Kerman and I spent hours at Police Headquarters being questioned and cross-questioned by a furious, purple-faced fist-pounding Brandon, and later by two quiet Federal agents who took us apart, laid us on the desk, poked us about with long inquisitive fingers, and weren’t over-fussy how they put is together again.
We were bullied and threatened and cursed. We had fists shaken in our faces. Necks swelled, eyes turned bloodshot and spittle flew in all directions with the intensity of trying to get a clue out of us. But we hadn’t a clue to give out.
I couldn’t move ten yards on the streets without some visiting Pressman letting off a camera in my face. Kerman, described as ‘the man who saw the ransom taken,’ was badgered from dusk to dawn for his autograph, his nail-pairings, locks of his hair and clippings from his suit by wild-eyed, sensation-hungry souvenir-seekers until he was scared to leave the safety of the office.
The massive gates of Ocean End were closed. The telephone was disconnected. A quiet, deathly hush hung over the place.
Rumour had it that Serena Dedrick had collapsed and was seriously ill.
All day long aircraft circled overhead, searching the sand dunes, the foothills and the approaches of the city. Every road was patrolled. A house-to-house inquiry was set on foot; sus-picious characters were rounded up and questioned; a squad of police went into Coral Gables, the east-end district of the city, and checked over the more disreputable inhabitants.
The activity was enormous, but for all the efforts made by the Federal agents, the police, state troopers, the Army and hundreds of amateur investigators, neither Lee Dedrick the kidnappers were found.
Then, on the fifth morning, Serena snapped out of her grief and took a hand in the hunt herself. It was announced through the Press and over the radio that she would pay a twentythousand-dollar reward to anyone giving information that would lead to the arrest of the kidnappers, and a thousand-dollar reward for any information remotely connected with kidnapping.
The result of this announcement turned practically every citizen, except the wealthy, into amateur detectives and made Orchid City a temporary hell on earth.
It was on the sixth night after the ransom had been paid that I let myself into my quiet little cabin, thankful to get away from the strident hubbub of the hunt, with the intension of locking the door and getting myself a little peace and an early night in bed.