This time Whitla decided to be rid of the police. He accordingly had his representatives announce that all activities would cease for the time being, in the hope that the kidnappers would regain their confidence and reopen communications. At the same time he told the Ashtabula police to resume their activities. With these two false leads given out, Whitla slipped away from his home, caught the train, and went straight to Cleveland.
Late that afternoon, having satisfied himself that he had eluded the overzealous officers, Whitla went to Dunbar’s drug store and found the note waiting, as promised. It contained nothing but further directions. He was to proceed to a confectionery conducted by a Mrs. Hendricks at 1386 East Fifty-third Street, deliver the ransom, carefully done into a package, to the woman in charge. He was to tell her the package should be held for Mr. Hayes, who would call.
Whitla went at once to the candy store, turned over the package of ten thousand dollars to Mrs. Hendricks, and was given a note in return. This missive instructed him to go forthwith to the Hollenden Hotel, where he was to wait for his boy. The promise was made that the child would be returned within three hours.
It was about five o’clock when this exchange was made. The tortured father turned and went immediately to the Hollenden, one of the chief hostelries of Cleveland, engaged a room and waited. An hour passed. His anxiety became intolerable. He went down to the lobby and began walking back and forth, in and out of the doors, up and down the walk, back into the hotel, up to his room and back to the office. Several noticed his nervousness and preoccupation, but only a lone newspaper man identified him and kept him under watch.
Seven o’clock came and passed. At half past seven the worn lawyer’s agitation increased to the point of frenzy. He could do no more than retire to a quiet corner of the lobby, huddle himself into a big chair, and sink into the half stupor of exhaustion.
A few minutes before eight o’clock the motorman of a Payne Avenue street car saw a man and a small boy come out of the gloom at a street corner in East Cleveland and motion him to stop. The man put the child aboard and gave the conductor some instructions, paying its fare, and immediately vanished in the darkness. The little boy, wearing a pair of dark goggles and a large yellow cap that was pulled far down over his ears, sat quietly in the back seat and made not a sound.
A few squares further along the line two boys of seventeen or eighteen years boarded the car and were immediately intrigued by the glum little figure. The newcomers, whose names were Edward Mahoney and Thomas W. Ramsey, spoke to the child, vaguely suspicious that this might be the much-sought Willie Whitla. When they asked his name the lad said he was Willie Jones. In response to other questions he told that he was on his way to meet his father at the Hollenden.
The two young men said no more till the hotel was reached. Here they insisted on leaving the car with the boy and at once called a policeman to whom they voiced their suspicions. The officer, the two youths, and the child thus entered the hotel and approached the desk. In response to further interrogation, the little fellow still insisted that he was Jones, but, being deprived of his big cap and goggles and called Willie Whitla, he asked:
“How did you know me? Where is my daddy?”
The gloomy man in the corner chair got one tinkle of the childish voice, ran across the big room, caught up the child and rushed hysterically to his own apartment, where he telephoned at once to the boy’s mother. By the time the attorney could be persuaded to come back down stairs, a crowd was gathered, and the father and child were welcomed with cheers.