Chapter I: Front Matter

The “Canary” Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

Contents

I. The “Canary”
II. Footprints in the Snow
III. The Murder
IV. The Print of a Hand
V. The Bolted Door
VI. A Call for Help
VII. A Nameless Visitor
VIII. The Invisible Murderer
IX. The Pack in Full Cry
X. A Forced Interview
XI. Seeking Information
XII. Circumstantial Evidence
XIII. An Erstwhile Gallant
XIV. Vance Outlines a Theory
XV. Four Possibilities
XVI. Significant Disclosures
XVII. Checking an Alibi
XVIII. The Trap
XIX. The Doctor Explains
XX. A Midnight Witness
XXI. A Contradiction in Dates
XXII. A Telephone Call
XXIII. The Ten O’Clock Appointment
XXIV. An Arrest
XXV. Vance Demonstrates
XXVI. Reconstructing the Crime
XXVII. A Game of Poker
XXVIII. The Guilty Man
XXIX. Beethoven’s “Andante”
XXX. The End

First appearances deceive many: the
intelligence alone perceives what has been
carefully hidden in the recesses of the mind.
—Phædrus.

Introductory

For many years I was the personal attorney and constant companion of Mr. Philo Vance; and this period covered the four years during which Mr. John F.-X. Markham, Vance’s closest friend, was District Attorney of New York. As a result it was my privilege to be a spectator of what I believe was the most amazing series of criminal cases that ever passed before the eyes of a young lawyer. Indeed, the grim dramas I witnessed during that period constitute one of the most astonishing secret documents in American police history.

Of these dramas Vance was the central character. By an analytical and interpretative process which, as far as I know, has never before been applied to criminal activities, he succeeded in solving many of the important crimes on which both the police and the District Attorney’s office had hopelessly fallen down.

Due to my peculiar relations with Vance it happened that not only did I participate in all the cases with which he was connected, but I was also present at most of the informal discussions concerning them which took place between him and the District Attorney; and, being of methodical temperament, I kept a complete record of them. It is fortunate that I performed this gratuitous labor of accumulation and transcription, for now that circumstances have rendered possible my making the cases public, I am able to present them in full detail and with all their various sidelights and succeeding steps.

In another volume—“The Benson Murder Case”—I have related how Vance happened to become involved in criminal investigation, and have also set forth the unique analytic methods of crime detection by which he solved the problem of Alvin Benson’s mysterious murder.

The present chronicle has to do with Vance’s solution of the brutal murder of Margaret Odell—a _cause célèbre_ which came to be known as the “Canary” murder. The strangeness, the daring, the seeming impenetrability of the crime marked it as one of the most singular and astonishing cases in New York’s police annals; and had it not been for Philo Vance’s participation in its solution, I firmly believe it would have remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of this country.

S. S. Van Dine.

New York.

Characters of the Book

Philo Vance
John F.-X. Markham
District Attorney of New York County.
Margaret Odell (The “Canary”)
Famous Broadway beauty and ex-_Follies_ girl, who was mysteriously
murdered in her apartment.
Amy Gibson
Margaret Odell’s maid.
Charles Cleaver
A man-about-town.
Kenneth Spotswoode
A manufacturer.
Louis Mannix
An importer.
Dr. Ambroise Lindquist
A fashionable neurologist.
Tony Skeel
A professional burglar.
William Elmer Jessup
Telephone operator.
Harry Spively
Telephone operator.
Alys La Fosse
A musical-comedy actress.
Wiley Allen
A gambler.
Potts
A street-cleaner.
Amos Feathergill
Assistant District Attorney.
William M. Moran
Commanding Officer of the Detective Bureau.
Ernest Heath
Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau.
Snitkin
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Guilfoyle
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Burke
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Tracy
Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Deputy-Inspector Conrad Brenner
Burglar-tools expert.
Captain Dubois
Finger-print expert.
Detective Bellamy
Finger-print expert.
Peter Quackenbush
Official photographer.
Dr. Doremus
Medical Examiner.
Swacker
Secretary to the District Attorney.
Currie
Vance’s valet.