Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 3, No. 4, September 1942

Suspect Unknown by Courtney Ryley Cooper

One of America’s most popular authors takes us behind the scenes of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington and achieves a uniquely authoritative piece of crime fiction. An F.B.I. story that will instruct as well as entertain you.

Inspector Jessup of the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been expecting the call. He smiled slightly as he listened to the telephone report:

“Agent Benson speaking from the first floor. The subject just got out of his car as a sight-seeing bus arrived for a tour of the bureau. He immediately mingled with a bunch of sight-seers, and is headed upstairs on one of the first elevator loads. Agent Torner is trailing him, subject to your orders, sir.”

“Rejoin Agent Torner and continue the surveillance,” commanded the inspector and hung up. A big man, sandy-haired, pleasant-featured, he shifted in his chair with a certain air of lumbering boyishness, and eyed for an instant the intercommunicating system. For once he could give thanks that he was head of the Washington office.

At other times, he had been not too delighted with his assignment. This was a “spot” job, constantly under the eye of the director; the distance between Inspector Jessup’s office and the nerve center of the entire F.B.I. was only the difference between the fourth and fifth floors of the big marble building of the United States Department of Justice. Under ordinary conditions the proximity meant that the inspector’s activities were subject to far greater scrutiny than those of any other like officer in the organization. But at a time like this—

He flipped a button on the interoffice system, marked: “Director.” Instantly, a crisp voice answered:

“Yes, Jessup.”

The inspector leaned close to the transmitter:

“Hello, Boss. The suspect in the Tilliver murder case just came into the building for another tour of the bureau.”

“Good! That makes the third trip in three days.”

“And that either makes me dead right on him or dead wrong. He must figure he’s got that job covered up pretty well, and wants to be sure of it. After all, once he leaves Washington, he can’t run and hide like the average fugitive. He’s a prominent man. He’s got to stay in the open, and that takes a lot of nerve — unless a person knows that there isn’t a chance of being caught. So what happens? He remembers his crook training: to stick in with officers after a crime and try to hear or see something that will tip him off as to how they’re progressing with the case. That’s my theory — I’ll stand or fall on it.”

“All right, Jessup. Go ahead with your plans.”

“On the lines we talked over yesterday afternoon?”

“Definitely.”

“There’s a point, Boss. To do that, I’ll have to divulge a certain amount of information about the case. How far shall I go?”

There was a pause. Then: “That’s up to your judgment, Jessup. Your job is to place him actually at the scene of the crime. If you can do that, all our other evidence dovetails. We know he was seen in the neighborhood both before and after the murder. The witnesses we had hidden here yesterday when he went through were fairly certain on that point. We know too that Tilliver and a man who looked a lot like this fellow served a term in California together some twenty years ago on a charge of extortion by mail.”

“But there’s no fingerprint record to prove it.”

“That’s the tough part; the fingerprint files on that prison don’t date back that far. So you’ve got to work carefully. As I see it, you figure that he and Tilliver were once crooked pals. After they got out of prison, they went different ways. Tilliver seemingly reformed. So did this fellow. You believe that neither of them did anything of the sort. Tilliver was still a blackmailer at heart, and this — what’s his name?”

“Manton Kent.”

“That’s right, Kent. This Kent got into a small concern — handling all sorts of things — and apparently built it up to a big business—”

“But we can show by evidence that it’s a house of cards. That’s my idea of the motive, Boss. On the surface, it looks as if he killed Tilliver rather than pay him blackmail. But I think he did it because he figured that Tilliver knew what Kent was doing in this firm: juggling its stock, selling off its assets for his personal account, padding pay rolls — it’ll take a dozen auditors to chase down the crooked things this fellow’s done. Tilliver must have found this out, tried to get some blackmail as a result of what he knew — but got killed instead.”

“It’s a great theory — if you can prove it.”

Inspector Jessup’s lips tightened.

“Yes, that’s the trouble — to prove it. To put him smack into the middle of the murder scene, or get some sort of record on him through fingerprints.”

“There were none at the scene of the crime.”

