The "Canary" Murder Case (1927)

by Willard Huntington Wright

For other versions of this work, see The "Canary" Murder Case.

The Philo Vance series

 

The Benson Murder Case
The "Canary" Murder Case

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In Preparation
The Greene Murder Case

The "Canary" Murder Case

The "Canary" Murder Case

 

A Philo Vance Story

 

By
S. S. Van Dine

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

 

New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
MCMXXVII

Copyright, 1927, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

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Printed in the United States of America

 

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.

Contents

Chapter		Page
	Characters of the Book	ix
I.	The "Canary"	1
II.	Footprints in the Snow	9
III.	The Murder	18
IV.	The Print of a Hand	34
V.	The Bolted Door	48
VI.	A Call for Help	58
VII.	A Nameless Visitor	67
VIII.	The Invisible Murderer	78
IX.	The Pack in Full Cry	87
X.	A Forced Interview	102
XI.	Seeking Information	114
XII.	Circumstantial Evidence	126
XIII.	An Erstwhile Gallant	136
XIV.	Vance Outlines a Theory	146
XV.	Four Possibilities	157
XVI.	Significant Disclosures	167
XVII.	Checking an Alibi	179
XVIII.	The Trap	190
XIX.	The Doctor Explains	200
XX.	A Midnight Witness	211
XXI.	A Contradiction in Dates	222
XXII.	A Telephone Call	234
XXIII.	The Ten O'Clock Appointment	247
XXIV.	An Arrest	257
XXV.	Vance Demonstrates	270
XXVI.	Reconstructing the Crime	282
XXVII.	A Game of Poker	295
XXVIII.	The Guilty Man	307
XXIX.	Beethoven's "Andante"	319
XXX.	The End	333

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