=* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *=

This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions.
These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook
(other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are
making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions
applies, please contact a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before
proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at
https://www.fadedpage.com.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright
in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country’s
copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT
DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

_Title:_ The Benson Murder Case
_Date of first publication:_ 1926
_Author:_S. S. Van Dine [Willard Huntington Wright] (1888-1939)
_Date first posted:_ Nov. 13, 2013
_Date last updated:_ Jan. 22, 2022
Faded Page eBook #20131113

This eBook was produced by: Marcia Brooks, Alex White, Al Haines & the
online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

_THE PHILO VANCE SERIES_
* * * * *

=THE BENSON=
=MURDER CASE=

A PHILO VANCE STORY

S. S. VAN DINE

“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._

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
MCMXXX

Printed in the United States of America

[Illustration: PHILO VANCE.
From a drawing by Herbert Stoops.]

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.

Table of 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

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.