“And no record from the penitentiary. I didn’t mean that. I was hoping that I might find he’d served time somewhere else. Or been arrested for investigation, or mixed up in some bankrupt racket — anything to break through his armor. Otherwise, I haven’t a leg to stand on.”

“Especially since all the tangible evidence points directly away from him. Well, use your head on that, Jessup. And good luck to you.”

A clicking sound was followed by silence. Inspector Jessup raised a big hand to his forehead and brought it away, the palm beaded with sweat. He wished now that he had not been so eager to work personally on the solution of this murder, that he had not been so enthusiastic in the belief that Man ton Kent, following a crook’s logic, was attempting to spy on those who were spying on him.

Suddenly, however, he straightened. In quick succession, he flipped the levers of the interoffice system to a half-dozen departments, and gave crisp orders. Then he glanced at his watch. It was twelve minutes past ten o’clock. The morning tour of the building had begun promptly at ten. By now, the inspector knew, the guide had explained the wide-flung activities of the bureau; he should be finishing up the tour’s beginning in the Exhibit Room with a few words on the machine guns captured from gangsters, Dillinger’s death mask, the red wig worn by Katherine Kelly, the kidnaper, and the vacuum jar in which her husband had hidden ransom money. The inspector pressed a button. A special agent answered.

“I’ll begin at the multigraphing room,” said Inspector Jessup. “See that someone is always accidentally available if I should need him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The inspector left the room. After a time, special agents followed.

It was five minutes later that, crowding and gawking, the morning tour of Department of Justice sightseers followed their F.B.I. guide down a wide hall on the seventh floor, toward a long room, where presses whirred, multigraphs pounded noisily, and binding machinery clattered. The guide entered the door, walking backward that he might address the variegated group that had followed him. Here were men and women from throughout America who tonight would send home post cards saying they knew all about crime. There were small boys and girls, goggle-eyed at the thought of being in the same building with G-men. There was a sprinkling of newspapermen and women from out of town, and not a few who appeared to be business executives, or persons of responsibility interested in law enforcement. At one side, somewhat apart from the throng, was a keen-featured man of about forty-five, who bore a frank air of interest in everything about him. The guide, still walking backward, now raised his voice above the roar of machinery.

“In this room,” he began, “are all the reproductive processes by which reward sheets are multigraphed, pamphlets bound, and the F.B.I.’s Law Enforcement Bulletin assembled and shipped to more than ten thousand police bodies, sheriffs, and other enforcement agencies. In a kidnaping, the lists of ransom notes are reproduced here; in one case, this room turned out a job in thirty-six hours of continuous effort that would have required three weeks of work in a regulation printing plant. Now if you will follow me—”

“Look out!” came a sharp voice. The warning was too late. The guide collided heavily with the hurrying form of Inspector Jessup, striking him against an elbow. The inspector winced; his right hand flew open, releasing a number of sheets of paper that evidently had just come from a multigraphing machine, and scattering them wildly across the smooth cement floor.

“That’s all right; that’s all right!” the inspector announced hastily to the guide’s apologies, bending swiftly meanwhile in an effort to gather up the papers. Here and there a visitor, seeking to aid, bent also. The inspector apparently took no notice. His eyes, however, were not still.

At last he saw that the keen-eyed man, also a volunteer in the job of reclamation, was covertly peering at each sheet as he picked it from the floor. The inspector waited only a moment more, then, as with sudden realization, whirled.

“Please don’t touch those papers, anyone!” he commanded. A passing agent suddenly moved in upon the scene, joining with the guide in collecting the multigraphed matter from the hands of volunteers. The inspector nodded to the guide.

“If you will move on with your party.”

“Yes, sir. Please follow me.” The group obeyed, and the inspector stood facing the subject of his investigation, who stood extending a sheaf of the papers with one hand, while with the other he fumbled at a hip pocket for his wallet.

“I’m afraid that my curiosity got the better of me,” he announced. “I was so terribly interested that I did not realize this might be a confidential matter.”

The inspector’s brow creased.

“You mean you were reading that announcement?”

