Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (28 page)

On Friday,
Dec.
20th, a week to the day since six-year-old Ronnie Connatser had been kidnapped
from Miss Murray’s School, Arnold Cameron, Special Agent in Charge of the New
York F.B.I., telephoned early in the morning to make an appointment with Capt.
Duncan Maclain. It was arranged for 10:00
A.M.
in
Maclain’s penthouse office twenty-six stories above 72nd Street and Riverside
Drive. Cameron arrived promptly, bringing with him Special Agent Hank Weeks and
Alan Connatser, Ronnie’s father. The men were silent, grim.

Capt. Maclain, an
ex-Intelligence Officer blinded in World War I, had carried on the work of a
Private Investigator with the aid of his partner, Spud Savage, for nearly forty
years. To him being a Licensed P.I. was a dedicated profession. He hoped by
developing his remaining four senses, hearing, feeling, taste, and smell to the
highest point of proficiency to prove to the world before he died that a blind
man with sufficient intelligence could be just as good, if not a little bit
better, than millions of people who had eyes with which to see.

Waiting for Cameron, the
Captain had a gratified feeling that maybe after all these years he had at last
succeeded. Duncan Maclain was no superman. He had certain peculiar talents that
had proved most useful through the years to various law-enforcement agencies,
among them the New York Police Department, and on several occasions the F.B.I.

He had known Arnold
Cameron for a long time, and worked with him before Cameron became S.A.C. of
the New York office. The Captain was the first to admit that neither he, nor
any private operator, no matter where he worked, could get to first base
without the co-operation of the local police or the F.B.I.

Cameron hadn’t said what
this case was about, except that it concerned the kidnapping of Connatser’s
six-year-old son. The Captain had heard about Alan Connatser, President and
Treasurer of Connatser Products, Inc., the big plant that sprawled over acres
on the edge of Long Island City. It was one of those industrial mushrooms that
had grown in importance since World War II, mainly through Connatser’s
personality and engineering genius. The company did a lot of top security
defense work, but the F.B.I, was quite capable of handling any violations of
security on their own. Kidnapping, too, for that matter.

Why go on guessing?
Speculation was always fruitless and a waste of time. He’d know the details
soon enough. Whatever they were he hoped he could help. It was flattering that
Arnold Cameron had dealt him in.

At 9:55 Rena, the Captain’s
secretary showed the three men in. Maclain shook hands around. Cameron’s grip
was friendly as usual. Special Agent Hank Weeks was properly official, neither
cold nor warm, with an element of doubt in it as though he didn’t intend to
commit himself even on the say-so of the S.A.C. unless he was shown. Maclain
suppressed a grin. He was skeptical himself about people who claimed they saw everything—even
when they had 20-20 vision.

Alan Connatser wrung the
Captain’s hand with a grip that was full of despairing appeal. “Mr. Cameron
thinks that you can help us, Captain Maclain. My son’s been gone for a week
now—more like a lifetime to Evelyn, my wife, and me. She has collapsed and is
under a doctor’s care. It isn’t a question of money—I can pay a million and not
be hurt. It’s the life of my boy—our only child and we can never have another.”

A very strong man, Alan
Connatser, the Captain judged. Six foot, slow spoken, powerful as flexible
steel, and younger than one would imagine. From his voice—not yet forty. And
right now he was on the verge of flying into little pieces.

Maclain released himself
wordlessly from the clinging grip and went to the bar set in the paneled wall
near the diamond-paned doors to the terrace. He sloshed a liberal portion of
cognac into a bell goblet and took it to the red leather divan where Connatser
had slumped down.

“Slug it!” His face was
grave with deep concern. “Your hand is as cold as a frozen fish. It won’t help
your boy if you crack up now and have a chill.”

“Thanks. I guess you’re
right.” Connatser downed the burning brandy in a gulp. “I’m afraid we’re
saddling you with a hopeless task.”

“The world considers blindness
hopeless. I haven’t found it so.” The Captain walked to his broad flat-top desk
and sat down. “You say your son has been missing for a week?”

