Thomas Godfrey (Ed)

by Murder for Christmas

  Once they are received they will be checked immediately by engineers just as competent as you. If they are not approved, or any attempt at trickery is discovered, your boy will die. The clearer those specifications are, the quicker you get your son. Remember, it’s his life that’s at stake.

  Put the plans in a large portmanteau—not a dispatch-case—and weight the portmanteau with a couple of sash-weights. Paint the portmanteau with phosphorescent paint and be ready to drop it on a moment’s notice. You will be contacted by the words: ‘Cessna come down!’ and will immediately start descending to a thousand feet still holding your course. Watch the ground. One minute before the drop you will be contacted again. Answer: ‘Roger, Junior!’ and look for a red flasher that will turn on on top of a car. When you spot it say: ‘Condition red!’ and drop portmanteau as close as possible to the flasher. You will be directed if you have to make a second try. Follow the straightest compass course between points and there will be no trouble. Another record will tell you where to pick up your boy. If weather reports are generally bad don’t attempt to start. That’s your hard luck and you’ll have to make another try. Happy landings! Junior.”

  “Sounds like something from out of the wild blue yonder,” Maclain said as he stopped the record. “A modern Chekov nightmare manufactured in Moscow. What are the chances of pulling off such a scheme ?”

  “My pilot, Steve, says there’s a damn good chance,” Connatser told him. “I’m a pilot, myself, with some missions behind me, and I’m afraid I agree: Junior knows that we’ll break our necks to drop that luminous suitcase on his head, if possible. He also knows that the SF-800T is an ace we have in the hole. So I’m supposed to stake the life of my son against the safety of my country.”

  The Captain gnawed at his clipped mustache. “At least the Soviets have one weakness that will never change: We know that it’s impossible to fathom their way of thinking—but they fully believe that they know the thinking of every other country in the world. Now, it’s the life of a child against the lives of untold millions. Tomorrow night! That’s not much time to make up forty-four sheets of phony blue-prints. What does the F.B.I, think, Arnold? What are you going to do?”

  “Mr. Connatser is going to drop the plans as ordered,” Cameron said promptly. “You’re right about Soviet thinking. We’ve learned a lot since the days of Klaus Fuchs and Harry Gold. Naval Intelligence draws up two sets of plans, today—when the design is for anything as vital as the SF-800T. The second set is slightly different. To discover the bugs in it might take a corps of scientists a half a year. That’s the set we’re feeding to Junior tomorrow night.”

  “Leaving three people only on the hot seat: Ronnie, my wife, and me!” Connatser’s voice was low and deadly. “They’re not going to keep Ronnie alive for six months. So they may find some bugs in a couple of days, and kill him then. Then there’s always the chance when they get the plans that they’ll consider it safer to murder him anyhow.”

  “So we better get busy with what we have, Mr. Connatser: Three records, the sound of a kidnapper’s voice, and a snatch of song from a P.A. speaker.” Maclain shook his head. “It’s not very much, but somehow among us we’ve got to put it together. Before those plans are examined at all, we’ve got to find your boy. There is no other alternative.”

  “Knowing you as well as I do,” Arnold Cameron said, “I have a vague uneasy feeling that you may be on to something that we’ve managed to overlook. God only knows, I hope so.”

  “I have some questions.” There were lines creased on Maclain’s forehead and his mobile face was set in a look of concentration as though his mind were far away. “Why did this man pick Audograph records?”

  “We have fifteen Audographs in our office at the plant,” Connatser explained. “I also have one for dictation at home.”

  “Do you think he was an ex-employee, Arnold?”

  “That’s a possibility that we’re checking. We’re getting a rundown on everyone who has worked at Connatser Products since the war. It’s a big job, but it’s a top-security plant so it shouldn’t be impossible. But it is going to take plenty of time.”

  “Of which we have none,” Connatser grunted. “Personally, I think it more likely that Junior called in as a salesman and saw the machines. Employees in our place are too closely checked for comfort.”

  “How would he know you had one home?”

