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Three nights after the kidnaping, Raymond waited nervously in a dark alleyway near the Arc de Triomphe. Eric's father approached, carrying a satchel containing $100,000 in small bills. When he heard the password, "Keep the key," he dropped the satchel, turning just in time to catch a glimpse of Raymond as he made off. Next morning, young Eric was found, unharmed, in front of a cafe near home.
10,000 Missions. The kidnapers disposed of all clues by burning the kidnap car and dropping their typewriter into the Seine. Pierre and Raymond decided that life was, at last, loverly. Pierre got a Studebaker and a small Fiat; Raymond bought a Peugeot, a Chevrolet Impala and a Thunderbird. Their girl friends, Ingelise and Rolande, blossomed out in new clothes.
The police, with little to go on, still plugged away at solving the kidnaping.
Detectives made 10,000 checkups, ranging from France and Spain to Turkey and the U.S. Some 1,500 persons were questioned, 1,500 Peugeot sedans were searched, 2,000 tips investigated. The international police organization, Interpol, sent out 100,000 lists of the bank-note numbers on the payoff money.
Six months after the snatch, a tipster went to Interpol's Paris headquarters and told of two men with no visible means of support who were rolling in money. The two: Pierre Larcher and Raymond Rolland. Investigating, the police called on Raymond's ex-wife and learned that early last April, Raymond had borrowed her Hermes typewriter and never returned it.
The Six Children. Three weeks ago, police tailed the two and their girl friends to Mégéve, a fashionable ski resort near the Swiss border. Raymond rented a picturesque eleven-room chalet, and they all moved in. Along with them was Medical Student Jean-Simon Rotman. who once lived in the same rooming house as Raymond. He. too. soon found a girl: a Franco-Japanese stripper named Mitsouko. The three couples lived it up in bar and bistro. When Ingelise Bodin was chosen "Miss Courcheval" at a nearby resort, they celebrated with a restaurant party. Raymond was amused to discover that among fellow vacationers at Mégéve were little Eric and his parents. They frequently passed in the street or sat near one another in bars. (Larcher smirked later: "I've always had a taste for risks.")
Declined Wager. In Paris, the methodical police finally tracked down some letters that Raymond's ex-wife had typed on her missing Hermes. They matched exactly the ransom notes sent the Peugeots. Last week the police moved in on the chalet and arrested Raymond Rolland and Ingelise in bed. Their companions, who had already set off for Paris, were picked up on the road. After 45 hours' interrogation, Raymond Rolland fainted, was revived with smelling salts, and then confessed. Pierre Larcher soon confessed too. Frogmen dove into the Seine and recovered the Hermes typewriter where Raymond said he had thrown it; the last $11,500 of the ransom money was found locked in the trunk of Larcher's Fiat.