“I glanced at it.” His hands now free, he dug into his wallet for a card. “I do hope that my position will guarantee my ability to keep secrets. Kent is my name, sir. Manton Kent. I am president of Superior Products.”

The inspector lost his worried look, extending a pawlike hand in greeting. The main group had passed out of the room now. The guide’s voice echoed from down the hall:

“We are now entering the Identification Unit, where are assembled a total of more than ten million fingerprints from every part of the United States and numerous foreign countries—”

“I suppose I should catch up with that group,” said Manton Kent. “Although,” he laughed, “I almost know that lecture by heart.”

“Oh, you’ve been here before?”

“This is my third trip in three days.”

“Interested in law enforcement?”

Manton Kent smiled.

“I didn’t realize it until I came through here the other day. Then I began to see how many features could be applied to my business. Fingerprinting, for instance, and scientific apparatus. Although, of course,” he added slowly, “one only gets the barest sort of a glimpse on one of these tours.”

The inspector agreed.

“I’m sorry you didn’t make yourself known at the director’s office. He’d have arranged for a special guide.”

“You really think so?”

“Oh, yes. Persons like yourself, heads of corporations and the like, are the real ones he wants interested in the things we are doing here—”

Manton Kent shrugged.

“So what do I do? I play the boob and look at what turns out to be a confidential matter.”

Inspector Jessup grinned.

“Oh, it isn’t that bad. Fact is, what’s on this sheet is not so terribly secret.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“It’s a bureau matter, of course. Naturally, we don’t want any investigative information to fall into the wrong hands. This just happens to be some multigraphs of reports on evidence we’ve picked up in a murder case here in Washington a few days ago. A man named James Tilliver was killed in his home. Ordinarily that would be a case for the Washington police, except that the government had purchased the place a few days before; Tilliver was to move out the next day. Thus he was on government soil, and that put the case in our jurisdiction.”

“I noticed the report was headed ‘Suspect Unknown,’ or something like that.”

“Yes. We always do that until we have narrowed a case down to its essentials.”

Jessup glanced at his watch.

“I’ve a few free minutes. Perhaps I could show you around.”

“That would be a great privilege.”

They walked together down the long hall. The inspector folded the sheaf of multigraphed reports.

“A queer affair, the Tilliver case. We’ll all be glad to get it cleared up.”

“I suppose you have to chase down every tiny lead.”

“Everything. For instance, you perhaps know about the finding of a woman’s shoe near the curbing, and a pair of gloves, with blood on them, a half block away. Naturally, we have to prove or disprove any connection between this evidence and the identity of the murderer.”

“Then you know the killer?”

Jessup shook his head.

“Oh, I didn’t say that. I said we’re running down these clues. The investigation isn’t completed. I’ll let you watch an experiment or two in the laboratory if you’re interested. I don’t see how it could harm the case.”

“I’d be delighted.”

“First we’d better dip into the Identification Unit if you want to see it again — the fingerprint section, you know.” He opened a large pair of doors leading to a huge room, set with many metal filing cases. “Of course, you’ve been told how we classify the thousands of fingerprints received daily. Which reminds me — have you thought about introducing civil fingerprinting into your business? For identification, in case of illness, accident, amnesia, anything of that sort?”

“I’ve been thinking seriously about it,” said Manton Kent.

“And of course, your own fingerprints are on file here?”

“You mean in the file reserved for civil fingerprints? I’m sorry to say they’re not.”

“Well, of course, we never urge anyone to—”

“But I’d be delighted.”

“Good. If you’ll just step over this way.” Then at a table where stood a moist pad and a large card, clipped in a holder: “Now your right hand first — just relax; I’ll roll your fingers on this pad, then on the paper; it’s really quite painless, unless, of course, a person has a criminal background — just relax again, Mr. Kent. Thank you. Now, the other hand.”

Manton Kent glanced at his fingers.

“I’ve always heard they’d be dirty from lampblack.”

“No. This is a special pad, and sensitized paper. It leaves no marks on the hands. Now, if you’ll just fill out this card: your name, address, whom to notify in case of accident.”

Manton Kent sat at a desk.