  “Maybe he didn’t, but he knew I could always get one and take it home, since he’s addressing his records to Evelyn there.”

  “Okay,” Maclain said shortly. “I’m going to start just as though I knew what I was talking about: the same voices made all those records—Ronnie’s and Junior’s. Let’s take it for granted that it’s the same man who picked up Ronnie, and drove you to work under the name of Jules Rosine. Would you know him again, Mr. Connatser, if you saw him?”

  Connaster gave it a little thought. “I doubt it. He wore a chauffeur’s livery. He was dark, I believe, seemed personable enough, slightly built— that is, he didn’t impress me as being particularly big and strong. I didn’t see him standing up. From the few words he spoke, I’d say he had a French accent. On the drive to Long Island, after dropping Ronnie at school in the morning, I was reading the paper and busy with some figures in the back seat of the car. Since I was occupied, I didn’t give him too much thought really.”

  “He is French, according to Leon Gerard,” Hank Weeks stated positively. “He spoke fluent French to Leon when he held him up in his room and forced him to phone the housekeeper.”

  “So his speech on the records, while marking him an educated man, has words in it that are British as a dish of bubble-and-squeak,” Maclain declared. “‘Phosphorescent paint’—‘portmanteau’—‘dispatch case.’ We’d say briefcase, or luminous suitcase. But his accent isn’t really British—just the words he uses. Let’s mark him as a French Canadian—Quebec, or Montreal. Do you agree?”

  “I think I’ll buy that Canadian angle right now,” Weeks said. “Since Igor Gouzenko skipped the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, in 1946, and turned up Klaus Fuchs, they’ve had troubles aplenty with certain Reds in Canada.”

  “What would you guess his age to be?” the Captain asked.

  “Between thirty and forty at a guess.” Connatser sounded a little unsure.

  “Well, later, if nothing happens, it might pay you to run back through the Year Books of Graduates in Engineering at McGill—University of Toronto, too. A picture just might jog your memory enough to spot him. There’s another point I’d like to get clear: Ronnie certainly wasn’t kidnapped in your own car—that is I don’t think they’d chance driving him very far.”

  “Just across the Queensboro Bridge,” Cameron said. “The police found Mr. Connatser’s Imperial parked under the approach to the bridge on the Long Island side at 6:20. Ronnie was going to a picture show with another boy, Ted Schuyler, at four. You heard that.”

  Maclain nodded. “I’m interested as to how this Rosine got him to come along without a fuss, and then transferred him to another car. That’s not easy in New York City between three and four in the afternoon.”

  “You know as much as we do, Captain. From what Ronnie says on the records, the kidnapper gave him a line that Mr. Connatser wanted Ronnie to meet him at the plant. He bought Ronnie a bottle of Pepsi-Cola on the way. The police found the bottle still in the car and analyzed what was left. It showed Ronnie must have drunk three or four grains of Seconal. That would have put him out cold in fifteen minutes to half-an-hour, and he would have stayed out for eight to ten hours, maybe longer, according to the Medical Examiner. Of course they could have given him more on the trip if they were driving far.”

  Maclain took a box of paper-clips from the middle desk drawer and slowly began to chain them together.

  “That’s what I was trying to figure—how long would they drive Ronnie and how far. Let’s say four hundred miles—ten hours driving. That would put them where they were going about four in the early morni
ng. I think Junior lives there and owns a house most likely. It’s not easy to rent a place to hide a child. It must be fairly large—the town, I mean, or the city. Far too dangerous to take him to a small town—”

  “What about an isolated farm?” Agent Weeks broke in on the Captain’s audible reverie.

  “Not close enough to a Post Office and an airport.” The Captain put his clips back in the drawer and closed it with a snap of certainty. “Let’s consider these records: It’s obvious that nobody is flying around the country with a kidnapped boy. So the boy’s in one place—probably guarded by Junior’s wife or paramour. Women are better with children, anyhow. Now, listen to this.” He found the Miami record and put it on, keeping his hand held up for silence until it was through.

