The Greene Murder Case

By S. S. Van Dine.

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To
Norbert L. Lederer

Άγαθὴ δἑ παράφασίς έστιν έταίρου

Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
Hamlet

Characters of the Book

Philo Vance.
John F.-X. Markham. District Attorney of New York County.
Mrs. Tobias Greene. The mistress of the Greene mansion.
Julia Greene. The eldest daughter.
Sibella Greene. Another daughter.
Ada Greene. The youngest daughter.
Chester Greene. The elder son.
Rex Greene. The younger son.
Dr. Arthur Von Blon. The Greene family physician.
Sproot. The Greene butler.
Gertrude Mannheim. The cook.
Hemming. The senior maid.
Barton. The junior maid.
Miss Craven. Mrs. Greene’s nurse.
Chief Inspector O’Brien. Of the Police Department of New York City.
William M. Moran. Commanding officer of the Detective Bureau.
Ernest Heath. Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau.
Snitkin. Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Burke. Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Captain Anthony P. Jerym. Bertillon expert.
Captain Dubois. Fingerprint expert.
Dr. Emanuel Doremus. Medical Examiner.
Dr. Drumm. An official police surgeon.
Marie O’Brien. A Police nurse.
Swacker. Secretary to the District Attorney.
Currie. Vance’s valet.

The Greene Murder Case

I

A Double Tragedy

(Tuesday, November 9; 10 a.m.)

It has long been a source of wonder to me why the leading criminological writers⁠—men like Edmund Lester Pearson, H. B. Irving, Filson Young, Canon Brookes, William Bolitho, and Harold Eaton⁠—have not devoted more space to the Greene tragedy; for here, surely, is one of the outstanding murder mysteries of modern times⁠—a case practically unique in the annals of latter-day crime. And yet I realize, as I read over my own voluminous notes on the case, and inspect the various documents relating to it, how little of its inner history ever came to light, and how impossible it would be for even the most imaginative chronicler to fill in the hiatuses.

The world, of course, knows the external facts. For over a month the press of two continents was filled with accounts of this appalling tragedy; and even the bare outline was sufficient to gratify the public’s craving for the abnormal and the spectacular. But the inside story of the catastrophe surpassed even the wildest flights of public fancy; and, as I now sit down to divulge those facts for the first time, I am oppressed with a feeling akin to unreality, although I was a witness to most of them and hold in my possession the incontestable records of their actuality.

Of the fiendish ingenuity which lay behind this terrible crime, of the warped psychological motives that inspired it, and of the strange hidden sources of its technic, the world is completely ignorant. Moreover, no explanation has ever been given of the analytic steps that led to its solution. Nor have the events attending the mechanism of that solution⁠—events in themselves highly dramatic and unusual⁠—ever been recounted. The public believes that the termination of the case was a result of the usual police methods of investigation; but this is because the public is unaware of many of the vital factors of the crime itself, and because both the Police Department and the District Attorney’s office have, as if by tacit agreement, refused to make known the entire truth⁠—whether for fear of being disbelieved or merely because there are certain things so terrible that no man wishes to talk of them, I do not know.

The record, therefore, which I am about to set down is the first complete and unedited history of the Greene holocaust.1 I feel that now the truth should be known, for it is history, and one should not shrink from historical facts. Also, I believe that the credit for the solution of this case should go where it belongs.

The man who elucidated the mystery and brought to a close that palimpsest of horror