🍾📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘🍾: Best of 2024 Part 1

👀I'm later than typical for my Best of postings but with my mom's passing last week everything was thrown upside down but it was always important to her that I had my blog as an outlet for "me time" so though it seems odd to do it right now, I'll continue because that's what she'd want.👀

As the new year moves forward and we say goodbye to the old, we find ourselves looking at our "Best of" lists.  So this week's Friday Film Adaptation post will feature the most viewed of 2024.  Click on the title links to take you to the original posts.  It's possible not all the original purchase links will still work, in those cases be sure to check the author's websites/links for latest purchasing details and in some cases where the original book the film was based on is an older publication, you might find better luck at your local library.

 

Part 1  /  Part 2

1/26/24:  The Bishop Murder Case by SS Van Dine

2/16/24:  How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan

4/19/24:  More Bitter Than Death by Dana Cameron

5/3/24:  Return of the Jedi by James Kahn

6/7/24:  The King's Assassin - The Secret Plot to Murder King James I by Benjamin Woolley

8/2/24:  A Bramble House Christmas by CJ Carmichael

📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: The Bishop Murder Case by SS Van Dine

Summary:

Philo Vance #4

Philo Vance unravels rhymes in a deadly key. “Without question one of Van Dine’s finest achievements. . . his construction of plot is really quite superb” (Tipping My Fedora).

After solving the Greene murders, Philo Vance has taken a well-earned holiday in Switzerland. Returning to New York City he finds his old chum, District Attorney Anthony Markham, up against a bizarre series of murders inspired by children’s nursery rhymes. The first murder, involving a beautiful young woman and a private archery range, was apparently based on “Who Killed Cock Robin?”; it is followed by more hideous deaths referencing “Mother Goose.” But Philo Vance is not a man to be fobbed off with points to juvenilia. Markham and his colleagues may be worried that a certain Mr. H. Dumpty is riding for a great fall, but Philo Vance suspects a connection to a rather more sophisticated writer. In this “classic detective novel . . . a splendid example of the form . . . the game [is] played full out and to splendid effect” (Mystery File).

Praise for the Philo Vance series

“With his highbrow manner and his parade of encyclopedic learning, Philo Vance is not only a detective; he is a god out of the machine.” —The New York Times

“Well-crafted puzzlers that captivated readers . . . the works of S.S. Van Dine serve to transport the reader back to a long-gone era of society and style of writing.” —Mystery Scene

“Outrageous cleverness . . . among the finest fruits of the Golden Age.” —Bloody Murder

Chapter 1

"WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?"

(Saturday, April 2; noon)

Of all the criminal cases in which Philo Vance participated as an unofficial investigator, the most sinister, the most bizarre, the seemingly most incomprehensible, and certainly the most terrifying, was the one that followed the famous Greene murders.  The orgy of horror at the old Greene mansion had been brought to its astounding close in December; and after the Christmas holidays Vance had gone to Switzerland for the winter sports. Returning to New York at the end of February he had thrown himself into some literary work he had long had in mind—the uniform translation of the principal fragments of Menander found in the Egyptian papyri during the early years of the present century; and for over a month he had devoted himself sedulously to this thankless task.

Whether or not he would have completed the translations, even had his labors not been interrupted, I do not know; for Vance was a man of cultural ardencies, in whom the spirit of research and intellectual adventure was constantly at odds with the drudgery necessary to scholastic creation. I remember that only the preceding year he had begun writing a life of Xenophon—the result of an enthusiasm inherited from his university days when he had first read the Anabasis and the Memorabilia—and had lost interest in it at the point where Xenophon's historic march led the Ten Thousand back to the sea. However, the fact remains that Vance's translation of Menander was rudely interrupted in early April; and for weeks he became absorbed in a criminal mystery which threw the entire country into a state of gruesome excitement.

This new criminal investigation, in which he acted as a kind of amicus curiae for John F.-X. Markham, the District Attorney of New York, at once became known as the Bishop murder case. The designation—the result of our journalistic instinct to attach labels to every cause célèbre—was, in a sense, a misnomer. There was nothing ecclesiastical about that ghoulish saturnalia of crime which set an entire community to reading the "Mother Goose Melodies" with fearful apprehension; and no one of the name of Bishop was, as far as I know, even remotely connected with the monstrous events which bore that appellation. But, withal, the word "Bishop" was appropriate, for it was an alias used by the murderer for the grimmest of purposes. Incidentally it was this name that eventually led Vance to the almost incredible truth, and ended one of the most ghastly multiple crimes in police history.

The series of uncanny and apparently unrelated events which constituted the Bishop murder case and drove all thought of Menander and Greek monostichs from Vance's mind, began on the morning of April 2, less than five months after the double shooting of Julia and Ada Greene. It was one of those warm luxurious spring days which sometimes bless New York in early April; and Vance was breakfasting in his little roof garden atop his apartment in East 38th Street. It was nearly noon—for Vance worked or read until all hours, and was a late riser—and the sun, beating down from a clear blue sky, cast a mantle of introspective lethargy over the city. Vance sprawled in an easy chair, his breakfast on a low table beside him, gazing with cynical, regretful eyes down at the treetops in the rear yard.