“It gives you a feeling of security, doesn’t it?” he queried. Then as he wrote:

“I’ve been wondering why you haven’t been able to learn something by fingerprints about that murder case.”

“You mean the Tilliver affair. Evidently the murderer wore gloves.”

“Oh, of course.”

Manton Kent finished the writing of his description and handed the completed card to the inspector. An agent happened to be passing. Jessup called him:

“File this for Mr. Kent, please. Civil fingerprints.”

The agent took the card and hurried away. Inspector Jessup turned to a dissertation on the fingerprint division. At last:

“Suppose now we step into the Technical Division — the Crime Laboratory, as it is known.” From a near-by corridor of filing cases, a machine began to whir. It caught the inspector’s attention. “Before we leave the fingerprint section,” he said hastily, “I want to show you how law enforcement has borrowed ideas from the business world.”

“Yes?”

“By using an ordinary mechanical card sorter to catch crooks.” He led the way to the machine, where a special agent and a fingerprint clerk were busily feeding it large stacks of cards, each punctured with many holes.

“An indexing machine,” said Manton Kent. “We have a dozen of them in my organization.”

“Of course. We merely adapted it to crooks. Instead of names or addresses, the prongs of that machine are set to fit into the holes in a card which designate one certain man’s fingerprint classification. That big pile of cards the men are feeding it represents a search for a certain criminal. They are the records of every crook who has a classification resembling that of the wanted man in any manner whatever. And if the crook we want is among them, this machine will find him.” Manton Kent looked toward the side of the sorter, where two large slots appeared. One was rapidly filling with cards, representing rejections. The other was empty. The inspector said:

“Let’s stay and see if they find the fellow.”

“Certainly.”

A minute passed. The machine stopped, its piles of cards exhausted. The inspector turned away without waiting for the eye signal of the special agent to tell him that a search of the entire Identification Unit in the hope of finding some criminal reference to Manton Kent had been in vain.

“I suppose that machine is infallible,” said Kent.

“If a record exists in the bureau,” the inspector answered. “Unfortunately, some of our enforcement bodies and prisons did not keep complete files prior to ten years ago. So, in old cases, we are always at a disadvantage.”

“Unfortunate,” answered Mr. Kent.

“Very. Shall we take a look at the Crime Laboratory?”

He led the way to another double door, and held it wide for his guest. They entered an anteroom, filled with exhibits of guns, an X-ray machine for looking into packages without unwrapping them, pictured histories of scientific crime detection in widely known cases.

“You’ve seen all this on the tours you’ve taken,” said the inspector. “Let’s go behind the scenes.”

“Wonderful.”

The inspector did not answer. He led the way into a big room that reeked with chemicals and stepped swiftly to a laboratory table where a sober-faced man in a white smock had apparently just completed a microscopic examination of a sheer silk stocking. Near by, on the table, lay a woman’s suède shoe.

“What experiment is this?” the inspector queried.

“The shoe is part of the Tilliver evidence,” answered the scientist. “The stocking came from the room of Mrs. Bradford Bowen, in the May town Hotel.”

Kent stepped closer.

“Oh, a suspect?”

The inspector smiled.

“Be patient now. I’ll show you how scientific detection works out. This, as you have guessed, is the woman’s shoe that was found outside the Tilliver house after the murder. The next morning, Mrs. Bowen reported to the hotel management that a shoe and a pair of gloves had been stolen from her room — that someone must have taken them while she was out.”

“Easy enough,” said Mr. Kent.

“Yes, of course. But we can’t accept the palpable. So we conducted experiments to prove or dispose her story. You will notice that this stocking, which we obtained from her for experimental purposes, is of an extremely odd shade. We have determined that she never wears any other type. Therefore, microscopic examinations were made, both of the shoe and the stocking. The shoe revealed many tiny shreds of silk that match the fibers of this hose exactly. But the scientist could find no other fibers.” He faced the besmocked laboratory man. “Is that correct, Mr. Moberton?”

“That is correct, sir, indicating that the shoe has not recently been on any other foot than that of this particular woman.”

Manton Kent exhibited interest:

“Then you do have a suspect?”

