Lindbergh

by Noel Behn

  When Lindbergh and Breckinridge still did not confide in him, Rosner went to Thayer with his story, adding that the two colonels were astonished that he knew about the fourth ransom note, and as a result they were now convinced he must be the one who was in communication with the kidnappers. Nevertheless, Rosner said he believed they were attempting to get the child back without his knowledge. He also told Thayer that the fourth note had come through a Dr. Stacey, who was connected with Fordham University. Mickey asked the young lawyer to provide him with the doctor’s true name and address.11

  Jafsie Condon got home shortly after 6:00 P.M. on March 11. Henry Breckinridge arrived a little later. Condon’s wife, Myra, told them of a noon call from a man with an accent who said he would telephone back at 7:00 P.M. Al Reich, a former boxer and Condon’s closest chum, also showed up at the house, waited with Breckinridge, the Condons, and their daughter, also named Myra, for the kidnappers to make contact. Seven P.M. came and went without incident. The phone rang. Condon lifted the receiver and said, “Who is it, please?” Only he would be privy to the conversation which, according to him, went as follows.

  An accented, guttural voice of a man asked, “Did you get my letter with the sing-nature?”

  Condon said he had.

  “I saw your ad in the New York American.”

  “Yes. Where are you calling from?”

  “Westchester Square. Doctor Condon, do you write sometimes pieces for the papers?”

  “Yes, I sometimes write articles for the papers.”

  Condon claimed that after a pause the man spoke in a dimmer voice, which seemed directed away from the phone, as if he had turned his head from the mouthpiece as he repeated, “He say sometimes he writes pieces for the paper.”

  Condon “realized with sudden shock” that the man was talking with a companion.

  “Stay in every night this week.” The guttural voice was loud again. “Stay at home from six to twelve. You will receive a note with instruction. Ect accordingly or all will be off.”

  “I shall stay in,” Condon promised.

  Condon reported to have heard a second voice on the other end saying, “Statti citto!” He knew it was Italian and meant “shut up.”

  “All right,” said the guttural voice that was talking to Condon. “You will hear from us.”12

  The voice had an accent, either Scandinavian or German, as best Condon could tell. All the ransom messages to date had phrasing and spelling that indicated they may have been written by a German or a Scandinavian.

  For law-enforcement officials—and historians—there would be something far more important regarding Condon’s account of the phone call. The old professor maintained he distinctly heard a second voice say “shut up” in Italian. This meant that at least two people were involved, giving further credence to the “kidnap gang” theory.

  Henry Breckinridge, who probably knew as well as Lindbergh that the baby had not been stolen, now declared he was satisfied that Jafsie was in touch with the actual kidnappers. A pair of immediate tasks loomed. The first, to assemble the ransom money, would be handled by the Morgan bank. The second was that a box must be found or built in which the money could be delivered to the kidnappers, one that met the specifications in the letter the extortionists had Condon take to Lindbergh. Condon had just the item in his attic, an 1820 ballot box constructed of five different woods and fitted out with a brass lock and brass bindings—a distinctive container that, if found again after carrying money to the extortionists, might bare valuable evidence, such as fingerprints. Henry Breckinridge approved the use of the box. It was also agreed that Condon should find a cabinetmaker who could alter the box to fit the specifications.

  On March 12, the Jafsie ads were repeated in the New York American and the Bronx Home News.13 By early evening Condon, his wife and daughter, Al Reich, and Henry Breckinridge had gathered downstairs at the Condon home to await word. Condon informed Breckinridge that the altered box would be ready within four days, at a cost of three dollars for labor and materials. Jafsie’s son-in-law, free of charge, would submit a blueprint from which the craftsman could work. Milton Gaglio and Max Rosenhain joined the group waiting at the Condon home.

  At 8:30 the doorbell rang. Condon opened the front door. Standing before him was a cab driver. Parked at the curb was a taxi. “Dr. Condon?”

  Condon nodded, “I am Doctor Condon.”14

  The driver held out a white envelope, on which were written Condon’s name and address in the large, crude lettering seen in the previous ransom messages.

  Condon had the driver wait in the parlor as he took the envelope into the living room. Breckinridge was at his side when it was opened. The message was in the familiar hand of all previous communications. The symbol of interlocking circles was identical to the others. The text read as follows:

  Mr. Condon

  We trust you but we will note come in your Hause it is to dnager. even you can note know if Police or secret service is watching you

  follow this insruction. Take a car and drive to the last supway station from Jerome Ave, here 100 feet from last station on the left seide is a empty frankifurther stand with a big open porch around you will find a notise in senter of the porch underneath a stone this notise will tell you were to find uss/

  Act accordingly

  After 3/4 a houer be on the place bring money

  with you.15

  They didn’t have the money yet. Jafsie wasn’t concerned. This was an opportunity to meet the kidnappers and show them that he was anxious to work with them. Condon didn’t drive. Since Breckinridge and Reich both had cars, it might have been expected that Henry would insist on taking Condon to the rendezvous on the off chance he could get a glimpse of the kidnappers. After all, it was the money of his client that was at stake—and the child of his closest friend. Henry also had more than his share of doubt regarding the veracity, and also the mental balance, of Condon. But Henry didn’t make the crucial trip with Condon. Instead, Henry agreed to let Al Reich drive the old pedant.

