Stolen Away

“Let me have a look,” I said.

He handed it to me hesitantly, as if the slack suit were the child itself.

“It could’ve been washed,” I said, taking it, examining it. “Or it could be new. Whoever sent it might’ve had to go out and buy it.”

Lindbergh’s face squeezed in on itself. “How would they know what to buy? The description we gave the papers was purposely misleading.”

That was true: the press had been told, and printed, that the sleeping suit was a “fine, white balbriggan” that buttoned in front with a backflap. This one buttoned in back, and was gray, with a breast pocket.

“Somebody who worked around your kid would know,” I said.

He grimaced irritably and said, “I’m convinced this is the sleeping suit.”

“Well, then. You’re convinced. Better have a look at the note.”

He did. We all did. It was signed with the by-now-familiar interlocking-circles signature. It said:

Dear Sir: Ouer man fails to collect the mony. There are no more confidential conference after the meeting from March 12. Those arrangements to hazardous for us. We will note allow ouer man to confer in a way like before. Circumstance will note allow us to make a transfare like you wish. It is impossibly for us. Wy should we move the baby and face danger to take another person to the plase is entirely out of question. It seems you are afraid if we are the right party and if the boy is alright. Well you have ouer singnature. It is always the same as the first one specialy these three hohls

It continued on the reverse:

Now we will send you the sleepingsuit from the baby besides it means 3 $ extra expenses because we have to pay another one. Pleace tell Mrs. Lindbergh note to worry the baby is well. We only have to give him more food as the diet says.

You are willing to pay the 70000 note 50000 $ without seeing the baby first or note, let us know about that in the New York-american. We can’t do it other ways, because we don’t like to give up ouer safty plase or to move the baby.

If you are willing to accept this deal put these in the paper.

I accept mony is ready ouer program is: after eight houers we have the mony receivd we will notify you where to find the baby. If thers is any trapp, you will be responsible whatwill follows.

“What does this mean,” Breckinridge asked, taking the note. “This business of ‘Circumstance will not allow us to make a transfer like you wish.’”

“I pleaded with him,” Condon said, “that I might be taken to the place where the child was being kept, to ascertain the boy’s health and safety.”

“If he won’t let us see the child before the money is paid,” Lindbergh said glumly, “we’ll pay it anyway.”

“Well, after all,” Condon said, cheerfully, “this fellow has kept his word with us throughout. And we’ve kept our word with him.”

“Yes,” Lindbergh said, eyes at once haunted and bright. “There’s no reason to think they won’t deliver my son as soon as they get their money.”

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing short of a couple of straitjackets that would straighten this pair out on this subject.

“We’d best draft our response to the kidnappers,” Condon said, putting a grandfatherly hand on his famous guest’s shoulder. “For the newspaper ad.”

We sat in the living room and Condon, Breckinridge and Lindbergh hashed it out. I didn’t contribute. I was thinking about Chicago, now that the snow would be thawing.

“We can’t let negotiations drag on too long,” Lindbergh was saying. “If the kidnappers get impatient, or the newspapers get wind of this, my son could pay with his life.”

“Sir,” Condon said, “I think it’s important for us to at least try to see the baby before the money is paid.”

I almost fell off the couch: the old boy had said something that actually made sense.

“No,” Lindbergh said. “We’re in no position to make demands. It’s their game: we play by their rules. Run the ad they want.”

A little after three in the morning, Condon’s pretty, sullen daughter Myra entered and offered us a light meal in the dining room. I didn’t know why she was here, and I didn’t ask. But she was marginally friendlier this time around, probably because of the famous presence of Colonel Lindbergh; and her chicken-salad sandwiches and lemonade were fine. Half an hour later we began to leave, and Lindbergh paused at the grand piano in the living room, where on the paisley shawl the unwrapped brown-paper package had been set.

Lindbergh reached for the package, quickly, impatiently, and handed it to me, like it was something hot.

“We’d better get back,” he said to me, “and show this to Anne.”

I drove—the most famous pilot in the world my passenger. We rode silently for a good long time. We approached the George Washington Bridge, its silver arc indistinct against the night, a parade of flickering lights moving across it over the Hudson. We joined that parade and when urban New Jersey faded into rural New Jersey, he began to speak.

“You think I’m foolish, don’t you, Nate?”

“I think you’re human. The problem is, most of the people you get advice from don’t.”