“It begins to look that way. This experiment points suspicion either toward Mrs. Bowen or some person who may have stolen that shoe from her room, in an attempt to divert suspicion toward her.”

“That makes it a woman’s deal all the way round, doesn’t it?” asked Kent. “I see your deduction now. Two women are possibly in love with this Tilliver. One decides to kill him. So she steals a shoe and pair of gloves from her rival and leaves them at the scene of the crime.”

Jessup laughed, and slapped his man on the shoulder.

“The first thing you know, we’ll be giving you an examination for the job of special agent. That’s a very good deduction, except for the motive, which appears to have been blackmail — on Tilliver’s part, not on that of the murderer.”

Kent’s eyes had widened.

“Oh, you’ve established that?”

“Is the evidence handy, Mr. Moberton?” asked the inspector; then, following the scientist’s glance, he moved toward a few pieces of charred paper under a glass cover. “This was found in the fireplace.”

“But I don’t see anything on it — merely some black ashes.”

“Photography, under the ultraviolet ray, brought out the writing. Evidently Tilliver was in tight circumstances, and knew somebody who was rich. Have you the photostatic copy of your experiment on this charred document, Mr. Moberton?”

Silently the scientist opened a drawer and brought out the photograph, while Kent stared as with disbelief.

“It seems impossible!”

“Oh, we do lots of impossible things,” Jessup said.

“You say that this letter was sent from Tilliver to someone else?”

“Yes. It has been determined to be Tilliver’s writing.” He referred to the photograph. “You will notice that this fragment of the letter says: ‘I need a hundred thousand dollars and you have got it to give me. And unless you do give it to me, Old Pal, the reputation you have built up over all these years will not be worth five cents.’ ”

Manton Kent cleared his throat. “Is that all the writing you were able to recover?”

“Unfortunately, that is all. Except for the beginning of the letter.”

“You mean the name of the person to whom it was sent?”

“It was only ‘Dear Pal.’ ”

“Unfortunate,” exclaimed Manton Kent, and gave his attention to the woman’s shoe. The inspector eyed him closely; Kent’s demeanor was that of enthusiastic interest, and nothing more. Jessup turned.

“Suppose we see what experiments are being made with the gloves,” he suggested, and led the way with a pawlike hand on the suspect’s shoulders. Again he sought to break through possible armor. “Perhaps I shouldn’t dismiss that letter so lightly, because it really did aid us to some extent. It showed us the motive was a quarrel over blackmail. Tilliver had sent it to an old friend, apparently. That person evidently became wild with anger, rushed to Tilliver’s house, stealing the shoe and gloves on the way. There was a fight, or quarrel, at least a struggle—”

“I suppose you found chairs overturned and things like that?”

“No, nothing of the sort,” the officer answered blandly and explained no further. “As I say, there was a struggle, and the murderer drew a pistol, killed Tilliver, remembered that the letter might be incriminating evidence, threw it in the fireplace, ran from the house, dropped the shoe at the curb and threw away the gloves.”

“And after that?” asked Kent.

Jessup shrugged.

“You know as much about that as I do,” he answered with a grin. “Oh, here we are.” He nodded to another besmocked man, who was busily dousing a pair of kid gloves in a laboratory tray filled with slightly discolored water. Jessup asked, in routine fashion: “This is an experiment with Tilliver evidence, Mr. Graves?”

The scientist, tall, freckled, sandy-haired, turned quietly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you mind explaining it?”

“Not at all, sir. The object is to determine whether the murderer left his fingerprints on these gloves.” He raised one from the tray with a rubber-shielded hand. “As you see, I have immersed the evidence in a solution of three per cent nitrate of silver. I now place it upon this large blotter and put it under this lamp—”

“Which is?”

“Ultraviolet rays, sir.”

“And if there are fingerprints?”

“They will appear in a very few moments, of a brownish color, but perfectly detectable. Oh, by the way, a messenger asked me to give you this memorandum.”

The inspector took it, cupping it in his hand.

