The Seven File

Ten

The milkman sounded the knocker on the Bradleys’ door at eight o’clock Monday morning. It was a cool and lovely day; long golden shafts of sunlight were striking through the soft white mists that had blown in from the sea. The air was fresh and the sky was a brilliant blue. Later traffic would increase, the air would be thick and gray with exhaust fumes and the people would be irritable and preoccupied as they bought papers and lined up for buses or disappeared into damp echoing subway tunnels. But now the streets were quiet and cheerful in the bright sunlight.

The milkman was whistling serenely when Mrs. Jarrod opened the door. He smiled at her and tugged the peak of his cap. These were excellent customers; they bought everything from him, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, the items most people shopped for in the supermarkets. As he took the weekly order, he said, “And how’s the little girl? Getting fat and saucy on our milk?”

“Yes — yes, of course.”

The milkman glanced up at her, surprised by the edge in her voice. She didn’t look cross, he thought. Nerves probably. Getting to that age. Everything either fine or hopeless. No middle ground. When he went down to his truck he turned to give her a big wave and a smile, but she had already closed the door. Tomorrow she’ll probably be perky as ever, he thought.

The FBI agent and Mr. Bradley were still at the table when she entered the dining room. They had been up all night, the FBI agent asking questions, prowling through the house, talking on the radio that he had installed in the study.

Dick Bradley glanced up at her, and said, “Could we have more coffee, please?”

“Yes, Mr. Bradley.” Mrs. Jarrod’s manner was crisp and impersonal; they needed service from her, she knew, not sniffles and tears.

Crowley ran a hand through his thick black hair, and lit a cigarette. “Let’s see, where were we? Princeton, I think. No trouble there?”

“No.” Bradley tried to smile, then sighed and shook his head. “Just with math.”

Crowley had been going over his past with him for the last hour or so, on the chance that he might recall someone who disliked him, someone he had wronged or embarrassed — intentionally or otherwise. But so far they had uncovered nothing more significant than a scuffle in the cloakroom of his dancing school. Bradley’s past stretched quietly behind him, pleasant, well-cared-for terrain; all the bumps had apparently been smoothed over by his father. School, camps, trips to Italy and France — it had all been arranged thoughtfully and pleasantly. Then the Navy — flying a desk in Washington — and finally the partnership in the old man’s brokerage firm.

There had been no trouble about his marriage. Crowley got the impression that Bradley. Senior, had been unenthusiastic about it, but hadn’t stood in his son’s way.

“How about your business friends?”

Bradley shook his head and fumbled for a cigarette. He was exhausted and on edge; his face was white and there was a desperate expression in his eyes. “We’re getting nowhere,” he said in an uneven voice. “I–I don’t have enemies. I don’t have enough guts. I never got into fights, I never played around with other men’s wives. I–I never did anything. I’m Dickey Bradley, model young man. The good loser, the guy who comes in second, wearing a smile and carrying the winner’s coat. Nobody hates me.” He rubbed his forehead wearily, seemingly spent by the bitterness of his outburst. “Not this much anyway.”

“Let’s take a break,” Crowley said. He wished there was some way he could ease Bradley’s fears. But he had no hope to offer yet, and he couldn’t lie to him. “I’ve got to report to the Inspector,” he said, rising. “Just relax for a while.”

In the study between the living room and dining room Crowley had installed an ultra-high frequency receiver and transmitter which put him in round-the-clock communication with FBI headquarters on lower Broadway. He had arrived at the Bradleys’ the night before, entering through the trapdoor in the roof of their building and since then had been in hourly contact with Inspector West. He had dictated the original ransom demand to West, and West had relayed it to Washington where its peculiarities of construction and spelling would be checked for similarities with every note in the vast extortion files. Crowley had learned nothing significant about the baby’s nurse, Kate Reilly: Dick Bradley and his father, Oliphant Bradley, both were convinced that she wasn’t involved in the kidnaping. She was loyal, intelligent, devoted to the child — they repeated all this several times, but they couldn’t offer any explanation of why she had packed up and left. He hadn’t met Mrs. Bradley yet; she had taken a sedative and was asleep when he arrived. Now, at eight-thirty in the morning, she was still in bed.

So far Crowley had followed routine. The ransom money was under lock and key in the guest-room closet, and he had checked every door and window to make certain that no one had forced his way into the house. None of the locks had been tampered with... There was a faint smell of ether in the nursery, but no signs of struggle.

