Rafferty was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments before he responded in a calm voice, “Well, John, I’m sure you’ll do what you must. When Mr. Kirchmeyer returns from droppin’ off the ransom, tell him I’ll see him again in the mornin’.”
“Tell him yourself,” O’Connor said, and went off to round up his men. It was going to be, he knew, a long night.
The following morning was to bring two great surprises. The first concerned the seemingly unaccountable disappearance of the ransom, a development that left Johann Kirchmeyer in a fury while O’Connor struggled to explain why he had violated the brewer’s express orders. Worst of all, Michael Kirchmeyer remained missing, and as the Dispatch stated, there was great fear for his well-being.
Not long after the newspaper’s story appeared, however, came a second development far more startling than the first. Just before noon, as Kirchmeyer paced the floor in his study, a servant rushed in.
“It is Mr. Rafferty,” he said excitedly, “and Michael is with him!”
The reunion that followed between young Kirchmeyer and his family was the sort of heartfelt occasion that members of the press, who had trailed Rafferty into the house like dogs on the scent of prime sirloin, were more than pleased to report upon. Johann Kirchmeyer fairly bounded down the stairs and wrapped his arms around Michael, a lanky young man who was a good half-foot taller and fifty pounds lighter than his father. Augusta Kirchmeyer, who had been confined to bed since the kidnapping, also made her way downstairs. At the sight of her son, she cried out, “Oh, Michael, my dear Michael, you are back,” and then promptly fell to the floor in a faint. Father and son went to her aid as reporters crowded around, furiously scribbling in their small notebooks.
Amid all of this commotion, Rafferty slipped away down a hallway to the kitchen, then climbed up the back stairs to the study where he had talked with Johann Kirchmeyer the day before. Rafferty took a seat by the window and gazed out across the green expanse of the river valley. He was not looking forward to the task that lay ahead of him.
When Johann Kirchmeyer entered the study half an hour later, his face was a study in puzzlement. “Mr. Rafferty, why are you not downstairs? The reporters are asking for you. They want to know how you achieved this miracle. But Michael told me you were here and wished to see me alone.”
Rafferty nodded as Kirchmeyer sat down in his favorite armchair. “Yes, there are some things you need to know, and the sooner the better. There is no way of sugarcoatin’ what I am about to tell you. I only ask that you hear me out, and then you can decide what is to be done.”
“Very well. I owe you that, at the least, for saving my son.”
“Ah, I fear I didn’t save the lad,” Rafferty said slowly. “’Twould be more accurate to say that I captured him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this, Mr. Kirchmeyer: Your son was not kidnapped and he is the criminal responsible for this whole sorry business.”
Kirchmeyer began to protest but Rafferty held up his hand. “Please, let me continue. Your son, I regret to tell you, staged his own abduction for the purpose of extortin’ money from you. For the past twenty-four hours, he’s been hidin’ out in an abandoned portion of your brewery caves. It was he who placed that ransom note on your front porch. He also wrote the second note and had it delivered here with the help of a confederate, whose name I have if you wish to know it.
“Now, as for why Michael acted as he did, I fear you will find his motive most troublin’. You were right in thinkin’ that he had run up debts in the gamblin’ den operated by Mr. Banion. But as it so happens, I know Red Banion well and I was able to confirm that your son had in fact been payin’ off what he owed, since Mr. Banion, being a cautious sort of fellow, would not extend Michael any great amount of credit. Trouble is, Michael had to get the money somewhere, and he got it at the brewery by stealin’ money and cookin’ the books, which he was in a position to do as your accountant.
“Unfortunately for him, he learned not long ago that his hand was about to be detected square in the middle of the cookie jar. As I understand it, you told him you were plan-nin’ an audit at the end of the fiscal year this month because of some irregularities you’d run across. That’s when Michael hit upon his desperate scheme. He’d pay back the money he owed, and maybe get a few thousand in spendin’ money as well, by extortin’ it from you. ’Twas certainly a brazen piece of work, I will say that for it.”
Kirchmeyer put his hand to his forehead and said, “No, I cannot believe Michael would ever be capable of such a thing.”
“Then you’d best take a look at this,” Rafferty replied, retrieving a folded sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his gaudy seersucker suit. “’Tis Michael’s confession, which I had him write out. I’m sure you will recognize that it is in his hand.”
Kirchmeyer took the paper and read it slowly. The more he read, the more blood seemed to drain from his face. By the time he was finished, he had the desperate, stricken look of a man who had just buried his child. “Michael,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Ach, my Michael, what have you done?”
Rafferty said, “I suppose you’ll be wonderin’ about the ransom. I have it. Michael was carryin’ it when I apprehended him outside the old cave entrance west of the brewery. I guessed that’s where he’d be sneakin’ out.”
“But how did he get his hands on it with all of those policemen watching?”
Rafferty smiled. “Ah, that was the true genius of his scheme. Michael had worked in the caves for a time and knew them well. I also recall that he had some experience as a surveyor, is that right?”
“Yes, he studied surveying, but what does that have to do with the caves?”
“Well, for Michael, it proved to be a handy skill. Because of his trainin’ as a surveyor, he was able to figure out that one of the old caves passes very close to the edge of the ravine on Lee Avenue. And that gave him a stroke of inspiration. He figured out that by diggin’ a short side tunnel no more than twenty feet long, he could punch a hole right into the floor of that shack. The sandstone down there is like hard sugar, as you well know, and a couple of men with a pick can cut through it easily. It probably took Michael and his confederate only a few nights to do the work. As they neared the ravine, they made the tunnel no bigger than a rabbit hole in hopes it wouldn’t be discovered. That’s why Michael was so insistent that the ransom money be put in a package of a certain size. He needed to be sure it would fit through the hole.”
“How did you find out about this tunnel?” Kirchmeyer asked.
“’Twas a bit of luck. You see, Michael used rocks and dirt to temporarily plug the hole, but he didn’t do quite a good enough job of it. When I came upon the shanty yesterday, I sat down on the bench while I was pokin’ through the fire pit. Lo and behold, I felt a cool, damp breeze—cave air—at my feet. And that’s when I had an idea that maybe, just maybe, somebody had come upon a foolproof way of gettin’ their hands on the ransom.”
“So you found the rabbit hole?”
“Well, I didn’t open it, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t want to scare away anybody who might be hidin’ out down there. But when the second ransom note arrived statin’ where the money was to be left, I knew I was right about a tunnel comin’ from the caves. The coppers never did figure it, since Michael did a better job of sealin’ the rabbit hole the second time around, after he’d got the money.”
Kirchmeyer said, “One thing is not clear to me. Did you suspect Michael from the very start?”
“No, I didn’t know for sure until I caught him skulkin’ out of the caves with the ransom money. He wasn’t happy to see me and I had to do some persuadin’ to keep him from tryin’ to run off. After that, it didn’t take long to wring the truth out of him. I can tell you he is mortified, though I’m inclined to think that the chief source of his unhappiness is that he got caught.”