Chapter I: Front Matter

The Benson Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

[Frontispiece: Philo Vance, from a drawing by Herbert Stoops. A sketch of a seated gentleman in evening dress and wearing an monocle.]

Contents

I. Philo Vance at Home
II. At the Scene of the Crime
III. A Lady’s Hand-bag
IV. The Housekeeper’s Story
V. Gathering Information
VI. Vance Offers an Opinion
VII. Reports and an Interview
VIII. Vance Accepts a Challenge
IX. The Height of the Murderer
X. Eliminating a Suspect
XI. A Motive and a Threat
XII. The Owner of a Colt-.45
XIII. The Grey Cadillac
XIV. Links in the Chain
XV. “Pfyfe—Personal”
XVI. Admissions and Suppressions
XVII. The Forged Check
XVIII. A Confession
XIX. Vance Cross-examines
XX. A Lady Explains
XXI. Sartorial Revelations
XXII. Vance Outlines a Theory
XXIII. Checking an Alibi
XXIV. The Arrest
XXV. Vance Explains His Methods

“Mr. Mason,” he said, “I wish to thank you for
my life.”

“Sir,” said Mason, “I had no interest in your
life. The adjustment of your problem was the
only thing of interest to me.”

—Randolph Mason: Corrector of Destinies.

Publisher’s Note

It gives us considerable pleasure to be able to offer to the public the “inside” record of those of former District Attorney Markham’s criminal cases in which Mr. Philo Vance figured so effectively. The true inwardness of these famous cases has never before been revealed; for Mr. S. S. Van Dine, Mr. Vance’s lawyer and almost constant companion, being the only person who possessed a complete record of the facts, has only recently been permitted to make them public.

After inspecting Mr. Van Dine’s voluminous notes, we decided to publish “The Benson Murder Case” as the first of the series—not because it was the most interesting and startling, nor yet the most complicated and dramatic from the fictional point of view, but because, coming first chronologically, it explains how Mr. Philo Vance happened to become involved in criminal matters, and also because it possesses certain features that reveal very clearly Mr. Vance’s unique analytic methods of crime detection.

Introductory

If you will refer to the municipal statistics of the City of New York, you will find that the number of unsolved major crimes during the four years that John F.-X. Markham was District Attorney, was far smaller than under any of his predecessors’ administrations. Markham projected the District Attorney’s office into all manner of criminal investigations; and, as a result, many abstruse crimes on which the Police had hopelessly gone aground, were eventually disposed of.

But although he was personally credited with the many important indictments and subsequent convictions that he secured, the truth is that he was only an instrument in many of his most famous cases. The man who actually solved them and supplied the evidence for their prosecution, was in no way connected with the city’s administration, and never once came into the public eye.

At that time I happened to be both legal advisor and personal friend of this other man; and it was thus that the strange and amazing facts of the situation became known to me. But not until recently have I been at liberty to make them public. Even now I am not permitted to divulge the man’s name, and, for that reason, I have chosen, arbitrarily, to refer to him throughout these _ex-officio_ reports as Philo Vance.

It is, of course, possible that some of his acquaintances may, through my revelations, be able to guess his identity; and if such should prove the case, I beg of them to guard that knowledge; for though he has now gone to Italy to live, and has given me permission to record the exploits of which he was the unique central character, he has very emphatically imposed his anonymity upon me; and I should not like to feel that, through any lack of discretion or delicacy, I have been the cause of his secret becoming generally known.

The present chronicle has to do with Vance’s solution of the notorious Benson murder which, due to the unexpectedness of the crime, the prominence of the persons involved, and the startling evidence adduced, was invested with an interest rarely surpassed in the annals of New York’s criminal history.

This sensational case was the first of many in which Vance figured as a kind of _amicus curiæ_ in Markham’s investigations.

S. S. Van Dine.

New York.

Characters of the Book

Philo Vance
John F.-X. Markham
District Attorney of New York County.
Alvin H. Benson
Well-known Wall Street broker and man-about-town, who was
mysteriously murdered in his home.
Major Anthony Benson
Brother of the murdered man.
Mrs. Anna Platz
Housekeeper for Alvin Benson.
Muriel St. Clair
A young singer.
Captain Philip Leacock
Miss St. Clair’s fiancé.
Leander Pfyfe
Intimate friend of Alvin Benson’s.
Mrs. Paula Banning
A friend of Leander Pfyfe’s.
Elsie Hoffman
Secretary of the firm of Benson and Benson.
Colonel Bigsby Ostrander
A retired army officer.
William H. Moriarty
An alderman, Borough of the Bronx.
Jack Prisco
Elevator-boy at the Chatham Arms.
George G. Stitt
Of the firm of Stitt and McCoy, Public Accountants.
Maurice Dinwiddie
Assistant District Attorney.
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.
Burke
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Snitkin
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Emery
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Ben Hanlon
Commanding Officer of Detectives assigned to District Attorney’s
office.
Phelps
Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Tracy
Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Springer
Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Higginbotham
Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Captain Carl Hagedorn
Fire-arms expert.
Dr. Doremus
Medical Examiner.
Francis Swacker
Secretary to the District Attorney.
Currie
Vance’s valet.