I knew what was in his mind. It was his custom each spring to go to France; and it had long since come to him to think, as it came to George Moore, that Paris and May were one. But the great trek of the post-war American nouveaux riches to Paris had spoiled his pleasure in this annual pilgrimage; and, only the day before, he had informed me that we were to remain in New York for the summer.

For years I had been Vance's friend and legal adviser—a kind of monetary steward and agent-companion. I had quitted my father's law firm of Van Dine, Davis & Van Dine to devote myself wholly to his interests—a post I found far more congenial than that of general attorney in a stuffy office—and though my own bachelor quarters were in a hotel on the West Side, I spent most of my time at Vance's apartment.

I had arrived early that morning, long before Vance was up, and, having gone over the first-of-the-month accounts, now sat smoking my pipe idly as he breakfasted.

"Y' know, Van," he said to me, in his emotionless drawl; "the prospect of spring and summer in New York is neither excitin' nor romantic. It's going to be a beastly bore. But it'll be less annoyin' than travelin' in Europe with the vulgar hordes of tourists jostlin' one at every turn… . It's very distressin'."

Little did he suspect what the next few weeks held in store for him. Had he known I doubt if even the prospect of an old pre-war spring in Paris would have taken him away; for his insatiable mind liked nothing better than a complicated problem; and even as he spoke to me that morning the gods that presided over his destiny were preparing for him a strange and fascinating enigma—one which was to stir the nation deeply and add a new and terrible chapter to the annals of crime.

Vance had scarcely poured his second cup of coffee when Currie, his old English butler and general factotum, appeared at the French doors bearing a portable telephone.

"It's Mr. Markham, sir," the old man said apologetically. "As he seemed rather urgent, I took the liberty of informing him you were in." He plugged the telephone into a baseboard switch, and set the instrument on the breakfast table.

"Quite right, Currie," Vance murmured, taking off the receiver. "Anything to break this deuced monotony." Then he spoke to Markham. "I say, old man, don't you ever sleep? I'm in the midst of an omelette aux fines herbes. Will you join me? Or do you merely crave the music of my voice—?"

He broke off abruptly, and the bantering look on his lean features disappeared. Vance was a marked Nordic type, with a long, sharply chiselled face; gray, wide-set eyes; a narrow aquiline nose; and a straight oval chin. His mouth, too, was firm and clean-cut, but it held a look of cynical cruelty which was more Mediterranean than Nordic. His face was strong and attractive, though not exactly handsome. It was the face of a thinker and recluse; and its very severity—at once studious and introspective—acted as a barrier between him and his fellows.

Though he was immobile by nature and sedulously schooled in the repression of his emotions, I noticed that, as he listened to Markham on the phone that morning, he could not entirely disguise his eager interest in what was being told him. A slight frown ruffled his brow; and his eyes reflected his inner amazement. From time to time he gave vent to a murmured "Amazin'!" or "My word!" or "Most extr'ordin'ry!"—his favorite expletives—and when at the end of several minutes he spoke to Markham, a curious excitement marked his manner.

"Oh, by all means!" he said. "I shouldn't miss it for all the lost comedies of Menander… . It sounds mad… . I'll don fitting raiment immediately… . Au revoir."

Replacing the receiver, he rang for Currie.

"My gray tweeds," he ordered. "A sombre tie, and my black Homburg hat." Then he returned to his omelet with a preoccupied air.

After a few moments he looked at me quizzically.

"What might you know of archery, Van?" he asked.

I knew nothing of archery, save that it consisted of shooting arrows at targets, and I confessed as much.

"You're not exactly revealin', don't y' know." He lighted one of his Régie cigarettes indolently. "However, we're in for a little flutter of toxophily, it seems. I'm no leading authority on the subject myself, but I did a bit of potting with the bow at Oxford. It's not a passionately excitin' pastime—much duller than golf and fully as complicated." He smoked a while dreamily. "I say, Van; fetch me Doctor Elmer's tome on archery from the library—there's a good chap." 

I brought the book, and for nearly half an hour he dipped into it, tarrying over the chapters on archery associations, tournaments and matches, and scanning the long tabulation of the best American scores. At length he settled back in his chair. It was obvious he had found something that caused him troubled concern and set his sensitive mind to work.

"It's quite mad, Van," he remarked, his eyes in space. "A mediaeval tragedy in modern New York! We don't wear buskins and leathern doublets, and yet—by Jove!" He suddenly sat upright. "No—no! It's absurd. I'm letting the insanity of Markham's news affect me… ." He drank some more coffee, but his expression told me that he could not rid himself of the idea that had taken possession of him.

"One more favor, Van," he said at length. "Fetch me my German diction'ry and Burton E. Stevenson's 'Home Book of Verse.'"