He had fingerprinted the nursery, but had found only prints of the nurse and child — establishing the identity of the nurse’s by checking them against prints taken from her room. He had questioned Mrs. Jarrod about the people who had access to the house: the delivery boys, garbage collectors, peddlers, milkmen, door-to-door salesmen, the tradespeople who came and went in the ordinary business of the day. She knew them all. and was careful about whom she let in; and she was certain there had been no strange face about in the past few months. Crowley had asked Bradley and his father about servants they had discharged in the past, of employees they had let go for one reason or another, of individuals or firms they might have hurt in business competition. Then he had begun the long interview with young Bradley about his friends, his clubs and associations, his wife and her friends and family, searching his past for enemies — which was just as fruitless as searching a penthouse garden for big game.

Crowley had done the routine things, he had followed the book — and had made no progress. That was all he could tell West. He had covered the logical areas thoroughly, but without results. Crowley was beginning to feel the tension building up in him; in ten hours he hadn’t picked up a lead. He knew there were a hundred men standing by on the outside; he knew that West had the vast resources of Washington at his fingertips; he knew that anything needed could be produced in minutes — but none of that was any good unless he could find a lead here...

When he finished his report, West said, “Have you talked to Mrs. Bradley yet?”

“No, she’s still asleep.”

“Try to talk to her as soon as possible. We want more on that nurse. Either she’s in it or not. Get a line on her boy friends, her family, where she worked before she came with the Bradleys. Find out if she went to church, and where; if she belonged to any clubs or groups.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Crowley — Roth had a call from your wife. Your daughter — well, there’s no change.”

“I see.” Crowley looked at the mike he was holding, and let out his breath slowly. “Thanks, sir. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve talked to Mrs. Bradley.”

“I’ll be here.”

When Crowley walked back into the dining room Oliphant Bradley was sitting at the breakfast table. He nodded at him and said, “You were talking to headquarters, I gather. Any news there?”

“Nothing definite,” Crowley said,

“These crimes fall into patterns, don’t they? The same types go in for the same kind of activities, I mean.”

“That’s generally true, sir.”

Oliphant Bradley put his coffee cup down, and said, “Well, it seems to me you might have some information by now. If you picked up everyone ever connected with an extortion case and sweated them properly — you might have something.” In spite of his worry over the child the old man’s mood was executive and aggressive; his son had agreed that he had done right in calling the FBI; and that had taken a load off his mind. All of his vigorous confidence in himself had returned, and the tensions of the past night had charged him with an artificial energy. “Another thing, I understand that the ransom note is still here in the house. Shouldn’t that be in your laboratory in Washington? Fingerprints, chemical analysis — isn’t that your specialty?”

“Dad, they know their business,” his son said.

“Yes, of course they do. I’m not implying they don’t,” the old man said impatiently. “But they’re open to suggestions, I hope. I always was, and still am — from any clerk in our organization.”

“Sir, we’re after the baby, not the kidnappers,” Crowley said quietly. “If we made wholesale arrests we might get a lead — but your granddaughter would become a death sentence to the men who kidnaped her, to anyone connected with the crime in any way at all. We’d put her on the spot, but good. About the kidnap note; supposing we sent it to Washington for analysis. And supposing the kidnapers sent a messenger here and asked for the note? That’s happened in cases like this. What would you say? That you’d lost it? That you threw it out with the garbage?” Crowley shook his head. “It wouldn’t wash. The kidnapers, if they weren’t fools, would know you’d called in the police. They’d know they couldn’t dare bargain with you any longer for the baby.”

“I see, I didn’t think—” The old man rubbed his jaw.

Crowley said, “The hardest thing in the world is to wait, to do nothing. That’s our job right now.”

Young Bradley stood up from the table abruptly and walked into the living room. His father said, “You’ll excuse me?” to Crowley, and joined his son who was standing at the window, staring into the street. Crowley picked up the three cups and saucers from the table and carried them into the kitchen. “Where do you want these?” he said to Mrs. Jarrod.

She didn’t answer him immediately: she was frowning faintly, counting on her fingers. Finally she looked at him and said. “What?”

He nodded at the cups he was holding. “Where do you want these?”

“Oh, anywhere at all. Right on the sink is fine.” Her voice was edged with impatience. “You asked me if there had been any strangers around in the last few weeks.”

“Yes?” Crowley felt the sudden stroke of his heart. “You remember something?”