“Thank you,” came briefly. Then as the ultraviolet ray poured its weird light upon the saturated leather, Jessup glanced again at the memorandum:

To Inspector Jessup these numbers became ridges and lines and whorls and deltas, assembling themselves into a mental picture of the fingerprints of this dapper, coldly calm man beside him. If once, during this well-planned murder, there had been a slip, if, for instance, there had been no protective covering for Manton Kent’s fingers when these gloves were stolen, then the story would now be told.

Second after second the inspector waited. Twice he leaned forward as something brownish began to appear upon the white texture, only to draw back again.

“Only smudges,” said the scientist, “from grease or a like substance.”

“Yes, I see,” answered Jessup. “And that was our big chance to nail him.”

Kent turned swiftly.

“Him?” he asked. “Then you don’t think it was a woman?”

“Suppose we go over to the comparison microscope,” replied the inspector. “I’ll show you something interesting.”

Again a besmocked man awaited them. Jessup asked for the murder gun. It was forthcoming; an automatic, blue-steeled, ugly, with the serial number filed off, to prevent tracing. The inspector held it out to Kent, who looked at it intently.

“This was found in a trash can some ten blocks from the murder scene,” said Jessup. “You will note that it is a forty-five caliber. That is an extremely heavy gun for a woman to handle.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But how do you know it is the murder gun?”

“If you’ll come this way.” He moved a few feet to what appeared to be a double-barreled microscope, fitted with a single eyepiece. “The comparison microscope,” he said. “If you will remember, my theory is that there was a quarrel. Then Tilliver was shot. After the gun was found, a bullet was fired from it into a box of cotton, so that it might be recovered. Then the lethal bullet was extracted from the body of the murdered man.

“These two bullets were put on those prongs you see projecting beneath the lenses of the comparison microscope. Now, if you will look down through that eyepiece, you will see that the rifling of the gun barrel made distinctive marks on each of those bullets so that they exactly match.” Kent bent forward. “You can see better if you’ll take off your hat,” added the inspector.

Manton Kent obeyed.

“I don’t believe I quite get what you mean,” he said, staring through the eyepiece.

“Perhaps the bullets are not in alignment. Just move that thumb set either forward or backward until the bullets come together—”

“Oh, this little gadget here?”

“Yes.”

“Of course! I see the bullets begin to move, coming closer together—” Suddenly, with an ejaculation, he straightened, looking about him in surprised fashion. A hand went to the top of his head. “No bees around here?” he asked queerly.

“Bees? Why?”

“The queerest little jabbing pain hit me for an instant in the top of the head.” He rubbed his scalp. “It’s gone now.”

“Neuralgia?”

“Probably, although I never had it before.” Kent bent again to the microscope, moving the adjustment knobs until at last the two bullets seemed as one. “Remarkable!” he exclaimed.

Inspector Jessup touched him on an arm.

“Not half as remarkable as this final experiment,” he said. “You will remember that I mentioned one piece of evidence as pointing to a struggle. Let’s see how it is turning out in the hands of science.”

With a hand on Manton Kent’s arm, he led the way to another of the be-smocked clan that peopled this big room. This time the scientist was a squat, pale man with a flat voice. He was surrounded by test tubes, and chemical vials; a microscope stood before him.

Inspector Jessup went through his usual preliminary:

“May I inquire, Mr. Caruth, what experiment you are conducting, and if it is the Tilliver case?”

“It is in the Tilliver case,” came the toneless, precise voice, as the scientist raised a cellophane container. “I have here two human hairs, each alike in size, color, thickness, texture, chemical analyses and other characteristics both as to the fiber itself and to the follicles and adhering epithelia. One of these was found in the clutched hand of the murdered man, indicating that it had been torn from the head of the killer during a struggle. The other” — he looked up — “was, as you know, Inspector, just taken from the head of your guest as he bent over the comparison microscope.”

Manton Kent gasped. He whirled, hands outstretched. Wildly his eyes sought the doorway — but two special agents stood there. Then Inspector Jessup’s voice sounded, chilling in its cold courtesy:

“Will you please complete Mr. Kent’s tour — by showing him to the detention quarters?”