THE KIDNAPPING ACCORDING TO PAT CROWE
Continued from: More Dastardly Deeds
While newspaper stories flew off presses like feathers in front of a fan, reported accounts of the kidnapping of young Edward Cudahy, captivated America. The stories were so varied and numerous it was all but impossible to determine which ones were accurate. Here's Pat's account of what (supposedly) actually transpired:
From the Autobiography of Pat Crowe:
When December finally arrived, Pat Crowe had everything ready for kidnaping young Cudahy. He had even written out the letter demanding the ransom, which he set at six hundred thousand dollars, and this epistle was hidden in a rent in the wall paper of the room in the Melrose Street house, to be taken from that spot only after their victim was in the room, and then sent to his father.
With characteristic effrontery, Crowe and Calahan used to ride up near the Cudahy home, where Pat would sit in the buggy with the top raised, and Calahan would stand on the pavement a short distance from the gate with one foot on the hub of the wheel, smoking and discoursing animatedly with his confederate, while they familiarized themselves with the habits of the sixteen- year-old boy. At other times they lurked at the end of the street and watched where he went when he left the house, how long he was absent. In short, nothing that could serve to make their base ends successful was overlooked.
Cudahy Mansion
On the evening of the 18th of December, 1900, when the old earth was within three days of its darkest and longest nights, Calahan and Crowe drove up to the residence of Mr. Cudahy and Calahan, the former locomotive engineer, stepped out and stood smoking, his foot on the wheel, as usual. From there Calahan and Crowe could see the boy in the billiard room. Then he left this room and went upstairs.
Presently, he came out.
"Get into the buggy," said Crowe to Calahan.
"We'll get him now." They drove up the street as young Cudahy walked down to the gate and turned around. The unsuspecting boy walked down the street. A big collie dog followed him.
"I don't think that's him," said Calahan.
"Damn you," savagely retorted Crowe, "I know that's him, for I know that dog. He's not going to get on the street car or the dog would not go along with him for dogs are not allowed on the cars."
He walked down the street, turned toward his home, the dog gamboling alongside. Crowe drove across Farnum Street quite close behind, and when less than half a block from the Cudahy home, Calahan vaulted from the buggy, stepped to the sidewalk, and as he did so, Crowe called from the buggy (whose top was always up), just one word: "Eddie!"
The boy turned and looked. Calahan stepped forward, turning back the lapel of his coat on which was an imitation deputy-sheriff's badge, saying:
"Eddie McGee, I want you. We are officers, deputy sheriffs from Sarpy County. You escaped from the reform school and we have come to take you back."
The youth smiled as Calahan drew close to him and looked up.
"You are mistaken, sir," said he. "I'm not Eddie McGee. I'm Eddie Cudahy and I live right there." He pointed toward the house.
"You're a liar!" said Calahan gruffly.
"Tell it to the chief. Get in there," he added, as Crowe piloted the buggy close to the curb.
"I know you," added Calahan, taking off the boy's cap and scanning him with a ferocious glare.
"I live right there," protested the boy, although he did not blanch nor raise his voice.
"Oh, we know you, Eddie," said Crowe. "Get in here. We're going to the police station with you."
The boy complied. At this instant the dog leaped up behind the buggy, placing its forefeet there an instant, then it dragged, ran, vaulted the fence, and leaped up against the lower windows of the mansion, barking like mad! This was the only witness to the actual kidnapping. Then he came charging back again, this time with his feet against the rear of the buggy, snarling and barking, to Calahan's intense trepidation.
"Don't shoot him," said Crowe. "Kid, tell that dog to go home."
As they had turned the corner as if to drive to the police station, Eddie Cudahy obeyed. The dog was reluctant, but obeyed. They drove two blocks. Then Crowe slipped his own overcoat around the lad's head. The boy could breathe, but if he yelled they could stifle his cry without anyone seeing what was really happening inside that buggy top. They twisted and turned, this way and that, to prevent the lad afterward remembering directions, and then sped to the Melrose Street house, which was reached in a short time without incident.
Just before they reached the place a muffled voice said: "I know what you fellows want."
"What do we want?" queried Pat Crowe innocently.
"You want some of dad's money." Then he added: "Dad thinks a lot of me."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Crowe.
"Don't be long about it," said the muffled voice again. "Mother will be worried if I am long away. I am sixteen years old now and I am to go to college next year."
And thus their captive entered the Melrose Hill prison-house. He was not afraid. From first to last, he was as cool as Pat Crowe himself at his best - or worst! They learned that later. For, even while being led to the room ready for him, the boy used his ears, although he could not use his eyes.
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The papers were screaming the story. Three thousand vengeful employees of the Cudahy Packing Company had quit work in a body, and were scouring the whole countryside. Chief of Police Donahue was at the Cudahy home. Yet Pat was quite sure the precious and all-important letter had not been found. Perhaps the dog had scented his handiwork and carried the thing out of sight.
Cudahy Meat Packing Plant
He rode to a telephone at a secluded place, entered the store, walked to the far end, out of earshot of the proprietor and called the Cudahy home. It was now about nine o'clock in the forenoon. Chief Donahue's voice came clear to the bandit on the wire when he got Cudahy's number.
Police Chief John Donahue
"Is Mr. Cudahy there?" asked Pat.
"Yes. Who wants him?"
"Get away from the phone and put him on the wire."
Mr. Cudahy took the instrument. Pat knew his voice when he said, "Hello!"
"Did you get that letter?" asked Pat.
"Just got it. Say, I want to talk with you."
"Follow the instructions."
Edward Cudahy, Sr.
Pat hung up. Then he rode away.