“I’ll tell you what is was. Three weeks ago Thursday there was a man here to look at the telephones. I wasn’t here, it was my day off. But Kitty told me about it the next day, just talking casually. She didn’t think it was anything unusual, mind you.” Mrs. Jarrod seemed determined to be an exact and unemotional witness. “She just mentioned it over a cup of tea, as you would say.”

“You’re sure of the date?”

“I just counted it back. It was three weeks last Thursday. I know because I’d been at my sister’s in Roslyn for the day.”

“Please try to tell me exactly what Kitty said. Don’t leave out anything, no matter how trivial it might sound.”

“I’ll try my best.” Mrs. Jarrod drew a deep breath. “Well, for one thing she thought he must have kissed the Blarney Stone. He was full of smooth talk, about how beautiful she was and all like that. A chatterbox — but an amusing one, she said. He was big and good-looking, with dark hair and dark skin. He was Irish, she mentioned that for sure. Talked about his father over there, she said. And what else now?”

Mrs. Jarrod frowned at the floor, and Crowley said nothing. “I can’t remember anything else,” she said at last.

“What was wrong with the phones?”

“Ah, that’s it. Nothing at all. They were all right. He went through the house, checking the wires and all, downstairs and upstairs, and then went off. Said it was probably somewhere else in the block.”

“This could be important. Keep thinking about your talk with Kitty. Something else might occur to you.”

“Ah, there was another thing. He was hurt in the war, he told her. He had a limp in his leg.”

This last bit dampened Crowley’s enthusiasm slightly, it didn’t seem likely that a man with such memorable characteristics would be used on the inside part of the job. The breezy line of chatter also seemed out of place. He wouldn’t be calling attention to himself that way; he would slide in and out as inconspicuously as possible...

As Crowley pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen he saw a slim young woman in mules and a blue robe standing with Dick Bradley at the living-room fireplace. He hesitated, suddenly conscious of his shirt-sleeves, his day-old beard, the gun in the holster at his hip. This would be the mother, he thought. Ellie Bradley. He hoped they had told her why he was here. Although they were not facing each other, he wasn’t sure that she had seen him; her eyes were unrevealing shadows in the whiteness of her face. Even without make-up though, he saw that she was chic and elegant, with thin classic features in the fashion magazine style, and a cap of sleek yellow hair.

She put a hand suddenly on her husband’s arm. “Dick,” she said, and Crowley knew that she had seen him; instinctively she had crowded close against her husband.

“It’s all right, dear, don’t be upset.”

“Who is he?” Ellie said, and there was a tremor of hysteria in her voice.

Oliphant Bradley was standing a few feet from them, tall and straight and handsome, his appearance a tribute to healthy living, a number of active interests, and a very good tailor. He had been born to a tradition of duty, trained to make the unpopular decision and stick by it. But yesterday he had done what he felt was right, and now he was nervous and uncertain as he stared at the growing fear in Ellie’s eyes.

“My dear,” he said, making placating little gestures with his hands. “Ellie, my dear, it’s quite all right.”

The fools, Crowley thought. They might have spared her this...

“Who is he?” she cried, clinging to her husband’s arm.

“My name is Crowley, Mrs. Bradley. I’m an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’re working to bring your baby back home safe and sound.”

She shook her head slowly, as if he had just told her a preposterous lie. “That can’t be,” she said, in a soft puzzled voice. “They told us not to call the police. They said they’d kill our baby if we called the police.”

Dick Bradley held her close to him. “Honey, honey, everything is all right. We stand a better chance with the FBI.”

“But they told us not to call them.”

“We need help to find the men who kidnaped her.”

“I don’t care about them!” she cried. “I want my baby back!”

“Please, honey. Hang on to yourself. Father thought it was smarter to call in the police. It seems—”

She twisted herself from his arms with convulsive strength. “Your father,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “No, no,” she said. “No, Dick.”

The old man cleared his throat. “Ellie. I acted hastily, I admit that. I should have consulted with Dick. But time was precious, and I thought—”

“Stop it, stop it!” she cried, pressing her fingers to her temples.

“I acted with your interests at heart. You know that, Ellie.”

“How could you do it?” She shook her head desperately. “It’s Jill who’ll suffer. How could you do this to us?”

“My dear—”

“Oh, but it was easy for you, I’m sure,” she cried, turning on him with cold, deliberate fury. The change in her expression was sudden and shocking; she looked dangerous then, savage and pitiless, her eyes shining oddly in the marble-whiteness of her face. “You thought it was all for the best,” she said, in a low, trembling voice, “so that settled it. It’s my baby who is gone. She may be dead now, or crying for comfort and attention. It was our right to decide what to do. But you took over as you’ve always tried to do, with your college funds, and plans for schools and summer vacations and trips abroad. Only this time it’s her life—”

“Ellie!” her husband said hoarsely.