When I had brought the volumes, he glanced at one word in the dictionary, and pushed the book from him.

"That's that, unfortunately—though I knew it all the time."

Then he turned to the section in Stevenson's gigantic anthology which included the rhymes of the nursery and of childhood. After several minutes he closed that book, too, and, stretching himself out in his chair, blew a long ribbon of smoke toward the awning overhead.

"It can't be true," he protested, as if to himself. "It's too fantastic, too fiendish, too utterly distorted. A fairy tale in terms of blood—a world in anamorphosis—a perversion of all rationality… . It's unthinkable, senseless, like black magic and sorcery and thaumaturgy. It's downright demented."

He glanced at his watch and, rising, went indoors, leaving me to speculate vaguely on the cause of his unwonted perturbation. A treatise on archery, a German dictionary, a collection of children's verses, and Vance's incomprehensible utterances regarding insanity and fantasy—what possible connection could these things have? I attempted to find a least common denominator, but without the slightest success. And it was no wonder I failed. Even the truth, when it came out weeks later bolstered up by an array of incontestable evidence, seemed too incredible and too wicked for acceptance by the normal mind of man.

Vance shortly broke in on my futile speculations. He was dressed for the street, and seemed impatient at Markham's delay in arriving.

"Y' know, I wanted something to interest me—a nice fascinatin' crime, for instance," he remarked; "but—my word!—I wasn't exactly longin' for a nightmare. If I didn't know Markham so well I'd suspect him of spoofing."

When Markham stepped into the roof garden a few minutes later it was only too plain that he had been in deadly earnest. His expression was sombre and troubled, and his usual cordial greeting he reduced to the merest curt formality. Markham and Vance had been intimate friends for fifteen years. Though of antipodal natures—the one sternly aggressive, brusque, forthright, and almost ponderously serious; the other whimsical, cynical, debonair, and aloof from the transient concerns of life—they found in each other that attraction of complementaries which so often forms the basis of an inseparable and enduring companionship.

During Markham's year and four months as District Attorney of New york he had often called Vance into conference on matters of grave importance, and in every instance Vance had justified the confidence placed in his judgments. Indeed, to Vance almost entirely belongs the credit for solving the large number of major crimes which occurred during Markham's four years' incumbency. His knowledge of human nature, his wide reading and cultural attainments, his shrewd sense of logic, and his flair for the hidden truth beneath misleading exteriors, all fitted him for the task of criminal investigator—a task which he fulfilled unofficially in connection with the cases which came under Markham's jurisdiction.

Vance's first case, it will be remembered, had to do with the murder of Alvin Benson; and had it not been for his participation in that affair I doubt if the truth concerning it would ever have come to light. Then followed the notorious strangling of Margaret Odell  —a murder mystery in which the ordinary methods of police detection would inevitably have failed. And last year the astounding Greene murders (to which I have already referred) would undoubtedly have succeeded had not Vance been able to frustrate their final intent.

It was not surprising, therefore, that Markham should have turned to Vance at the very beginning of the Bishop murder case. More and more, I had noticed, he had come to rely on the other's help in his criminal investigations; and in the present instance it was particularly fortunate that he appealed to Vance, for only through an intimate knowledge of the abnormal psychological manifestations of the human mind, such as Vance possessed, could that black, insensate plot have been contravened and the perpetrator unearthed.

"This whole thing may be a mare's-nest," said Markham, without conviction. "But I thought you might want to come along… ."

"Oh, quite!" Vance gave Markham a sardonic smile. "Sit down a moment and tell me the tale coherently. The corpse won't run away. And it's best to get our facts in some kind of order before we view the remains.—Who are the parties of the first part, for instance? And why the projection of the District Attorney's office into a murder case within an hour of the deceased's passing? All that you've told me so far resolves itself into the utterest nonsense."

Markham sat down gloomily on the edge of a chair and inspected the end of his cigar.

"Damn it, Vance! Don't start in with a mysteries-of-Udolpho attitude. The crime—if it is a crime—seems clear-cut enough. It's an unusual method of murder, I'll admit; but it's certainly not senseless. Archery has become quite a fad of late. Bows and arrows are in use to-day in practically every city and college in America."

"Granted. But it's been a long time since they were used to kill persons named Robin."

Markham's eyes narrowed, and he looked at Vance searchingly.

"That idea occurred to you, too, did it?"

"Occurred to me? It leapt to my brain the moment you mentioned the victim's name." Vance puffed a moment on his cigarette. "'Who Killed Cock Robin?' And with a bow and arrow! … Queer how the doggerel learned in childhood clings to the memory.—By the by, what was the unfortunate Mr. Robin's first name?"

"Joseph, I believe."

"Neither edifyin' nor suggestive… . Any middle name?"

"See here, Vance!" Markham rose irritably. "What has the murdered man's middle name to do with the case?"

"I haven't the groggiest. Only, as long as we're going insane we may as well go the whole way. A mere shred of sanity is of no value."

