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. murder: strangled about 11 p. m. apartment ransacked. jewelry stolen. body found by amy gibson, maid.”
here, in a few commonplace words, is the bleak, unadorned statement of one of the most astonishing crimes in the police annals of this country—a crime so contradictory, so baffling, so ingenious, so unique, that for many days the best minds of the police department and the district attorney’s office were completely at a loss as to even a method of approach. each line of investigation only tended to prove that margaret odell could not possibly have been murdered. and yet, huddled on the great silken davenport in her living-room lay the girl’s strangled body, giving the lie to so grotesque a conclusion.
the true story of this crime, as it eventually came to light after a disheartening period of utter darkness and confusion, revealed many strange and bizarre ramifications, many dark recesses of man’s unexplored nature, and the uncanny subtlety of a human mind sharpened by desperate and tragic despair. and it also revealed a hidden page of passional melodrama which, in its essence and organisms, was no less romantic and fascinating than that vivid, theatrical section of the comédie humaine which deals with the fabulous love of baron nucingen for esther van gobseck, and with the unhappy torpille’s tragic death.
margaret odell was a product of the bohemian demi-monde of broadway—a scintillant figure who seemed somehow to typify the gaudy and spurious romance of transient gaiety. for nearly two years before her death she had been the most conspicuous and, in a sense, popular figure of the city’s night life. in our grandparents’ day she might have had conferred upon her that somewhat questionable designation, “the toast of the town”; but to-day there are too many aspirants for this classification, too many cliques and violent schisms in the lepidoptera of our café life, to permit of any one competitor being thus singled out. but, for all the darlings of both professional and lay press-agents, margaret odell was a character of unquestioned fame in her little world.
her notoriety was due in part to certain legendary tales of her affairs with one or two obscure potentates in the backwashes of europe. she had spent two years abroad after her first success in “the bretonne maid”—a popular musical comedy in which she had been mysteriously raised from obscurity to the rank of “star”—and, one may cynically imagine, her press-agent took full advantage of her absence to circulate vermilion tales of her conquests.
her appearance went far toward sustaining her somewhat equivocal fame. there was no question that she was beautiful in a hard, slightly flamboyant way. i remember seeing her dancing one night at the antlers club—a famous rendezvous for post-midnight pleasure-seekers, run by the notorious red raegan.1 she impressed me then as a girl of uncommon loveliness, despite the calculating, predatory cast of her features. she was of medium height, slender, graceful in a leonine way, and, i thought, a trifle aloof and even haughty in manner—a result, perhaps, of her reputed association with european royalty. she had the traditional courtesan’s full, red lips, and the wide, mongoose eyes of rossetti’s “blessed damozel.” there was in her face that strange combination of sensual promise and spiritual renunciation with which the painters of all ages have sought to endow their conceptions of the eternal magdalene. hers was the type of face, voluptuous and with a hint of mystery, which rules man’s emotions and, by subjugating his mind, drives him to desperate deeds.
margaret odell had received the sobriquet of canary as a result of a part she had played in an elaborate ornithological ballet of the “follies,” in which each girl had been gowned to represent a variety of bird. to her had fallen the rôle of canary; and her costume of white-and-yellow satin, together with her mass of shining golden hair and pink-and-white complexion, had distinguished her in the eyes of the spectators as a creature of outstanding charm. before a fortnight had passed—so eulogistic were her press notices, and so unerringly did the audience single her out for applause—the “bird ballet” was changed to the “canary ballet,” and miss odell was promoted to the rank of what might charitably be called première danseuse, at the same time having a solo waltz and a song2 interpolated for the special display of her charms and talents.
she had quitted the “follies” at the close of the season, and during her subsequent spectacular career in the haunts of broadway’s night life she had been popularly and familiarly called the canary. thus it happened that when her dead body was found, brutally strangled, in her apartment, the crime immediately became known, and was always thereafter referred to, as the canary murder.
