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

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 A...

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 Gi...

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 filin...

On the day following his decision, Markham and Vance and I were sitting in a secluded corner of the lounge-room of the Stuyvesant Club. We often came together there, for we were all members of the clu...

It was barely half past eight on that momentous morning of September the 11th when Markham brought word to us of the event. I was living temporarily with Vance at his home in East 38th Street⁠—a large...

A few minutes after we had returned to the living-room Doctor Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner, arrived, jaunty and energetic. Immediately in his train came three other men, one of whom carried a b...

Markham and Heath and Vance and I were now alone in the apartment. Dark, low-hanging clouds had drifted across the sun, and the gray spectral light intensified the tragic atmosphere of the rooms. Mark...

Jessup made a good impression from the moment he entered the room. He was a serious, determined-looking man in his early thirties, rugged and well built; and there was a squareness to his shoulders th...

Heath had stepped out into the hall, and now returned with the day telephone operator, a sallow thin young man who, we learned, was named Spively. His almost black hair, which accentuated the pallor o...

Markham went to the window and stood, his hands behind him, looking down into the little paved rear yard. After several minutes he turned slowly. “The situation, as I see it,” he said, “boils down to ...

On our way downtown that morning we were delayed for a considerable time in the traffic congestion just north of Madison Square, and Markham anxiously looked at his watch. “It’s past noon,” he said. “...

Markham dined at the Stuyvesant Club, as was his custom, and at his invitation Vance and I remained with him. He no doubt figured that our presence at the dinner-table would act as a bulwark against t...

Ten minutes later we were ringing the bell of a stately old brownstone house in East 44th Street. A resplendently caparisoned butler opened the door, and Markham presented his card. “Take this to the ...

The following day, which was Wednesday, not only brought forth an important and, as it appeared, conclusive development in the Odell case, but marked the beginning of Vance’s active cooperation in the...

Swacker was evidently waiting for an opportunity to interrupt, for, when Sergeant Heath had passed through the door, he at once stepped into the room. “The reporters are here, sir,” he announced, with...

Vance and I did not return to the District Attorney’s office after lunch, for Markham had a busy afternoon before him, and nothing further was likely to transpire in connection with the Odell case unt...

When Vance finished speaking, there was a long silence. Markham, impressed by the other’s earnestness, sat in a brown study. His ideas had been shaken. The theory of Skeel’s guilt, to which he had clu...

Greatly to Currie’s astonishment Vance gave instructions to be called at nine o’clock the following morning; and at ten o’clock we were sitting on his little roof-garden having breakfast in the mellow...

“My sleuthing goes better,” exulted Vance, when we were again in the street. “Fair Alys was a veritable mine of information⁠—eh, what? Only, you should have controlled yourself better when she mention...

Vance slept late the following day. I had accompanied him to the Scandals the night before, utterly at a loss to understand his strange desire to attend a type of entertainment which I knew he deteste...

We lunched in the District Attorney’s private sanctum; and at two o’clock Doctor Lindquist was announced. Heath accompanied him, and, from the expression on the Sergeant’s face, it was plain he did no...

In less than half an hour Mannix arrived. Heath relinquished his seat to the newcomer, and moved to a large chair beneath the windows. Vance had taken a place at the small table on Markham’s right whe...

The next morning Markham and Vance and I breakfasted together at the Prince George, and arrived at the District Attorney’s office a few minutes past nine. Heath, with Cleaver in tow, was waiting in th...

Heath returned to the office, shaking his head hopelessly. “There musta been a regular wake at Odell’s Monday night.” “Quite,” agreed Vance. “A midnight conclave of the lady’s admirers. Mannix was the...

A fine drizzle was falling the next morning when we rose; and a chill⁠—the first forerunner of winter⁠—was in the air. We had breakfast in the library at half past eight, and at nine o’clock Vance’s c...

The investigation into Skeel’s death was pushed with great vigor by the authorities. Doctor Doremus, the Medical Examiner, arrived promptly and declared that the crime had taken place between ten o’cl...

Half an hour later we entered the little apartment-house in 71st Street. Despite the plausibility of Heath’s case against Jessup, Markham was not entirely satisfied with the arrest; and Vance’s attitu...

When Vance finished speaking, there was several minutes’ silence. Markham sat deep in his chair glaring into space. Heath, however, was watching Vance with a kind of grudging admiration. The cornersto...

Vance and I went home after lunch, and at about four o’clock Markham telephoned to say that he had made the necessary arrangements for the evening with Spotswoode, Mannix, and Cleaver. Immediately fol...

Vance slept late the following morning, and spent the hour or so before lunch checking a catalogue of ceramics which were to be auctioned next day at the Anderson Galleries. At one o’clock we entered ...

Less than half an hour later we again entered the main hall of the little apartment building in 71st Street. Spively, as usual, was on duty at the switchboard. Just inside the public reception-room th...

It was exactly half past three when we entered the rotunda of the Stuyvesant Club. Markham at once sent for the manager, and held a few words of private conversation with him. The manager then hastene...

The Antlers Club has since been closed by the police; and Red Raegan is now serving a long term in Sing Sing for grand larceny. ↩︎ Written especially for her by B. G. De Sylva. ↩︎ “The Benson Murder C...