He rang for Currie and sent him for the telephone directory. Markham protested, but Vance pretended not to hear; and when the directory arrived he thumbed its pages for several moments.

"Did the departed live on Riverside Drive?" he asked finally, holding his finger on a name he had found.

"I think he did."

"Well, well." Vance closed the book, and fixed a quizzically triumphant gaze on the District Attorney. "Markham," he said slowly, "there's only one Joseph Robin listed in the telephone direct'ry. He lives on Riverside Drive, and his middle name is—Cochrane!"

"What rot is this?" Markham's tone was almost ferocious. "Suppose his name WAS Cochrane: are you seriously suggesting that the fact had anything to do with his being murdered?"

"'Pon my word, old man, I'm suggesting nothing." Vance shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I'm merely jotting down, so to speak, a few facts in connection with the case. As the matter stands now: a Mr. Joseph Cochrane Robin—to wit: Cock Robin—has been killed by a bow and arrow.—Doesn't that strike even your legal mind as deuced queer?"

"No!" Markham fairly spat the negative. "The name of the dead man is certainly common enough; and it's a wonder more people haven't been killed or injured with all this revival of archery throughout the country. Moreover, it's wholly possible that Robin's death was the result of an accident."

"Oh, my aunt!" Vance wagged his head reprovingly. "That fact, even were it true, wouldn't help the situation any. It would only make it queerer. Of the thousands of archery enthusiasts in these fair states, the one with the name of Cock Robin should be accidentally killed with an arrow! Such a supposition would lead us into spiritism and demonology and whatnot. Do you, by any chance, believe in Eblises and Azazels and jinn who go about playing Satanic jokes on mankind?"

"Must I be a Mohammedan mythologist to admit coincidences?" returned Markham tartly.

"My dear fellow! The proverbial long arm of coincidence doesn't extend to infinity. There are, after all, laws of probability, based on quite definite mathematical formulas. It would make me sad to think that such men as Laplace and Czuber and von Kries had lived in vain.—The present situation, however, is even more complicated than you suspect. For instance, you mentioned over the phone that the last person known to have been with Robin before his death is named Sperling."

"And what esoteric significance lies in that fact?"

"Perhaps you know what Sperling means in German," suggested Vance dulcetly.

"I've been to High School," retorted Markham. Then his eyes opened slightly, and his body became tense.

Vance pushed the German dictionary toward him. "Well, anyway, look up the word. We might as well be thorough. I looked it up myself. I was afraid my imagination was playing tricks on me, and I had a yearnin' to see the word in black and white."

Markham opened the book in silence, and let his eye run down the page. After staring at the word for several moments he drew himself up resolutely, as if fighting off a spell. When he spoke his voice was defiantly belligerent.

"Sperling means 'sparrow.' Any school boy knows that. What of it?"

"Oh, to be sure." Vance lit another cigarette languidly. "And any school boy knows the old nursery rhyme entitled 'The Death and Burial of Cock Robin,' what?" He glanced tantalizingly at Markham, who stood immobile, staring out into the spring sunshine. "Since you pretend to be unfamiliar with that childhood classic, permit me to recite the first stanza."

A chill, as of some unseen spectral presence, passed over me as Vance repeated those old familiar lines:

"Who killed Cock Robin?

'I,' said the sparrow,

'With my bow and arrow.

I killed Cock Robin.'"

Society sleuth Philo Vance investigates a series of murders inspired by Mother Goose rhymes.

Release Date: January 3, 1930
Release Time: 88 minutes

Directors:  David Burton & Nick Grinde

Cast:
Basil Rathbone as Philo Vance
Leila Hyams as Belle Dillard
Roland Young as Sigurd Arnesson
Alec B. Francis as Professor Bertrand Dillard
George F. Marion as Adolph Drukker
Zelda Sears as Miss Drukker ("Mrs. Otto Drukker" in the screen credits)
Bodil Rosing as Grete Menzel
Carroll Nye as John E. Sprigg
Charles Quatermaine as John Pardee
James Donlan as Ernest Heath
Sidney Bracey as Robin Pyne
Clarence Geldart as John F.-X. Markham
Delmer Daves as Raymond Sperling
Nellie Bly Baker as Beedle

Kennel Murder(1933)  /  Calling Philo Vance(Kennel Murder 1940)

Bishop Murder  /  Benson Murder

Canary Murder  /  Gracie Allen Murder

Dragon Murder  /  Casino Murder  /  Garden Murder

Greene Murder(1929)  /  A Night of Mystery(Greene Murder 1937)

Author Bio:

S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright (October 15, 1888 – April 11, 1939) when he wrote detective novels. Wright was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-World War I New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio.

