Anne wrote that, "C was late in coming home."16 The arrival was approximately 35 minutes after Betty Gow had last checked the child.
Lindbergh never explained why he had arrived home late that evening. At the trial he explained his occupation as "aviation" and made vague reference to having been in New York that day on business. No further details or explanation were ever offered by him or elicited on crossexamination concerning his own actions that day.
The situation in Hopewell was ripe for a Charles Lindbergh "practical joke" against Anne. She was alone, cutoff from her mother, family and the other staff at Next Day Hill. Even Betty Gow was not with her. During weekends she alone was responsible for the care of the child.
If Lindbergh had kept to his usual schedule he would have arrived home at approximately 7:45 p.m. That would have allowed him plenty of time to pull in the driveway approximately 100 yards from the road, (but still out of sight of the home) and park his car. Since he was the owner of the house and discovery of his "prank" at that time would not have been damaging to him, and since he knew that no one else was expected, there was no need to park along the road and forsake the easier access the driveway afforded. He would have had plenty of time to remove the child through the window with the warped shutters in preparation for some sort of later dramatic presentation of the child. Perhaps he planned a front door arrival with the announcement, "Look who I had with me in New York all day."
For a person who had made a career of wing walking and hanging from airplanes by his teeth, who was unfazed by a double jump on his first parachute drop, climbing a ladder at night was nothing. For a person who would carry a bed up to a roof at night, carrying a child down a ladder would be easy.
But unlike with the sergeant's bed, this time Lindbergh miscalculated. The ladder broke and the child was dropped to the granite ledge below. The impact crushed his skull, causing instant death.
Lindbergh would have immediately grasped his quandary.
To reveal the truth, to go to the front door and tell his wife, "I was taking our 20 month old child out of his second floor window over my shoulder and down a ladder in a windstorm at night as a joke and I dropped him and here's your dead baby," was unthinkable. He would be a fool, not only in front of his wife and inlaws but in the eyes of the whole world. All he had accomplished for his own reputation would be gone. In one instant he would be transformed from the American Hero to the American Buffoon. Charles Lindbergh would never allow it.
He had begun this prank as a kidnapping and he would see it through as such. There were enough ransom kidnappings that this one would be plausible. He had lived in Mount Rose while supervising the construction of the Hopewell house and knew the woods there. He would drive there, leave the body, and return to play out the role of the father as victim in a real kidnapping.
Lindbergh could have gathered up the body, retreated down the driveway, bundled the body into the rear of the car, backed out of the driveway, and driven off. Once in Mount Rose he would have to leave the body hurriedly. He could not take a chance on any delay which would be occasioned by digging a grave. Nor, since he had not planned on having to dig one, would he have had any shovel or similar implement with him. He could not go too far, as he would want to minimize his own tardiness in arriving home. A half hour delay would be tolerable.
The spot where the body was found was less than three miles south of Hopewell, in the opposite direction from New York City. Lindbergh parked by the side of the road and brought the body a short distance into the woods where he lay the child in a depression on top of the ground.
He could easily return by 8:25 p.m., when he would honk his horn as he drove up the driveway to assure that everyone in the household would notice this arrival.
Lindbergh now merely had to do five things. First, he had to make sure that he did not find the empty crib, for if he did, his past history of pranks and in particular his having previously hidden the child would focus suspicion right on him. This would mean he could not enter the nursery until the child was discovered missing by someone else.
Two, he had to set the time of the "kidnap" so that it occurred when he had an alibi with the person most likely to suspect him: Anne herself.
Three, to complete the kidnap scenario he had to get a ransom note into the nursery. This would be especially hazardous since he could not afford to risk entering the nursery until after the baby was discovered missing.
Four, he had to do something about the "fingerprint problem" once the police were involved. Since the prank had never been intended to go this far he would not have bothered to wear gloves during his initial window entrance to the nursery. But now that the child was dead and he was going to continue with a kidnap story the police would be involved. Lindbergh knew that the first thing they would do would be to dust the note and nursery for fingerprints. He had to make sure that his prints were not on the note he would write, a task he could easily accomplish.
However, the problem with the nursery was more difficult. A dusting of that room would not only reveal the lack of any stranger's prints but would also reveal Lindbergh's on surfaces where they would not ordinarily be expected including the window, windowsill, sash, etc. All such traces would have to be removed. The room would have to be wiped before the police arrived.
Five, he had to consistently play the role of the father as victim and make sure that suspicion focused anywhere but on him.
If he followed those five steps faithfully he would be all right. He had pulled off the other stunts, he had flown blind into blizzards over Chicago and parachuted to safety, he had cut his engine and skimmed the Mississippi before restarting, he had flown solo across the Atlantic, in what, by contemporary standards, was not much more than a motorized hang glider. He could pull this one off too.
The first step, to avoid finding the empty crib, was easy. Upon reentering the house shortly after 8:25 p.m. he immediately realized that the disappearance had not yet been discovered. He went upstairs and washed up. However, even though the bathroom was adjacent to the nursery he did not enter it to "check" on his child.
He returned downstairs where he and Anne ate supper. Afterwards he steered Anne into his study directly under the child's nursery.
It was here at approximately 9:15 p.m., while the wind continued to blow outside, that Charles interrupted the conversation by asking, "What was that?" Anne had not heard anything. The Whatelys never heard anything. Betty Gow never heard anything. The high strung terrier Wahgoosh never barked.
Only Charles Lindbergh claimed to have heard something, a sound he later described alternately as a snapping sound or as wooden crates falling. He knew the wooden ladder lay outside in the mud with a broken rail. He needed to establish the time of the break to a moment when he had an alibi. He did, and the second part of his plan was complete. At approximately 9:20 p.m., Anne and Charles went upstairs where they spoke briefly in Anne's bedroom. Charles left and drew a bath in the upstairs bathroom. Again he did not use the occasion to enter the adjacent nursery. Anne remained in her bedroom writing.
The bath was important for Charles. It allowed him to assure that any remaining tell tale evidence was removed from his person and also gave him additional time to collect his thoughts.
After his bath, Charles descended to his study where he remained alone with his pens, his writing paper and his envelopes. He had to complete the third part: the ransom note. Yet he was in a tough situation because he dared not risk planting the note until after the disappearance was discovered.
At Hauptmann's trial the chief handwriting expert for the prosecution, Albert Osborne, testified that the original nursery note had been written in a disguised hand. Lindbergh wrote the note, disguising his handwriting all