Before darkness fell, he was hidden in the brush on top of a small hill barely two and a half miles from Omaha. The pursuing parties had been suddenly withdrawn. Pat could see that from the Melrose Hill house, as the men returned to the big Cudahy plant, whose works and railroad, with their strident midget locomotives that steamed up and down, day and night, from this point of vantage. He ran little or no risk, yet he had taken precautions before he left the house. Calahan's old weakness was reasserting itself. So, although Pat had given his pal a drink from a flask he himself carried, he had also said to the boy:
"If this man gets drunk, don't try to steal the key from his pocket and get away, for there's another man just outside the door who will blow your head off if you try to come out. And there are two more downstairs, one at the foot of the stairs and another patrol- ling the house."
Young Cudahy shrugged his shoulders. Then he lighted a cigarette. The floor was littered with the butts.
"I'm going out to meet your father," said Pat. "I won't be gone long. When I come back, I'm going to take you home."
"Don't be longer than you have to be," said the captive nonchalantly.
"I won't," said Pat Crowe.
From where Pat Crowe stood, he could see the country as plainly as the darkness would allow, and the road below was just a deep gash cut through the hills, at the end of a bridge over the Little Papio River. He had timed things accurately. He knew almost to a second when the red light should come twinkling into view in the distance, and it came on time.
Pat walked down to the road, lighted his lantern, which was there out of view until after the bridge was crossed. If two vehicles instead of one crossed the bridge, Pat could slip down and extinguish the light, climb back up the bank and then let them drive past. A man might be found at a particularly designated spot, but not every foot of a forty-mile long road could be covered. There was his safety as well as the darkness and the father love.
The Cudahy carriage was quite alone. Pat recognized the coachman's figure. It crossed the bridge. It came in view of the lantern. Pat pulled his Betseys. His horse was hitched in a hollow below, quite handy. If police got out of that carriage, they would be dead or wounded men in a flash of gunfire and he would gallop away.
The coach stopped. The coachman said: "Here's a lantern, sir."
"See if it is the right one," said Mr. Cudahy.
"Yes, sir," said the coachman, after comparing the black and white ribbon.
"Put the money there," said Mr. Cudahy.
Another man emerged from the carriage. He was manager of Mr. Cudahy's South Omaha plant. He placed the valise at the lantern. Mr. Cudahy then stepped from the carriage. The manager lifted the rear of the vehicle while the coachman led the horses by their bits to turn it around in the narrow cut through which the road ran. Then Mr. Cudahy and the other man reentered, the coachman drove rapidly away and Pat came down and got the messenger's sack.
It had the usual straps with fine steel chains running beneath them, the canvas bags contained the yellow gold in twenties, the letter demanding the ransom and a courteous note from Mr. Cudahy, saying that if he had found the letter before summoning the police, he would not have asked for aid in locating his missing son. He asked that the boy be returned at once, as his mother was in a sad state owing to his absence.
Pat rode back to the Melrose Street house by the same road he had come to the rendezvous. He was not seen. He put the money in a manure pile, covering it with a wheat sack in which he had carried the lantern to the rendezvous. The lantern had been put where it would never be found, and the wheat sack hid sight of the bank messenger's valise on the trip in. It weighed ninety-six pounds and Pat was very thankful he had discounted the ransom to twenty-five thousand dollars, because of the weight it would have entailed, had he insisted on the six hundred thousand dollars.
He went into the house. Calahan was on the floor of the room. The door was not even locked. Calahan was snoring, completely inebriated. Young Cudahy was lighting another of his eternal cigarettes.
"All right, boys," Crowe called over his shoulder to the imaginary guardians below and outside. "We're going to take the boy home. Take the money with you."
He kicked Calahan in the ribs. That worthy inebriate arose shamefacedly. "Blindfold the boy," said Crowe curtly. "I've got the buggy waiting."
Calahan did. He was a very sober man when Crowe and he took Eddie down the stairs, with the overcoat over his head, as before. They drove to within two blocks of the Cudahy residence, when Crowe got out, took off the coat and then the bandage.
"Do you know where you are, Eddie?" he asked. The boy blinked and looked around.
"Yes. Give me another cigarette," said he. He lighted it, puffed and then said: "So long, fellows," and started for his home.
They returned to the Melrose Street house and removed every vestige of the curtains and sparse furniture, taking it as well as the money. Crowe drove his pony to a city dump, pushed the paraphernalia out into it, drenched it with kerosene, lighted it and then drove away, leaving it to be consumed and covered by the next load of debris that was hauled out. The evidence was nix!
Pat only thought it was.
He drove Calahan to his sister's and gave him half the gold. Then he drove to a dairy farm of a trusted friend and buried his own. He had about ten thousand dollars in currency remaining from raids in a money belt about his person. He stabled the pony at this farm and hid the buggy. Then he hid out himself. Next day, the papers shrieked the return of the boy. Also a reward offered by his father of thirty thousand dollars for the capture and conviction of the kidnappers. That night the city council of Omaha' added twenty-five thousand dollars more, making the grand total of fifty-five thousand dollars. Next day the papers shrieked: "Pat Crowe Suspected. Police Have Clew!" And the next, young Edward A. Cudahy, worthy son of a fighting but sapient sire, cool as ever, found the Melrose Hill house.
"I know this is the place," said the boy to Chief Donahue, "for here are all the cigarette butts I smoked while in this room. They blinded my eyes, but they made a mistake by not putting cotton in my ears also. I knew from the echo of feet that it was an empty house. I knew from the whistle of our packing plant and those of the locomotives that I wasn't far away."
Donahue stooped and gathered the cigarette butts. "Would you know the men again?" he asked.
Young Cudahy laughed. "How could I ever forget that drunk!" he exclaimed. "And the other chap, too, I'd know among a million."
Whereupon, Pat Crowe left Omaha by night, riding his dependable pony over the bridge to Council Bluffs.
To be Continued: Pat Disappears?