GOOGLE PLAY  /  IMDB  /  KOBO

INDIE BOUND  /  B&N  /  AUDIBLE

AMAZON  /  WIKI  /  GOODREADS

The Bishop Murder Case #4

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KOBO  /  FELONY & MAYHEM  /  WIKI

INDIE BOUND  /  GOODREADS TBR

Series

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK  /  B&N

KOBO  /  FELONY & MAYHEM  /  WIKI

INDIE BOUND  /  GOODREADS TBR

Film

👀Amazon US, UK, & B&N is a Philo Vance Collection👀

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK  /  B&N

ALL MOVIE  /  WIKI  /  IMDB  /  TCM

🌻🌼📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation(Father's Day Edition)🎥📘🌼🌻: The Kennel Murder Case by SS Van Dine

Summary:

Philo Vance #6

A classic mystery featuring dogged detective Philo Vance. “An intricate puzzle . . . [Vance] has an uncanny insight into the subtler aspects of crime.” —The New York Times

Given all the rich people getting bumped off in Philo Vance’s Manhattan, it’s amazing there are enough left to support the symphony. Latest up: Arthur Coe, found dead in his own locked bedroom. Suicide? The ever-perceptive Philo doesn’t buy that theory for a second. The presence in Coe’s house of a strange, prize-winning terrier only adds to the mystery, although Philo’s fabulously in-depth knowledge of dogs does not in fact solve the crime; his fabulously in-depth knowledge of the murder of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1898 proves much more useful.

Like most of the Philo Vance novels, Kennel was made into a movie, directed this time by Michael Curtiz, who a few years later would turn his hand to a little number known as Casablanca. At least one critic has called the film a “masterpiece,” and though we make no similar claim for the book, GoodMysteries.com, dedicated to the art of the classic whodunit, calls Kennel “one of the best locked-room setups ever written.”

Praise for the Philo Vance series

“With his highbrow manner and his parade of encyclopedic learning, Philo Vance is not only a detective; he is a god out of the machine.” —The New York Times

“Well-crafted puzzlers that captivated readers . . . the works of S.S. Van Dine serve to transport the reader back to a long-gone era of society and style of writing.” —Mystery Scene

“Outrageous cleverness . . . among the finest fruits of the Golden Age.” —Bloody Murder

CHAPTER I
THE BOLTED BEDROOM
(Thursday, October 11; 8.45 a. m.)

It was exactly three months after the startling termination of the Scarab murder case that Philo Vance was drawn into the subtlest and the most perplexing of all the criminal problems that came his way during the four years of John F.-X. Markham's incumbency as District Attorney of New York County.

Indeed, so mystifying was this case, so apparently inexplicable were its conflicting elements, that the police were for adding it to their list of unsolved murder mysteries. And they would have been justified in their decision; for rarely in the annals of modern crime has there been a case that seemed to reverse so completely the rational laws by which humanity lives and reasons. In the words of the doughty and practical Sergeant Ernest Heath of the Homicide Bureau, the case "didn't make sense." On the surface it smacked of strange and terrifying magic, of witch-doctors and miracle-workers; and every line of investigation ran into a blank wall.

In fact, the case had every outward appearance of being what arm-chair criminologists delight in calling the perfect crime. And, to make the plotting of the murderer even more mystifying, a diabolical concatenation of circumstances was superimposed upon the events by some whimsical and perverse god, which tended to strengthen every weak link in the culprit's chain of ratiocination, and to turn the entire bloody affair into a maze of incomprehensibility.

Curiously enough, however, it was the very excess of ardor on the part of the murderer when attempting to divert suspicion, that created a minute hole in the wall of mystery, through which Vance was able to see a glimmer of light. In the process of following that light to the truth, Vance did what I believe was the shrewdest and profoundest detective work of his career. It was his peculiar knowledge of special and out-of-the-way facts, combined with his almost uncanny perception of human nature, that made it possible for him to seize upon apparently unimportant clues and resolve them into a devastating syllogism.

Vance for years had been a breeder of Scottish terriers. His kennels were in New Jersey, an hour's ride from New York, and he spent much of his time there studying pedigrees, breeding for certain characteristics which he believed essential to the ideal terrier, and watching the results of his theories. Sometimes I think he manifested a greater enthusiasm in his dogs than in any other recreative phase of his life; and the only time I have seen evidences of a thrill in his eyes comparable to that when he had unearthed and acquired a magnificent Cézanne water-color or discovered a rare piece of Chinese ceremonial jade in a mass of opaque modern recuttings, was when one of his dogs went up to Winners.

I mention this fact--or idiosyncrasy, if you prefer--because it so happened that Vance's ability to look at a certain stray Scottish terrier and recognize its blood-lines and show qualities, was what led him to one phase of the truth in the remarkable case which I am now recording.

That which led Vance to another important phase of the truth was his knowledge of Chinese ceramics. He possessed, in his home in East 38th Street, a small but remarkable collection of Chinese antiquities--museum pieces he had acquired in his extensive travels--and had written various articles for Oriental and art journals on the subject of Sung and Ming monochrome porcelains.

Scotties and Chinese ceramics! A truly unusual combination. And yet, without a knowledge of these two antipodal interests, the mysterious murder of Archer Coe, in his old brownstone house in West 71st Street, would have remained a closed book for all time.

