The "Canary" murder case

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...

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...

I was living temporarily with Vance at his home in East 38th Street—a large remodelled apartment occupying the two top floors of a beautiful mansion. For several years I had bee...

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,...

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 atmosp...

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 squaren...

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 a...

“The situation, as I see it,” he said, “boils down to this:—The Odell girl has an engagement for dinner and the theatre with a man of some distinction. He calls for her a little...

“It’s past noon,” he said. “I think I’ll stop at the club and have a bite of lunch. . . . I presume that eating at this early hour would be too plebeian for so exquisite a hotho...

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...

The prediction proved true. Doctor Lindquist entered the room a moment later inspecting the District Attorney’s card as if it had been a cuneiform inscription whose import he co...

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 ac...

“No questions, please, this morning,” Markham begged pleasantly. “It’s too early in the game. But I’ll tell you all I know. . . . I agree with Sergeant Heath that the Odell murd...

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...

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 gui...

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...

“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 b...

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 entertainmen...

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,...

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...

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...

“The trouble is,” said Markham, “we don’t know how much of Cleaver’s story is true.—And, by the way, Vance, do you believe he really bought his letters back in August?”

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 n...

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...

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 arr...

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 ad...

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 C...

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...

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 p...

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. T...