She ignored him; her dark, shining eyes were fixed on the old man. “If she’s killed will you still think you acted for the best?”

Crowley knew that nothing he could say would help the situation. She wouldn’t trust him or believe him; he was the law, the symbol of the new threat to her child. But changing the direction of her anger might help to dissipate it.

“Mrs. Bradley, the chances of getting your baby are better with our help,” he said. “A hundred trained men are working for you now. And a thousand more will be used if they’re needed. They know their jobs. They don’t often fail.”

She turned slowly to face him, and there was a touch of wonder in her eyes. “Yes, that’s how you would think of it,” she said. Then tension was gone from her body, her arms hung straight at her sides and she seemed hopelessly weary and despondent. “Winning and losing,” she said, in a soft, empty voice. “Keeping score. Put the losses in one column, the wins in another. And then add them up at the end of the year.”

Her husband touched her arm tentatively but she turned away from him and leaned against the mantel. From there she could see the dining room, cheerful and bright with the morning sun. The breakfast things were still on the table; silver creamer and sugar bowl, the jam pot. crumpled-up napkins. The Bradleys had breakfasted as usual, she thought, stifling a giddy impulse to laugh. That’s what breeding did for you, taught you to be orderly, taught you to keep busy...

Crowley saw that she was ready to break. He caught young Bradley’s eye. “Take her upstairs,” he said.

Bradley started at his tone. “Yes. yes, of course. Come on, honey, you need to rest.”

“Is that what I need?” she looked at him thoughtfully, as if she were memorizing his features.

“I’ll take you up to your room.”

“I can manage, thanks.” She crossed the room and went slowly up the stairs. The men stood in an uncomfortable silence, avoiding each other’s eyes.

“She’s very tired.” Oliphant Bradley said. He looked suddenly old and vulnerable. “I think — I believe she’ll feel differently when she’s rested — when this is over, that is.”

“I wonder,” Dick Bradley said.

It’s hardest on him, Crowley thought. He doesn’t have what she needs. It’s a tough thing to find out. If this hadn’t happened he probably wouldn’t have known...

“She was right,” Bradley said, staring at his father. “It was our decision. I didn’t have the guts to tell you that.”

“You’d have done the same thing, son. In my place you would have acted as I did.”

“I hope to God I wouldn’t. I hope I can let my children think for themselves. You can’t obviously. We didn’t want the FBI. Jill’s chances are better without police interference.”

“You’re wrong, son.”

“That’s my privilege then. Freedom includes the right to be wrong.” Dick Bradley turned suddenly on Crowley. “You heard me? We don’t want you here, we don’t need you.”

It would be nice if he could win this time, Crowley thought. But this wasn’t a game of bean-bag. This time he couldn’t win. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m telling you to clear out,” Bradley said, his voice rising shrilly.

“We’re not a catering service,” Crowley said. “You don’t get the FBI through an employment agency. We’re law officers, and a federal law has been violated. That’s why we’re here. That’s why a hundred men and a million dollars’ worth of equipment is standing by — to get your baby back home.”

Bradley tried to find an answer to this, but finally turned away with a dispirited shake of his head. There was nothing to say. nothing to do; his father’s decision would stand. This had been the pattern of his life.

In the silence that followed the chimes from the front door knocker sounded clamorously through the house. Crowley glanced at his watch: it was eight-thirty. “Mail?” he asked Bradley.

“Yes, yes,” Bradley said, already moving toward the foyer. His father started after him but Crowley caught his arm. “No point meeting the mailman in a group. It might give him something to wonder about.”

“I see... yes, of course,” the old man said, and there was a strange humility in his voice.

Dick Bradley returned with a bundle of bills, letters and magazines, but he was obviously too nervous to sort through them; his hands were trembling so badly that several pieces of mail slipped through his fingers. Crowley took the stack from him and retrieved those that had dropped to the floor.

He discarded bills and magazines quickly, and finally came to it, a cheap plain envelope with the name Bradley printed on it in block capitals. As he opened it he noted automatically that it had been posted in the city the night before. The message was also in block capitals, on a sheet of ruled, copybook paper. Crowley read the message aloud: “When you have the money in the house, close the Venetian blinds on the middle window in the front room upstairs from twelve to two p.m. The little girl is still fine.”