The opening of the case was rather tame: it promised little in the line of sensationalism. But within an hour of the telephone call Markham received from the Coe butler, the District Attorney's office and the New York Police Department were plunged into one of the most astounding and baffling murder mysteries of our day.

It was shortly after half-past eight on the morning of October 11, that Vance's door-bell rang; and Currie, his old English valet and majordomo, ushered Markham into the library. I was temporarily installed in Vance's duplex roof-garden apartment at the time. There was much legal and financial work to be done--an accumulation of months, for Vance had insisted that I accompany him on the Mediterranean cruise he took immediately after the solving of the Scarab murder. For years, almost since our Harvard days, I had been Vance's legal adviser and monetary steward (a post which included as much of friendship as of business) and his affairs kept me fairly busy--so busy, in fact, that a two months' interregnum meant much overtime labor afterwards.

On this particular autumn morning I had risen at seven and was busily engaged with a mass of cancelled checks and bank statements when Markham arrived.

"Go ahead with your chores, Van Dine," he said, with a perfunctory nod. "I'll rout out the sybarite myself." He seemed a trifle perturbed as he disappeared into Vance's bedroom, which was just off the library.

I heard him call Vance a bit peremptorily, and I heard Vance give a dramatic groan.

"A murder, I presume," Vance complained through a yawn. "Nothing less than gore would have led your footsteps to my boudoir at this ungodly hour."

"Not a murder--" Markham began.

"Oh, I say! What time might it be, then?"

"Eight forty-five," Markham told him.

"So early--and not a murder!" (I could hear Vance's feet hit the floor.) "You interest me strangely. . . . Your wedding morn perhaps?"

"Archer Coe has committed suicide," Markham announced, not without irritation.

"My word!" Vance was now moving about. "That's even stranger than a murder. I crave elucidation. . . . Come, let's sit down while I sip my coffee."

Markham re-entered the library, followed by Vance clad in sandals and an elaborate Mandarin robe. Vance rang for Currie and ordered Turkish coffee, at the same time settling himself in a large Queen Anne chair and lighting one of his favorite Régie cigarettes.

Markham did not sit down. He stood near the mantelpiece, regarding his host with narrowed, inquisitive eyes.

"What did you mean, Vance," he asked, "by Coe's suicide being stranger than murder?"

"Nothing esoteric, old thing," Vance drawled languidly. "Simply that there would be nothing particularly remarkable in any one's pushing old Archer into the Beyond. He's been inviting violence all his life. Not a sweet and love-inspiring chappie, don't y' know. But there's something deuced remarkable in the fact that he should push himself over the border. He's not the suicidal type--far too egocentric."

"I think you're right. And that idea was probably in the back of my head when I told the butler to hold everything till I got there."

Currie entered with the coffee, and Vance sipped the black, cloudy liquid for a moment. At length he said:

"Do tell me more. Why should you be notified at all? And what did the butler pour into your ear over the phone? And why are you here curtailing my slumbers? Why everything? Why anything? Just why? Can't you see I'm bursting with uncontrollable curiosity?" And Vance yawned and closed his eyes.

"I'm on my way to Coe's house." Markham was annoyed at the other's attitude of indifference. "Thought maybe you'd like to--what's your favorite word?--'toddle' along." This was said with sarcasm.

"Toddle," Vance repeated. "Quite. But why toddle blindly? Do be magnanimous and enlighten me. The corpse won't run away, even if we are a bit latish."

Markham hesitated, and shrugged. Obviously he was uneasy, and obviously he wanted Vance to accompany him. As he had admitted, something was in the back of his head.

"Very well," he acquiesced. "Shortly after eight this morning Coe's butler--the obsequious Gamble--phoned me at my home. He was in a state of nerves, and his voice was husky with fear. He informed me, with many hems and haws, that Archer Coe had shot himself, and asked me if I would come to the house at once. My first instinct was to tell him to notify the police; but, for some reason, I checked myself and asked him why he had called me. He said that Mr. Raymond Wrede had so advised him--"

"Ah!"

"It seems he had first called Wrede--who, as you know, is an intimate family friend--and that Wrede had immediately come to the house."

"And Wrede said 'get Mr. Markham.'" Vance drew deep on his cigarette. "Something dodging about in the recesses of Wrede's brain, too, no doubt. . . . Well, any more?"

"Only that the body was bolted in Coe's bedroom."

"Bolted on the inside?"

"Exactly."

"Amazin'!"

"Gamble brought up Coe's breakfast at eight as usual, but received no answer to his knocking. . . ."

"So he peeped through the keyhole--yes, yes, butlers always do. Some day, Markham, I shall, in a moment of leisure, invent a keyhole that can't be seen through by butlers. Have you ever stopped to think how much of the world's disturbance is caused by butlers being able to see through keyholes?"

"No, Vance, I never have," returned Markham wearily. "My brain is inadequate--I'll leave that speculation to you. . . . Nevertheless, because of your dalliance in the matter of inventing opaque keyholes, Gamble saw Coe seated in his armchair, a revolver in his hand, and a bullet wound in his right temple. . . ."