  “That record was made by Ronnie and the man on the machine, and at the same time. The machine may be old, or defective, for there’s a murmuring drone in the background that records itself all the way through. Junior didn’t notice it, so it must be a noise that he’s used to. He noticed the start of ‘Silent Night’ quick enough and shut off the machine.”

  “The record was mailed from Miami, Captain,” Cameron reminded him.

  “That’s my point, Arnold—nearness to an airport. The woman’s mailing records to him. I believe that record was made Saturday evening, giving Ronnie time to come around and get instructions as to what he should say. Then Junior took it with him as soon as it was finished and caught a flight to Miami. In his suitcase he was carrying another Audograph machine. He mailed the record from Miami on Sunday. That would check as to time—ample time for him to stop off and make arrangements for the pick-up with some Deputy Sheriff, or town constable confederate, at any point along the way.”

  “You’re right there,” Cameron said glumly. “Deputy Sheriffs and Constables are a dime a dozen, and a police car is made to order—two way telephone, flasher and all. We can’t police every point between here and Miami.”

  “So again the best bet is to find the woman and the boy,” Maclain said. “She’ll talk, I believe, if Junior has told her anything. We can be sure if he’d made arrangements in Miami the record wouldn’t have been mailed from there, any more than if Ronnie was there. Anyhow, we know that after the record was mailed, he hopped the first flight for Kansas City.”

  “Typical Commie technique, that hopping about,” Hank Weeks remarked. “The Boss, in his book ‘Masters of Deceit’ says they call it ‘dry cleaning’—driving three hundred miles to cover thirty so no one will know where you’ve been or where you are.”

  “Go on, Captain!” Cameron sounded impatient. “You’ve got this Commie Canuck with his Audograph in K.C. now. Where do we go from there—outside of Cleveland?”

  Without replying, Maclain put on the second record and played it to the end. “I know that Ronnie made this record on the same machine that recorded record No. 1. All the time that Ronnie is speaking you can hear that noise that runs through the first one. As soon as Junior starts to speak, the noise is gone. We must assume that the woman mailed this record to Junior in K.C., and he filled his part in on the Audograph he has with him. The New York Times is available in most cities the same, or the following day. The woman could have seen the personal and told Ronnie what to say, or Junior could have seen it and could have called her long-distance.”

  “Still more dry cleaning,” Cameron said, “to help us Special Agents earn our pay, and put us through a wringer like we’re going through today. Let’s hear No. 3.”

  The Cleveland record just served to clinch the Captain’s beliefs more firmly. A background noise when Ronnie was speaking, while Junior’s words were clear.

  “Could that noise come from a car or a plane?” Connatser asked. “I’ve used an Audograph in both, but I haven’t been conscious of anything like that in the playbacks. Still, I might have overlooked it just like Junior has.”

  “It just won’t hold water.” The Captain’s agile fingers beat a tattoo on the desk top. “I don’t believe that Ronnie and his captor made that first record while driving in a car. There’s that ‘Silent Night’ music, for one thing. Can you picture a man with a kidnapped boy in his car dictating a record and telling the boy what to say? Then a stop in front of a music store where there’s a blaring P.A. ?”

  Hank Weeks said, “Hell no! Nor can I picture the kid being flown around to make records in a plane.”

  Maclain stood up abruptly. “Let’s get what we can from the horse’s mouth—the Sound Engineer at Gray Audograph. Let him hear these and see what he has to say.”

  In less than an hour they were in the Gray Audograph offices at 521 Fifth Ave., talking to Carl Schantz, the company’s Chief Sound Engineer. Schantz, a stocky, phlegmatic, brilliant German, listened to Cameron, then played the three records through without comment.

  Finished, he sat down in his desk chair and stared from one to another of his visitors through his gold-rimmed glasses. “The boy’s voice and the man’s—all of record one—was dictated to the same machine. The man’s voice on records two and three was dictated to another machine. I’d say that both machines were old. Probably our Model Three, but there’s nothing the matter with either of them. I’m certain of that.”

  “How do you know that?” Cameron asked. “The differences in the machines, I mean.”

