Nursery Details

During the show, we are invited into the nursery to see the lay out, as Anne and Betty put Charlie to bed that night.  Good atmosphere.  Then we also see a glimpse of a foot entering the room through the window that, the show says, was unlocked.  Right, and it is unclear from all reports whether the window was open a bit, or down.  When Betty comes into the nursery to discover the child missing, she says she closed the window. Presumably, since she was not suspicious at that point, it had been left up.  Good thing, too, for the kidnappers (now we can officially use the plural after last night), because had it been locked the whole thing would have been a no go.  For here is John Douglas in the show describing the scene as a group -- two or three -- as very nervous guys, drawing strength from one another.  (Of course, as he says at another point, if there was inside help, their nervousness presumably would have been a whole lot less -- a whole lot) 

But wait, there are some things missing from the nursery!  The screen that shielded the crib from strong winds is not there.  The perps would have had to go around that screen.  Either that or Betty moved it aside earlier - but if she did that before the window was closed, Anne or Charles might have scolded her, might they not?  So the screen was probably there (I won't say 100% sure, but 80?).  That would make me nervous, how about you?  (But showing it was too difficult, I am told, for the camera work - but those of us deeply interested, the point needs to be made.)

Then we have the famous safety pins that Jafsie swiped when he came down to Highfields and entered the case. They are not shown in the show.   They fastened the blanket to the mattress at Charlie's neck level.  And people puzzled over how the child was yanked out of bed leaving the blanket pinned to the mattress.  Another problem, unless you were sure, very sure what you were doing.  All in all this is quite an obstacle course, starting with the difficulty of making a silent entry into the nursery, moving across the floor, moving aside the screen, and taking the child out of its confined position.  Good thing everyone was downstairs, and that everyone knew that the child was not to be disturbed between 8 and 10.  (Wonder if Violet conveyed that to her mystery person -- that not only would they be there, not only would Col Lindbergh be coming back early, and not only that when he was there, orders were not to disturb Charlie).  It all works so well.  Instead of a bell tolling in the background to tell us the exact time, of course, but we have the sound of an orange crate falling on the floor that only Col. Lindbergh appears to hear.  Wow, we wouldn't know when it happened otherwise, would we?  Would we!

Next up more minor details.