The Canary Murder Case

The Canary Murder Case

By S. S. Van Dine.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Epigraph
4. Introductory
5. Characters of the Book
6. The Canary Murder Case
   1. I: The “Canary”
   2. II: Footprints in the Snow
   3. III: The Murder
   4. IV: The Print of a Hand
   5. V: The Bolted Door
   6. VI: A Call for Help
   7. VII: A Nameless Visitor
   8. VIII: The Invisible Murderer
   9. IX: The Pack in Full Cry
   10. X: A Forced Interview
   11. XI: Seeking Information
   12. XII: Circumstantial Evidence
   13. XIII: An Erstwhile Gallant
   14. XIV: Vance Outlines a Theory
   15. XV: Four Possibilities
   16. XVI: Significant Disclosures
   17. XVII: Checking an Alibi
   18. XVIII: The Trap
   19. XIX: The Doctor Explains
   20. XX: A Midnight Witness
   21. XXI: A Contradiction in Dates
   22. XXII: A Telephone Call
   23. XXIII: The Ten O’Clock Appointment
   24. XXIV: An Arrest
   25. XXV: Vance Demonstrates
   26. XXVI: Reconstructing the Crime
   27. XXVII: A Game of Poker
   28. XXVIII: The Guilty Man
   29. XXIX: Beethoven’s “Andante”
   30. XXX: The End
7. Endnotes
8. List of Illustrations
9. Colophon
10. Uncopyright

Imprint

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

Phaedrus

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. Fingerprint expert.

• Detective Bellamy. Fingerprint expert.

• Peter Quackenbush. Official photographer.

• Dr. Doremus. Medical Examiner.

• Swacker. Secretary to the District Attorney.

• Currie. Vance’s valet.

The Canary Murder Case

I

The “Canary”

In the offices of the Homicide Bureau of the Detective Division of the New York Police Department, on the third floor of the Police Headquarters building in Center Street, there is a large steel filing cabinet; and within it, among thousands of others of its kind, there reposes a small green index-card on which is typed: “Odell, Margaret. 184 West 71st Street. Sept. 10.