"And, I'll warrant, Gamble added that his master's face was deathly pale--eh, what?"

"He did."

"But what about Brisbane Coe? Why did Gamble call Wrede when Archer's brother was in the house?"

"Brisbane Coe didn't happen to be in the house. He's at present in Chicago."

"Ah! Most convenient. . . . So when Wrede arrived he advised Gamble to phone direct to you, knowing that you knew Coe. Is that it?"

"As far as I can make out."

"And you, knowing that I had visited Coe on various occasions, thought you'd pick me up and make it a conclave of acquaintances."

"Do you want to come?" demanded Markham, with a trace of anger.

"Oh, by all means," Vance replied dulcetly. "But, really, y' know, I can't go in these togs." He rose and started towards the bedroom. "I'll hop into appropriate integuments." As he reached the door he stopped. "And I'll tell you why your invitation enthralls me. I had an appointment with Archer Coe for three this afternoon to look at a pair of peach-bloom vases fourteen inches high he had recently acquired. And, Markham, a collector who has just acquired a pair of peach-bloom vases of that size doesn't commit suicide the next day."

With this remark Vance disappeared, and Markham stood, his hands behind him, looking at the bedroom door with a deep frown. Presently he lighted a cigar and began pacing back and forth.

"I shouldn't wonder if Vance were right," he mumbled, as if to himself. "He's put my subconscious thought into words."

A few minutes later Vance emerged, dressed for the street.

"Awfully thoughtful of you, and all that, to pick me up," he said, smiling jauntily at Markham. "There's something positively fascinatin' about the possibilities of this affair. . . . And by the by, Markham, it might be convenient to have the pugnacious Sergeant on hand."

"So it might," agreed Markham drily, putting on his hat. "Thanks for the suggestion. But I've already notified him. He's on his way uptown now."

Vance's eyebrows went up whimsically.

"Oh, pardon! . . . Well, let's grope our way hence."

We entered Markham's car, which was waiting outside, and were driven rapidly up Madison Avenue. We cut through Central Park to the West Side, came out at the 72nd-Street entrance, and went for a block against traffic on Central Park West. Turning into 71st Street, we drew up at No. 98.

The Coe house was an old brownstone mansion of double frontage occupying two city lots, built in a day when dignity and comfort were among the ideals of New York architects. The house was uniform with the other residences in the block, with the exception that most of the houses were single structures with only a twenty-foot frontage. The basements were three or four feet below the street level and opened on a sunken, paved areaway. Flights of stone stairs, with wide stone balustrades, led to the first floors, each house being entered through a conventional vestibule.

As we ascended the steps of the Coe house the door was opened for us before we had time to pull the old-fashioned brass bell-knob; and the flushed face of Gamble looked out at us cringingly. The butler made a series of suave bows as he pulled the heavy oak door ajar for us to enter.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Markham." His voice reeked of oily subservience. "It's very terrible, sir. And I really didn't know just what I should do--"

Markham brushed the man aside and we stepped into the dimly lighted hallway. A heavy deep-napped carpet covered the entire hall, and several dingy oil paintings made enormous black squares against the dark tapestry on the walls. Ahead of us a broad flight of carpeted stairs led upward into a vault of darkness. On the right hung a pair of deep maroon portières evidently veiling double sliding doors. To the left were other portières; but these were drawn back, and we could look through the open doors into a stuffy drawing-room, filled with all manner of heavy ancient furniture.

Two men came forward from this room to greet us. The one in advance I recognized immediately as Raymond Wrede. I had met him several times at the Coe home when I had accompanied Vance there to inspect some particular "find" in Chinese pottery or bronzes, which Archer Coe had made. Wrede, I knew, was a close friend of the Coe family, and particularly of Hilda Lake, Archer Coe's niece. He was a studious man in his late thirties, slightly gray, with an ascetic, calm face of the chevaline type. He was mildly interested in Oriental ceramics--probably as a result of his long association with Coe--though his particular fancy was ancient oil lamps; and he owned a collection of rare specimens for which (I have been told) the Metropolitan Museum of Art had offered him a small fortune.

As he greeted us this morning, there was a look bordering on bewilderment in his wide-set, gray eyes.

He bowed formally to Markham, whom he knew slightly; nodded perfunctorily to me; and extended his hand to Vance. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he turned toward the man behind him, and made a brief presentation, which in reality was an explanation.

"Signor Grassi. . . . Mr. Grassi has been a house guest of Mr. Coe's for several days. He represents an Italian museum of Oriental antiquities at Milan."

Grassi bowed very low, but said nothing. He was considerably shorter than Wrede, slim, immaculately dressed, with shiny black hair brushed straight back from his forehead, and a complexion whose unusual pallor was accentuated by large luminous eyes. His features were regular, and his lips full and shapely. His manicured hands moved with an almost feline grace. My first impression was that he was effeminate, but before many days had passed I radically changed my opinion.