That was all.

Bradley was watching him with an expression of strained, haggard hope. “We’ve got the money,” he said. “There’s no need for any delay.”

“That’s right. We’ll follow these instructions to the letter.” Crowley turned and walked quickly into the study. He had two items to report to the Inspector: this note, and the fact that a telephone repairman had gone through the Bradleys’ house three weeks ago last Thursday...

But West didn’t get Crowley’s message until nine o’clock. He had spent the early hours of the morning driving through the Bradleys’ neighborhood, marking points of surveillance, checking the directions of traffic and familiarizing himself with the look and feel of the streets. When he returned Roth was standing at his desk, and the Inspector knew from his expression that something was up.

“Crowley called a half hour ago,” Roth said. “The second note arrived with the regular mail.” He handed West the memo sheet on which he had written the kidnap message.

West read it through, frowning faintly. “From twelve to two the streets will be crowded,” he said finally. “Anything else?”

Roth told him of the telephone repairman who had been at the Bradleys’.

“You’ve checked with the telephone company?” West asked him — but it was more a statement than question.

Roth nodded. “They’re looking up their records.”

West pushed his hat back on his forehead, a gesture that seemed curiously out of place with his usual precision and exactness. He hadn’t been to bed yet but there was no evidence of fatigue in his face; his color was fresh and his eyes were alert and clear. Around him work went on swiftly and efficiently; a half dozen agents sat at desks that fanned out from his command post. They were running cautious checks on individuals and families living in the Bradleys’ block on Thirty-first Street, using tax records and credit services as sources of information. From other desks the clatter of clerks’ typewriters almost drowned out the traffic noises drifting up from Broadway.

West stood facing a long table set in the middle of the headquarter’s area and bounded by irregular ranks of desks and filing cabinets. On the table, gleaming under the bright overhead lights, was a small-scale sketch of the Bradleys’ block done in black ink on a huge square of white cardboard. Spread around it were glossy prints of the adjoining area — doorways, shops and stores, parking lots, the church opposite the Bradleys’, the warehouse at Second Avenue.

West seemed unaware of the disciplined tension around him; he was studying his watch, a faint frown darkening his lean features. Finally he said to Roth, “Okay, we’ve got a little under three hours to work in. Starting at noon I want motion pictures taken of the street and sidewalk in front of the Bradleys’. Every car, every cab or truck that goes through there, every man, woman, child or dog that walks by — we’re going to have them on film. It’s a long shot. The kidnapers don’t have to check personally to see if the blinds are closed. They could hire a boy to do it for a quarter. They could drive by in a cab. Or they might be watching from a window across the street. It’s a long shot, but we’ll take it. Now let’s see where we can put cameras.”

The two men bent to study the small-scale sketch of Thirty-first Street that covered almost half of West’s desk. Finally Roth put his big forefinger on the church that faced the Bradleys’. “How about that?” he said, glancing sideways at West. “From the tower we’d have good coverage.”

West nodded slowly. “That’s okay. And Crowley’s uncle lives on the opposite side of the street. We can put another camera there.” Turning, he waved for a clerk. “Get Brunner in the photo lab. Tell him to come up right away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s a job I want you to start on,” West said to Roth. “The wife, Eleanor Sims. She’s from Chicago, and she’s worked here and in Milwaukee. Now she’s with an ad agency, Masterson and Thomas. I want a thorough check on her. Associates, family, men she’s dated, girls she’s shared apartments with, everything. Find out what agencies used to have the accounts she’s working on now. See about business feuds, ad people who might have her job if she were out of the picture. And keep working on the Bradleys. Who inherits that baby’s share of the old man’s money. That’s way out in left field, but check it anyway. And I want a run-down on every grocery boy, every deliveryman, every salesman who makes regular stops at the Bradleys’. Crowley gave me the list. Run it down.”

Roth had been making quick notes on a memo pad. “Right. I’ll get at it.” As he turned away an agent stood quickly and walked to the Inspector’s table. “The telephone company says they had no calls for service on the Bradleys’ phone. It wasn’t their man who was in the house.”

The Inspector nodded and sat down on the edge of his desk. He stared out across the long, busy room, at the men fishing patiently for information, at the rows of girls hammering away at typewriters. The comers of his eyes began to narrow slightly; it was an unconscious reaction, a reflex as old as man himself; it was the hunter’s reaction to the first sign of his quarry.