Stolen Away

“One hundred percent,” Curtis said. His eyes were hard and clear; his voice was the same. “I’m not a liar. I’m an honest man.”

“You were ready to lie about Hauptmann,” Evalyn said. Her eyes were hard, too, in a different way.

“And I lied about the ransom bills,” he admitted, and shrugged again, and sighed. Then he smiled, sadly. “But I’ve been honest with you about both of those things. And I’ve been honest with you about the mental strain I was under.”

“Is that why you confessed?” she asked. “Why you ‘admitted’ everything you’d said was a hoax, when in fact everything you’d said was true?”

“But not everything I’d said was true. I was kept awake for days, dragged here and there by the police, not allowed to get a change of clothes, rarely fed, and yes, under great mental strain. After a while, I admitted that one thing: that I hadn’t really seen any ransom money. And that, Mrs. McLean, was when the fun began.”

“I’d like to hear about that,” I said. “But from the beginning.”

Curtis told us how, while on Cape May for a meeting with “Hilda,” his contact with the kidnappers, he’d been informed by phone of the discovery of the body of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., in a shallow grave in the Sourland Mountains. How he had driven at breakneck speed through a rainstorm and arrived at Hopewell at 2:00 P.M. Here he was questioned, politely, but in a manner that already indicated he was something of a suspect, by Schwarzkopf, Inspector Welch and Frank J. Wilson.

Curtis had suggested they wait for Colonel Lindbergh to arrive, but the interrogators pressed on; he also suggested that if they were going to question him, he ought to have his “memoranda” brought to him—some were in a lockbox in a New York hotel, others were in his bag on the ketch, the Cachalot, still more with his secretary in Norfolk. This request was ignored.

He answered the questions to the best of his ability, though he was tired and emotionally wrung-out; and they pressed for auto license numbers, house numbers, phone numbers, none of which he could guarantee the accuracy of without his notes being brought to him.

“When Colonel Lindbergh finally arrived,” Curtis said, “he seemed pleased to see me. You can imagine my relief at seeing a familiar, friendly face. He asked me what I made of this…meaning the discovery of the child in the midst of negotiations for its return from Hilda and Sam and the rest. I said I couldn’t fathom it, and pledged I’d do anything in my power to help. And I suggested if we moved fast, because Hilda and Sam were on land, we could nab them.”

“How did Slim respond?” I asked.

“Very positively,” Curtis said. “But he went into his library with Schwarzkopf and Wilson and did not come back.”

Inspector Welch and various troopers and plainclothes officers, including at times Wilson, questioned him all night, taking a lengthy statement despite his requests that he be allowed to have his notes brought to him for the sake of accuracy. The tone was one of suspicious, insistent interrogation, and Curtis knew he was in deep trouble.

Finally he convinced his captors to take him to Cape May, where he might lead them to the various locations where he’d made contact with the kidnappers. At dawn Inspector Welch and a trooper set out with Curtis in a squad car. Curtis led them to three houses, two of them vacant cottages, one of them occupied by a family named Larsen, the last name of one of the gang. But the Mrs. Larsen who answered the door said she didn’t know any “George Olaf Larsen” and Welch let it go at that.

They were back at the Lindbergh house in Hopewell by nine that night. Welch informed all concerned that the trip had been a waste of damn time and that Curtis was a goddamned liar. Another statement, under increasingly hostile conditions, was forced out of Curtis, who continued to request his notes.

After this, Curtis was driven to the Hildebrecht Hotel in Trenton, where he was registered under a false name and remained essentially a prisoner; he slept three hours, and the next day was spent successfully leading two Newark cops to the Scandinavian neighborhood where one of the meetings had taken place. But he couldn’t lead them to the exact house; he asked them to come back at night, as that was when he’d been driven there. At the Newark police station, he went over mug photo books and found a shot that might have been Nils. The suspect was in custody at Morrisville on another matter, and Curtis would look at him the next day.

That night they returned to the Scandinavian neighborhood, but Curtis could still not zero in on the specific house, and suggested a house-to-house canvas. At the hotel Curtis was sent to bed at 2:30 A.M. and was woken at 7:00. His requests to have fresh laundry sent from New York were denied, as were his requests to call his family, though he was allowed to shave.