“He was kidnapped last
Friday, Dec. 13th at ten past three,” Arnold Cameron said. “He’d been to a
Christmas party at his school. Miss Murray’s at 66th Street and Fifth Avenue.
The Connatsers live in a duplex at 82nd and Fifth—sixteen blocks away. Miss
Murray saw Ronnie get into his father’s Chrysler Imperial in front of the
school at three-ten. The car was driven by a substitute chauffeur, who called
himself Jules Rosine.”

“Rosine stuck up Leon
Gerard, who has driven for the family for years, in Gerard’s apartment on East
82nd Street—right across the street from the garage where the Chrysler is kept.
That was about eleven the night before. Rosine wore a stocking mask. He forced
Leon to telephone at gun-point. Leon talked to Mrs. Murchison, the Connatser’s
housekeeper, said he was ill, and would send a reliable man to take his place
the next day. Nobody thought it suspicious since it had happened a few times
before. Leon is getting along in years and his health isn’t too good.”

Cameron paused. The
Captain said, “If you fellows believe his story then I do, too.”

“We don’t believe
anything until we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s true,” Cameron went on. “Weeks
released Leon in his apartment after the kidnapping was reported to us on the
evening of the thirteenth. The poor old guy was trussed up like a turkey with
adhesive. Anyhow, nothing has been seen of Ronnie, or this Jules Rosine since
ten past three in the afternoon a week ago.”

A hopeless task,
Connatser had said! The Captain ran a hand through his dark graying hair. The
details of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., Bobby Greenlease, Jr., and the tiny month
old Peter Weinberger, all coolly murdered by their kidnappers, were much too
vivid in his mind not to realize that Connatser’s fears were far from being
groundless.

He kept his repellent
thoughts to himself and tried to speak reassuringly: “I’ve known Arnold Cameron
for many years, Mr. Connatser. Neither he nor the F.B.I. consider this hopeless
or he wouldn’t have brought you here to talk with me.” His dark sightless eyes,
so perfect that many people thought he could see, turned from Connatser to fix
themselves on the S.A.C. “You must have some very good reason for thinking
Ronnie is still alive, Arnold.”

“We happen, in this case,
to know he was alive on Tuesday or Wednesday, and probably yesterday.”

“What proof?”

“The sound of his voice,
Captain, plus an answer to a couple of questions asked by Ronnie’s
mother—answers that only Ronnie would know.”

“Then you must have made
contact by phone.” The Captain’s expressive eyebrows went up a fraction.

“No. They’re the ones who
have been in touch,” Cameron said. “Oneway touch, by Audograph records. Three
of them. You’ve told me often that you live in a world of sound. I also know
that you’re the best man living on identification of voices. Furthermore, you
work with an Audograph all the time and are familiar with its sounds and
foibles. Isn’t that true?”

Maclain nodded. “I have
one right here in my desk drawer.” He referred to a compact efficient dictating
machine used in thousands of business offices. Not more than nine inches square
and five inches high, it records dictation on a flexible blue disc, and the
dictation can be played back through its built in loud-speaker, or through
plugged-in headphones at the flip of a lever.

“Here’s the first of the
three. The first word from Ronnie’s captors, for that matter, from Friday to Monday.
Let the family suffer. Die a thousand deaths. It softens them up. I could—”

He broke off abruptly,
leaned forward and put a brown manila envelope on the Captain’s blotter. It was
a standard mailing envelope for the feather light discs. Seven inches square.
Printed on the front was: GRAY AUDOGRAM FOR—a space for the address—and below
that the words PLEASE DO NOT FOLD. The envelopes, like the discs, could be
obtained from any Audograph dealer in cities throughout the country.

For an instant the
Captain stared at the envelope as though by sheer intentness, he might develop
some superhuman power to penetrate its secret.

“That was mailed to Mrs.
Connatser at her home,” Cameron explained. “Air mail. It’s postmarked: Miami,
Florida, Dec. 15th. That was last Sunday.”

