Read For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago for Free Online

some of these drugstores on East 63rd Street, and see if you can’t find the one at which some word was left for Mr. Franks?”
    Despite Richard’s enthusiasm, Mayer hesitated; it seemed a quixotic mission to hazard an afternoon searching out such a faint target; and, anyway, he was already behind on his schoolwork and he had hoped to spend that afternoon studying.
    While Mayer hesitated, two others approached them. James Mulroy and Alvin Goldstein were alumni, contemporaries of Richard Loeb during his time at the university; now both were reporters for the Chicago Daily News .
    As they approached, Richard addressed Mayer a final time, nodding in the direction of Mulroy and Goldstein, “If you won’t take my proposition, why I will put it up to them.” 14
    What proposition, Mulroy asked? What scheme was Richard cooking up now?
    He had the idea, Richard replied, to find the drugstore to which the kidnappers had directed Jacob Franks. There had to have been some reason, he guessed, for Franks to go to 63rd Street.
    Would Mulroy and Goldstein care to go down to 63rd Street? It wouldn’t take long to search out the drugstores, Richard pleaded, perhaps only an hour if they went by car.
    It was raining outside; they could see a steady drizzle coming down and no sign that the weather would change for the better. But Mulroy and Goldstein were eager, and Mayer, anxious that he might be scooped, abandoned his schoolwork for another day. 15
    By the time they had reached Blackstone Avenue, the rain was pouring down. They had already scouted out several drugstores along 63rd Street, having worked their way west from Stony Island Avenue, but there was nothing, no clue, to indicate that they had found the kidnappers’ drugstore. Mulroy was discouraged and at Blackstone Avenue he announced that he would wait in the car; if the others wished to continue looking, that was their business, but he was ready to return to the university. 16
    While Alvin Goldstein checked out the cigar store on the other side of the street, Richard and Howard Mayer went together to the Ross drugstore on the corner.
    Richard interrogated the porter, James Kemp. Had he received any phone calls yesterday afternoon from someone asking for Mr. Franks? 17
    Yes, Kemp replied; it had been around two-thirty. He had answered the phone himself, while he had been at the back of the store, cleaning up. A man’s voice had been on the other end of the line. “The man asked for Mr. Franks,” Kemp explained to Richard. “I told him I didn’t know Mr. Franks and then he asked me to look around the store. He gave me a very detailed description of Mr. Franks, even to saying that probably he would be smoking a cigarette.” But no one answering the description had been in the store, and the caller had hung up. 18
    Richard turned to Mayer in triumph; his guess had worked out. “You see, I told you we could find it. Now you have got a scoop.”
    He stood at the door of the pharmacy; the rain had eased off. Alvin Goldstein stood by the car talking to James Mulroy through the open window. Richard waved at the two reporters excitedly; he shouted for them to come over, “This is the place!” 19
    As they drove back to the university, Mulroy and Richard talked together in the rear of the car. Mulroy had not realized before that Richard Loeb and Bobby Franks had been second cousins. Mulroy was surprised also at Richard’s knowledge of the murder; he seemed to know more about the killing than anyone else Mulroy had met. Mulroy was curious to learn more about Bobby Franks. The principal of the Harvard School had said that Bobby was one of the best students in the school and an excellent athlete—had Bobby been as good as everyone claimed?
    Richard replied caustically that he had never had much regard for his fourteen-year-old cousin; he remembered Bobby as an arrogant boy, accustomed to having his own way, spoiled and selfish. “If I was going to murder anybody,” Richard