Markham wasted no time on ceremony. He turned abruptly to Gamble.

"Just what is the situation? A police sergeant and the Medical Examiner will be here any moment."

"Only what I told you on the telephone, sir." The man, beneath his obsequious manner, was patently frightened. "When I saw the master through the keyhole I knew he was dead--it was quite unnerving, sir--and my first impulse was to break in the door. But I thought it best to seek advice before taking such a responsibility. And, as Mr. Brisbane Coe was in Chicago, I phoned to Mr. Wrede and begged him to come over immediately. Mr. Wrede was good enough to come, and after looking at the master he suggested that I call you, sir, before doing anything else--"

"It was obvious"--Wrede took up the story--"that poor Coe was dead, and I thought it best to leave everything intact for the authorities. I didn't want to insist on having the door broken in."

Vance was watching the man closely.

"But what harm could that have done?" he asked mildly. "Since the door was bolted on the inside, suicide was rather plainly indicated--eh, what?"

"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Vance." Wrede appeared ill at ease. "But--somehow--my instinct told me that it might be best--"

"Quite--quite." Vance took out his cigarette-case. "You, too, were sceptical--despite the appearances."

Wrede gave a start, and stared fixedly at Vance.

"Coe," Vance continued, "wasn't exactly the suicidal type--was he?"

"No-o." Wrede's eyes did not shift.

Vance lighted a cigarette.

"My own feeling is you acted quite wisely."

"Come!" Markham turned toward the stairs and made a peremptory gesture to Gamble. "Lead the way."

The butler turned and mounted the stairs. Markham, Vance and I followed, but Wrede and Grassi remained below. At the head of the stairs Gamble fumbled along the wall and pressed an electric switch-button. A light flooded the upper hallway. Directly ahead of us was a wide door, ivory enamelled. Gamble stood by the switch and, without a word, indicated the door.

Markham came forward, tried the knob, and shook it. Then he knelt down and looked through the keyhole. When he rose his face was grim.

"It looks as if our suspicions were unfounded," he said in a low voice. "Coe is sitting in his chair, a black hole in his right temple, and his hand is still clutching a revolver. The electric lights are on. . . . Look, Vance."

Vance was gazing at an etching on the wall at the head of the stairs.

"I'll take your word for it, Markham," he drawled. "Really, y' know, it doesn't sound like a pretty sight. And I'll see it infinitely better when we've forced an entry. . . . I say! Here's an early Marin. Rather sensitive. Same feeling for delicate composition we find in his later water-colors. . . ."

At this moment the front door bell rang violently, and Gamble hastened down the stairs. As he drew the door back, Sergeant Ernest Heath and Detective Hennessey burst into the lower hallway.

"This way, Sergeant," Markham called.

Heath and Hennessey came noisily up the stairs.

"Good morning, sir." The Sergeant waved a friendly hand to Markham. Then he cocked an eye at Vance. "I mighta known you'd be here. The world's champeen trouble-shooter!" He grinned good-naturedly, and there was genuine affection in his tone.

"Come, Sergeant," Markham ordered. "There's a dead man in this room, and the door's bolted on the inside. Break it open."

Heath, without a word, hurled himself against the crosspiece of the door just above the knob, but without result. A second time his shoulder crashed against the crosspiece.

"Give me a hand, Hennessey," he said. "That's a bolt--no foolin'. Hard wood."

The two men threw their combined weight against the door, and now there was a sound of tearing wood as the bolt's screws were loosened.

During the process of battering in the door, Wrede and Grassi mounted the stairs, followed by Gamble, and stood directly behind Markham and Vance.

Two more terrific thrusts by Heath and Hennessey, and the heavy door swung inward, revealing the death chamber.

Society sleuth Philo Vance investigates a murder tied to a Long Island dog show.

Release Date: October 28, 1933
Release Time: 73 minutes

Director: Michael Curtiz

Cast:
William Powell as Philo Vance
Mary Astor as Hilda Lake
Eugene Pallette as Detective Heath
Ralph Morgan as Raymond Wrede, the Secretary
Robert McWade as District Attorney Markham
Robert Barrat as Archer Coe
Frank Conroy as Brisbane Coe
Etienne Girardot as Dr. Doremus
Paul Cavanagh as Sir Thomas MacDonald
Arthur Hohl as Gamble, the butler
Helen Vinson as Doris Delafield
Jack La Rue as Eduardo Grassi
James Lee as Liang
George Chandler as First Reporter at Police Station

Kennel Murder(1933)  /  Calling Philo Vance(Kennel Murder 1940)

Bishop Murder  /  Benson Murder

Canary Murder  /  Gracie Allen Murder

Dragon Murder  /  Casino Murder  /  Garden Murder

Greene Murder(1929)  /  A Night of Mystery(Greene Murder 1937)

Author Bio:

S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright (October 15, 1888 – April 11, 1939) when he wrote detective novels. Wright was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-World War I New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio.

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The Kennel Murder Case #6

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