  Condon, Breckinridge, Reich, Rosenhain, and Gaglio confronted the slightly startled cabby waiting in the parlor. He said his name was Joseph Perrone and that earlier in the evening he had been hailed at Gun Hill Road and Knox Place by a man who wore a brown topcoat or overcoat and a brown felt hat that hid much of his face. The man tried to get into the backseat. Finding that the door was locked, he came up to the driver’s window, which was partially open, and asked if Perrone knew where 2974 Decatur Avenue was. Perrone said he did, and the man handed him the envelope, gave him a dollar bill, told him to deliver the envelope, then walked to the rear of the cab and seemed to be jotting down the cab’s license plate number. Before Perrone drove away, Milton Gaglio was able to check the identification number on the shield he wore on his chest against the identification card inside the taxi itself.

  Henry Breckinridge accompanied Condon and Reich down the steps. Before they left in Reich’s Ford coupe for the rendezvous, he gave them his blessings and shook their hands.

  It was a cold, blustery night with little traffic as they drove to Jerome Avenue and followed it north to the last subway station. Approximately one hundred feet farther, on the opposite side of the street, was a deserted frankfurter stand. Making a U-turn, Al Reich pulled in beside it. Condon, who already had the door open, wasted little time in getting out and climbing onto the stand’s dilapidated porch. A large rock rested in the center of the sagging wood floor. Beneath the rock was another long, white envelope. Condon moved under the streetlight near the car, slit open the envelope, withdrew the page, and read loud enough for Reich to hear:

  Cross the street and follow the fence from the cemetery direction 233rd street.

  I will meet you there.16

  They drove along empty, fence-fronted Jerome Avenue for nearly a mile before stopping fifty feet short of 233rd Street. In the darkness on one side of them stretched the shadowy expanses of Van Cortlandt Park. Behind a nine-foot-high iron fence
on the other side was Woodlawn Cemetery. Slightly beyond where they were parked was one of the cemetery’s main entrances, a triangular plaza of three locked heavy iron gates.

  “When they shoot you tonight,” Reich quipped, “they won’t have to take you far to bury you.”17 Then he asked to come along and protect Condon in case the kidnapper tried something. If he did try something they could nab him. His requests were refused.

  Seventy-two-year-old John F. Condon got out of the car, walked up the desolate street to the looming iron gates, and waited in the darkness before them. Sensing that he might be watched, he took out the message, read it again, returned it to his pocket, strolled back and forth in front of the gates. Time passed. He returned to the car, got in, discussed with Al what could have gone wrong. Al spotted a man coming toward them from 233rd Street and alerted Condon, who got out and started for the stranger. Passing Condon without any sign of recognition, the man continued on his way.

  Condon returned to the cemetery entrance. It was cold, and he was standing slightly turned away from the gates. Something moving caught his eye—a cloth of some sort. He glanced over and saw an arm protruding from the vertical bars of the iron fence and waving a handkerchief. Barely visible on the other side of the gate was the dim figure of a man.

  “I see you,” Condon called. As he approached the gate, the man retreated several feet, stopped, and held the handkerchief up before his face. He had on a dark overcoat and a pulled-down soft felt hat. Silhouetted in the darkness behind him were barren trees and tombstones.

  “Did you gotted my note?” the man asked with a guttural accent.

  Condon was certain it was the same voice that had called him at home the night before. “I got it.”

  “You gotted the money with you?”

  “I could not bring the money until I saw the baby or—”

  The sound of a cracking twig was heard. A guard approached from farther inside the cemetery.

  “There is a cop,” the man cried. He jammed the handkerchief into his overcoat pocket, clambered up the eight-foot-high gate, vaulted over the top, landed on both feet in front of Condon, and thrust a hand into his pocket as if to grasp a gun. “Did you call the cops?” Condon, who couldn’t make out the face in the darkness, swore he hadn’t. A guard appeared inside the gate, shouting what was going on. The man bolted across the street and into Van Corlandt Park. Condon yelled at the guard not to worry. Then the seventy-two-year-old former trophy-winning distance runner followed after the fleeing man in the overcoat and soft felt hat, calling, “Hey, come back here. Don’t be so cowardly.”

  The man ran into a little clump of trees near a shack in Van Cortlandt Park. Condon caught up with him there. The man’s head was bowed forward, and his left hand had drawn the lapels of his coat together over his chin and the lower part of his face. The right hand was thrust ominously into a pocket. He allowed Condon to grip him by the elbow and lead him to a nearby bench and obeyed the order to sit while the elderly pedant made sure the coast was clear.

  “Hey,” said Condon, who was sitting beside him on the bench now, “you mustn’t do anything like that again. You are my guest.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” the man explained. “Might be twenty years or burn. Would I burn if the baby is dead?”