Maclain touched it
gingerly with his forefinger. “I know what a working over you must have given
these things. I was wondering about handwriting, or typing, on the address.”

“Not this bird, Captain!
He hasn’t forgotten that we went through two million specimens of handwriting
before we nailed LaMarca as kidnapper of the Weinberger baby. There’s not even
typewriting. No return address, of course. Mrs. Connatser’s name and address
has been stamped on with one of those kid’s rubber stamps that has separate
removable rubber letters. You can buy them in any store or Five-and-Ten.”

The Captain took his
Audograph machine from the deep bottom left-hand desk drawer. He put it on the
desk, then brought up a hand microphone which he plugged into a six-slotted receptacle
on the left hand side of the machine. A switch in the handle of the mike
controlled the playing of the record, turning it on when pressed in. For
continuous playing, a flick of the thumb could lock the switch.

He took the record from
the envelope, felt for the grooved side with his finger-nail, and turning it
upward put the record on the machine. Unlike a regular phonograph record, the
Audograph recorded from the center to the edge.

The Captain slid it into
place, turned on the machine, and pushed a lever over to LISTEN. A red
indicator light glowed. When recording, the light showed green. He locked the
switch on the hand mike and laid the mike gently on the blotter beside the
machine.

Out of nowhere the boyish
treble of Ronnie Connatser’s voice began to speak. Maclain reached out and
turned the volume higher, as though that might help to bring the six-year-old
closer to his home.

“Mommy, Mommy, can you hear me? The
man says to tell you that I’m all right and that if I talk in here you can hear
me. He says that Daddy can hear me, too, and that if you do what the man says
he’ll bring me home. Mommy, please tell Daddy to do what the man says. I’m all
right, but I’m scared, Mommy. I don’t want to spend Christmas here. I’m doing
just what the man tells me to. Please hurry and do what the man says. I don’t
want to spend Christmas here. I don’t like it and the man says he’ll bring me
home. So, please hurry.”

Ronnie’s voice quit
abruptly. For an endless length of time—actually a few short seconds—the record
revolved in mechanical silence. Cameron lit a cigarette. Smoke reached the
Captain’s nostrils. Leather squeaked as Connatser moved uneasily on the red
divan. A man’s voice took up where the child’s voice had stopped:

“Your son s been kidnapped, but he
hasn’t been harmed. It’s to prove that that I’m letting him talk to you. You’ll
be better off if you keep the police out of this as well as the F.B.I. Press me
too hard and you’ll never hear his voice again, let alone see him. If you
follow out instructions to the letter you’ll have him back very shortly. In
case you don’t think that’s your son who was speaking, I’m going to offer you
further proof. Ask him any two questions you want—questions that only he can
answer. Put it in a Personal in the
New
York Times
of Tuesday December the seventeenth. Sign it ‘E.C.’ You’ll be answered by
Ronnie on the next record we send to you. That’s all for now. You’ll never see
me. Just call me: Junior.”

“Is that all?” The
Captain sat up straight in his chair, his face grim. “End of Record One,” Cameron
told him.

Maclain swiftly adjusted
the disc to play the last few lines a second time. Faintly, but clearly,
through the man’s last few words had come the sound of chimes pealing the
opening bars of “Silent Night.” Then a singer had begun:

“Silent
Night,

Holy
Night,

All
is—”

The song had ended with
the click of the mike as the man said “Junior.”

“The musical interlude,” Cameron
said glumly, “is the first song on Side One of Bing Crosby’s Decca Recording
DL-8128, entitled ‘Merry Christmas.’ Sales to date about two million. On the
last report from our bunion-ridden Agents in Miami, they have found some two
hundred radio, record, and music shops, supermarkets, drive-ins, and various
other publicity-minded places of business, including second-hand-car lots that
have P.A. systems working overtime. They have been deafening the public for a
week or more to let them know the time of year. No. 1 on the Hit Parade is Bing’s
little dose of Christmas Cheer.” He viciously snubbed out his cigarette.