Robert Alter - 101 Mystery Stories

Tonight, at the routine hour, Dr. Agon had failed to telephone the President. The President had then called Agon, and Agon’s phone had rung unanswered. A call to the Agon residence had elicited the information from the physicist’s wife that, as far as she knew, her husband was working as usual in his laboratory in The Tower.

“That’s when the President phoned General Carter,” Dr. Dunwoody wailed. “It happens that the General was closeted with me in my office — a, well, a personal matter — and that’s where the President reached him. When General Carter heard that you were on campus, Mr. Queen, he asked me to fetch you. He’s gone ahead to The Tower.”

Ellery accelerated. If Dr. Agon’s experiments involved the President of the United States and General Amos Carter, any threat to the safety of the physicist would, like the shot fired by the rude bridge that arched the flood, echo round the world.

He found the entrance to the ten-story aluminum-and-glass Tower defended by a phalanx of campus police. But the lobby was occupied by three people: General Amos Carter; a harassed-looking stalwart in uniform, the special guard on Tower night duty; and a young woman of exceptional architecture whose pretty face was waxen and lifeless.

“But my husband,” the young woman was saying, like a machine — a machine with a Continental accent. “You have no right, General. I must see my husband.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Agon,” General Carter said. “Oh, Ellery—”

“What’s happened to Dr. Agon, General?”

“I found him dead. Murdered.”

“Murdered?” The crimson in Chancellor Dunwoody’s cheeks turned to ashes. “Pola. Pola, how dreadful.”

General Carter stood like a wall. “It’s dreadful in more ways than one, Doctor. All Agon’s notes on his experiments have been stolen. Ellery, for the next few minutes I can use your advice.”

“Of course, General. First, though, if I may... Mrs. Agon, I understand from Dr. Dunwoody that you’re a scientist in your own right, a laboratory technician in Bethesda’s physics department. Were you assisting your husband in his experiments?”

“I know nothing of them,” Pola Agon’s mechanical voice said. “I was a refugee, and although I am now a naturalized citizen and have security clearance, it is not for such high priority work as Herbert was doing.”

Dr. Dunwoody patted the young widow’s hand and she promptly burst into unscientific tears. The chancellor’s arm sneaked about her. Ellery’s brows went aloft. Then, abruptly, he turned to General Carter and the guard.

The top floor of The Tower, he learned, consisted of two rooms: the laboratory and the private office that housed Dr. Agon’s secret project for the Pentagon. It was accessible by only one route, a self-service, nonstop elevator from the lobby.

“I suppose no one may use this elevator without identification and permission, Guard?”

“That’s right, sir. My orders are to sign all visitors bound for the top floor in and out of this visitors’ book. There’s another book, just like it, in Dr. Agon’s office, as a further check.” The guard’s voice lowered. “There was only one visitor tonight, sir. Take a look.”

Ellery took the ledger. He counted 23 entries for the week. The last name — the only one dated and timed as of that evening — was James G. Dunwoody.

“You saw Dr. Agon tonight, Doctor?”

“Yes, Mr. Queen.” The chancellor was perspiring. “It had nothing to do with his work, I assure you. I was with him only a few minutes. I left him alive—”

The General snapped, “Guard?” and the guard at once stepped over to block the lobby exit, feeling for his holster. “You go on up to Agon’s office, Ellery, and see what it tells you — it’s all right, I’ve locked the laboratory door.” The General turned his grim glance on the head of Bethesda University and the murdered man’s widow. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

General Carter stepped out of the elevator and said, “Well, Ellery?”

Ellery straightened up from the physicist’s office desk. He had found Agon’s body seated at the desk and slumped forward, a steel letter-knife sticking out of his back. The office was a shambles.

“Look at this, General.”

“Where’d you find that? ”

“In Agon’s right fist, crumpled into a ball.”

Ellery had smoothed it out. It was a small square memorandum slip, in the center of which something had been written in pencil. It looked like a script letter of the alphabet:

“E,” General Carter said. “What the devil’s that supposed to mean?”

Ellery’s glance lifted. “Then it isn’t a symbol connected with the project, General — code letter, anything like that?”

“No. You mean to tell me Agon wrote this before he died?”

“Apparently the stab wasn’t immediately fatal, although Agon’s killer might have thought it was. Agon must have revived, or played dead, until his killer left, and then, calling on his remaining strength, penciled this symbol. If it has no special meaning for you, General, then we’re confronted with a dying message in the classic tradition — Agon’s left a clue to his murderer’s identity.”

The General grunted at such outlandish notions. “Why couldn’t he have just written the name?”

“The classic objection. The classic reply to which is that he was afraid his killer might come back, notice it, and destroy it,” Ellery said unhappily, “which I’ll admit has never really satisfied me.” He was scowling at the symbol in great puzzlement.

General Carter fell back on orderly facts. “All I know is, only one person came up here tonight, and that was Dunwoody. I happen to know that Dunwoody’s in love with Pola Agon. In fact, they had a blowup about it at the Agons’ house last night — Agon himself told me about it, and that’s why I was in Dunwoody’s office this evening. I don’t give a damn about these people’s private lives, but Agon was important to the United States, and I couldn’t have him upset. Dunwoody admits he lost his temper when Agon accused him of making a play for Mrs. Agon — called Agon a lot of nasty names. But he claims he cooled down overnight, and came up here tonight to apologize to Agon.

“For my money,” the General went on grimly, “Dunwoody came up her tonight to kill Agon. It’s my hunch that this Pola Agon is a cleverly planted enemy agent, out after Agon’s experimental notes. She’s played Mata Hari to Dunwoody — she’s sexy enough! — and got him to do her dirty work. It wouldn’t be the first time an old fool’s turned traitor because of his hormones! But we’ll find those notes — they haven’t had time to get them away. Ellery, you listening?”

“E,” Ellery said.

“What?”

“E,” Ellery repeated. “It doesn’t fit with the name James G. Dunwoody — or with Pola Agon, for that matter. Could it refer to Einstein’s E=mc 2, where E stands for energy...?” He broke off suddenly. “Well, well! Maybe it isn’t an E after all, General!”

He had moved the memorandum slip a quarter turn clockwise. What General Carter now saw was:

“But turned that way it’s an M!” the General exclaimed. “Who’s M? There’s no initial M in this either.” He eyed the dead physicist’s phone nervously. “Look, Ellery, thanks and all that, but I can’t sit on this much longer. I’ve got to notify the President...”

“Wait,” Ellery murmured. He had given the memo slip another quarter turn clockwise.