  Schantz gave a slow smile. “You know from your work in the F.B.I, that there’s a difference in every typewriter. Well, there’s a difference in the needles of every dictating machine. They cut grooves of different depths on the records. The difference in those grooves is infinitesimal, but it shows up on a tape made by the electric-micrometer on our testing machine—the one I just played those on.” He handed the S.A.C. a wide piece of ruled paper marked in purple ink with three wavy parallel lines. “Look for yourself.”

  All of the line made by record one, and the two lines made by Ronnie’s voice on two and three were noticeably similar. There was a difference when Junior started to speak on the Kansas City and Cleveland records, but it still could be seen with the naked eye that those two lines were similar to each other.

  “Does this mean that if we find those two machines and bring them in you can identify them for us?” Cameron’s voice was eager.

  “You bring them in. We’ll give it a try!”

  “What about that noise in the background?”

  Schantz shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Frankly, I don’t know.”

  “Could it come from a nearby power plant or high-tension lines, something like that?” the Captain asked him.

  Schantz shook his head. “We have Audographs running in offices with air-conditioners, calculators, and IBM sorting machines, sometimes right in the same room, and there’s nothing but voice on the dictated record. Now and then, if you’re not careful, you can get a loose connection in the six-hole receptacle where the mike plugs in. That will cause a nasty roar— but you can’t dictate to the machine.” He thought a moment. “The nearest thing to that noise I’ve heard was on a record dictated in an auto running at high speed with the windows open. The machine didn’t pick up the motor, but it picked up the sound of the wind rushing by. That sound you have is steady like that, but deeper. It’s almost like the lad was speaking through some distant hurricane.” He sighed. “I’m really sorry I can’t help you more.”

  “About those few lines of ‘Silent Night’—have you any ideas there?” the Captain asked as Schantz was showing them out.

  “I thought of a radio in another room, but it’s too muffled. It’s probably from outside the house from a juiced-up P.A. system. If that’s it, the place is right next door, or at the most right across the street. Anyhow, it must be very near.”

  All afternoon, the Captain sat in his penthouse office listening to the records that Cameron had left with him. He had played them back through the Audograph speaker; listened to them with headphones on and finally using a jackplug, hopped them up to deafening volume on his hi-fi machine.


  That background sound was all enveloping. The longer he listed to it, the more it took possession of him, until he almost believed what Schantz had said about a distant hurricane.

  He thought of the ocean. It could keep people awake the first night, and in a day or two the noise would be gone. But the ocean wouldn’t record like that unless it might be a wind-lashed sea.

  Could they have the boy on a ship at sea? In a seven day storm? And mailing records air-mail to Junior in Kansas City? It showed how feeble the mind could get if you worked it on and on!

  He kept coming back to that power plant. Why, when Schantz had said it wouldn’t record? Could Schantz be wrong? Or could he, Maclain, whose ears had replaced his eyes, be clutching at straws and building into roaring volume some tiny wisp of sound? Was that noise, that should be a thousand jet planes busy ripping the skies, merely the hum of a washing machine, or an electric dryer? It had to be more.

  Power! Overwhelming power! It had to be. With the life of a six year old boy at stake, he didn’t dare to be wrong.

  He’d stick to his own obsessions, too: They’d taken the boy, maybe dressed as a girl, on a single trip of ten hours. Four hundred miles at least. Then why not into Canada? If Junior was a Canadian, his car could have Canadian tags. It would be easy to cross the International Bridge in the middle of the night with a sleeping little girl accompanied by her father and mother...

  The Captain jumped from the red divan, shut off the Audograph, and took his Braille map of New York State from a flat cabinet drawer. Moving faster than the eye could follow, he traced a line from New York City to Buffalo. Just three hundred and seventy-five miles!

  Five minutes later he had Arnold Cameron on the phone. “I’ve got a fix, Arnold. Two points of sound, like when you’re hunting down a hidden radio. Crosby singing ‘Silent Night’—and the noise of the biggest power plant in the whole wide world. Now it’s up to you to go get that boy!” For a minute more he stammered on.