my own participation in the investigation of the canary murder case—or rather my rôle of boswellian spectator—constituted one of the most memorable experiences of my life. at the time of margaret odell’s murder john f.-x. markham was district attorney of new york, having taken office the preceding january. i need hardly remind you that during the four years of his incumbency he distinguished himself by his almost uncanny success as a criminal investigator. the praise which was constantly accorded him, however, was highly distasteful to him; for, being a man with a keen sense of honor, he instinctively shrank from accepting credit for achievements not wholly his own. the truth is that markham played only a subsidiary part in the majority of his most famous criminal cases. the credit for their actual solution belonged to one of markham’s very close friends, who refused, at the time, to permit the facts to be made public.
this man was a young social aristocrat, whom, for purposes of anonymity, i have chosen to call philo vance.
vance had many amazing gifts and capabilities. he was an art collector in a small way, a fine amateur pianist, and a profound student of æsthetics and psychology. although an american, he had largely been educated in europe, and still retained a slight english accent and intonation. he had a liberal independent income, and spent considerable time fulfilling the social obligations which devolved on him as a result of family connections; but he was neither an idler nor a dilettante. his manner was cynical and aloof; and those who met him only casually, set him down as a snob. but knowing vance, as i did, intimately, i was able to glimpse the real man beneath the surface indications; and i knew that his cynicism and aloofness, far from being a pose, sprang instinctively from a nature which was at once sensitive and solitary.
vance was not yet thirty-five, and, in a cold, sculptural fashion, was impressively good-looking. his face was slender and mobile; but there was a stern, sardonic expression to his features, which acted as a barrier between him and his fellows. he was not emotionless, but his emotions were, in the main, intellectual. he was often criticised for his asceticism, yet i have seen him exhibit rare bursts of enthusiasm over an æsthetic or psychological problem. however, he gave the impression of remaining remote from all mundane matters; and, in truth, he looked upon life like a dispassionate and impersonal spectator at a play, secretly amused and debonairly cynical at the meaningless futility of it all. withal, he had a mind avid for knowledge, and few details of the human comedy that came within his sphere of vision escaped him.
it was as a direct result of this intellectual inquisitiveness that he became actively, though unofficially, interested in markham’s criminal investigations.
i kept a fairly complete record of the cases in which vance participated as a kind of amicus curiæ, little thinking that i would ever be privileged to make them public; but markham, after being defeated, as you remember, on a hopelessly split ticket at the next election, withdrew from politics; and last year vance went abroad to live, declaring he would never return to america. as a result, i obtained permission from both of them to publish my notes in full. vance stipulated only that i should not reveal his name; but otherwise no restrictions were placed upon me.
i have related elsewhere3 the peculiar circumstances which led to vance’s participation in criminal research, and how, in the face of almost insuperable contradictory evidence, he solved the mysterious shooting of alvin benson. the present chronicle deals with his solution of margaret odell’s murder, which took place in the early fall of the same year, and which, you will recall, created an even greater sensation than its predecessor.4
a curious set of circumstances was accountable for the way in which vance was shouldered with this new investigation. markham for weeks had been badgered by the anti-administration newspapers for the signal failures of his office in obtaining convictions against certain underworld offenders whom the police had turned over to him for prosecution. as a result of prohibition a new and dangerous, and wholly undesirable, kind of night life had sprung up in new york. a large number of well-financed cabarets, calling themselves night clubs, had made their appearance along broadway and in its side streets; and already there had been an appalling number of serious crimes, both passional and monetary, which, it was said, had had their inception in these unsavory resorts.
at last, when a case of murder accompanying a hold-up and jewel robbery in one of the family hotels up-town was traced directly to plans and preparations made in one of the night clubs, and when two detectives of the homicide bureau investigating the case were found dead one morning in the neighborhood of the club, with bullet wounds in their backs, markham decided to pigeonhole the other affairs of his office and take a hand personally in the intolerable criminal conditions that had arisen.5
