. O'Connor thought that was strange, but between people of their kind, sometimes things were different. He'd seen it all before, everything from kidnappings to murders. “He said he'll be here in the morning.”