  “What is the use of this, what is the meaning? Why should we be here carrying on negotiations, if the baby is dead?”

  “The baby is not dead. The baby is better than it was. We give more for him to eat than we heard in the paper from Mrs. Lindbergh. Tell the Colonel not to worry, the baby is all right.”

  To determine if he was talking to the right man, Condon took out the safety pins he had removed from the crib of the Lindbergh baby the night he stayed at Hopewell. “Have you ever seen these before?”

  “Yes. Those pins fastened the blanket to the mattress in the baby’s crib. Near the top, near the pillow.”

  Convinced that he was talking to at least one of the kidnappers, Condon said, “You know my name. Please tell my yours.”

  “John.”

  “My name is John, too. Where are you from, John?”

  “Up farder than Boston.”

  “What do you do, John?”

  “I am a sailor.”

  “Bist du Deutsch?” Condon asked in German. John seemed not to understand. “Are you German?”

  “No, I am Scandinavian.”

  “You don’t look like the kind of man that would be involved in a kidnapping. Is your mother alive, John?”

  “Yes.”

  “What would she say if she knew you were mixed up in a thing like this?”

  “She wouldn’t like it. She would cry.” He coughed once, sharply, into the lapels of his coat.

  “Your coat is too thin for this time of year. Take my coat. I have another at home.”

  “No,” said John.

  “Come with me then, and I will get you something for your cough.” When John only shrugged, Condon said, “You have nothing to be afraid of. We’re alone. I have been square all my life and I am square with you now. You have nothing to fear.” Condon suddenly barked out an order. “Take down that coat.”

  John hesitated. “Well—”

  “Well, nothing. Take down that coat!”

  John brought his right hand out of his pocket. He was not holding a gun. Condon let loose the left elbow. With his left hand John put down the collar of the coat, but his right hand shot back into the pocket as if reaching for a weapon, and he turned his head away and looked down. In that instant Condon was able to see that John’s mouth was small, his eyes deep set above high cheekbones. In the semidarkness his complexion appeared sallow. Condon estimated him to be about thirty-five years old.

  Condon had John by the left arm again. “Give me a chance. I promised Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh that I would help them get their baby back. I am not here to harm or trap you. Where is the baby?”

  “Tell Colonel Lindbergh the baby is on a boad.” John was suddenly talkative and explained that the boat was six hours away and that the child was being cared for by two “womens.” The boat was marked by removable white cloths on its mast. He went on to say that the kidnapping gang was composed of six members. The number-one man, the boss, worked for the government and in private life was a very high official. “Number Two knows you well,” John told Condon. “He says we can drust you.”

  “Then why doesn’t Number Two come to see me?”

  “He’s afraid. He might be caught from you.”

  “What are you getting out of this, John?”

  John explained that out of the seventy-thousand-dollar ransom, Number One was to receive twenty thousand dollars; he and two other “mens” and the two nurses were each to have ten thousand dollars.

  “You made a bargain with Colonel Lindbergh to return his baby for fifty thousand dollars. You should stick to your word.”

  “Colonel Lindbergh talked to the police.” John explained that the protracted negotiations were not only incurring additional expense but imperiling the gang.

  “It seems to me, John, that you are doing the most dangerous work in the case.”

  “I know it.”

  “You are getting only ten thousand dollars. I don’t think you are getting what you ought to get.”

  “I know. I’m sorry I got mixed up—”

  “Look, John,” Condon said. “Leave them. Come with me to my house. I will get you my one thousand dollars. Then I will take you to Jersey to see if I cannot get the money for you from Colonel Lindbergh. That way you can be on the side of the law.” He went on to say that he knew lawyers who could represent John. “Take me to the baby. I promise you that I shall act as a hostage until every cent of the money is paid.” John seemed not to understand the word hostage.

  “I shall be with the baby until the money is in your hands.”

  “No,” said John. “They would schmack me oud. They vould drill me.”

  “Leave them. Don’t you see? Sooner or later you will be
caught.”

  “Oh, no. We have planned this case for a year already.”

  “Come, now, John. You can’t expect us to pay the money without seeing the baby and knowing that he is alive and the right baby.” Condon tapped his coat pocket. “I have some of the baby’s toys with me. And I know some words the baby can speak. I will be able to tell whether it is the right baby. And I shall remain with the baby until every cent of the money is paid.”

  “No, the leader vould drill the both of us. He vould be mad if he knows I said so much and stayed so long.”

  “Don’t go yet. We have to make arrangements. I want to return the baby personally. But I would gladly give up that privilege if you wish to handle things without me—just so the baby is returned to its parents. Transfer it to any priest, John. He will keep your name secret. He will not report you to the police. He will see to it that it is returned safely to its parents.”

  “I go now,” John said. “I have stayed too long already. Number One will be mad. I should have gottit the money.”

  “All right. Get your men together in a decent way and have the work done on a cash-and-delivery basis. You are sure the baby is all right?”