The Benson Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  Markham personally did not appear as Public Prosecutor. Having been a life-long friend of the defendant, his position was an unenviable and difficult one, and no word of criticism was directed agaist his assignment of the case to Chief Assistant District Attorney Sullivan. Major Benson surrounded himself with an array of counsel such as is rarely seen in our criminal courts. Both Blashfield and Bauer were among the attorneys for the defence—Blashfield fulfilling the duties of the English solicitor, and Bauer acting as advocate. They fought with every legal device at their disposal, but the accumulation of evidence against their client overwhelmed them.

  After Markham had been convinced of the Major’s guilt, he had made a thorough examination of the business affairs of the two brothers, and found the situation even worse than had been indicated by Stitt’s first report. The firm’s securities had been systematically appropriated for private speculations; but whereas Alvin Benson had succeeded in covering himself and making a large profit, the Major had been almost completely wiped out by his investments. Markham was able to show that the Major’s only hope of replacing the diverted securities and saving himself from criminal prosecution lay in Alvin Benson’s immediate death. It was also brought out at the trial that the Major, on the very day of the murder, had made emphatic promises which could have been kept only in the event of his gaining access to his brother’s safe. Furthermore, these promises had involved specific amounts in the other’s possession; and, in one instance, he had put up, on a forty-eight hour note, a security already pledged—a fact which, in itself, would have exposed his hand, had his brother lived.

  Miss Hoffman was a helpful and intelligent witness for the prosecution. Her knowledge of conditions at the Benson and Benson offices went far towards strengthening the case against the Major.

  Mrs. Platz also testified to overhearing acrimonious arguments between the brothers. She stated that less than a fortnight before the murder, the Major, after an unsuccessful attempt to borrow $50,000 from Alvin, had threatened him, saying: “If I ever have to choose between your skin and mine, it won’t be mine that’ll suffer.”

  Theodore Montagu, the man who, according to the story of the elevator boy at the Chatham Arms, had returned at half-past two on the night of the murder, testified that, as his taxicab turned in front of the apartment house, the headlights flashed on a man standing in a tradesman’s entrance across the street, and that the man looked like Major Benson. This evidence would have had little effect had not Pfyfe come forward after the arrest and admitted seeing the Major crossing Sixth Avenue at Forty-sixth Street when he had walked to Pietro’s for his drink of Haig and Haig. He explained that he had attached no importance to it at the time, thinking the Major was merely returning home from some Broadway restaurant. He himself had not been seen by the Major.

  This testimony, in connection with Mr. Montagu’s, annihilated the Major’s carefully planned alibi; and though the defence contended stubbornly that both witnessess had been mistaken in their identification, the jury was deeply impressed by the evidence, especially when Assistant District Attorney Sullivan, under Vance’s tutoring, painstakingly explained, with diagrams, how the Major could have gone out and returned that night without being seen by the boy.

  It was also shown that the jewels could not have been taken from the scene of the crime except by the murderer; and Vance and I were called as witnesses to the finding of them in the Major’s apartment. Vance’s demonstration of the height of the murderer was shown in court, but, curiously, it carried little weight, as the issue was confused by a mass of elaborate scientific objections. Captain Hagedorn’s indentification of the pistol was the most difficult obstacle with which the defence had to contend.

  The trial lasted three weeks, and much evidence of a scandalous nature was taken, although, at Markham’s suggestion, Sullivan did his best minimise the private affairs of those innocent persons whose lives unfortunately touched upon the episode. Colonel Ostrander, however, has never forgiven Markham for not having had him called as a witness.

  During the last week of the trial Miss Muriel St. Clair appeared as prima donna in a large Broadway light-opera production which ran successfully for nearly two years. She has since married her chivalrous Captain Leacock, and they appear perfectly happy.

  Pfyfe is still married and as elegant as ever. He visits New York regularly, despite the absence of his “dear old Alvin”; and I have occasionally seen him and Mrs. Banning together. Somehow, I shall always like that woman. Pfyfe raised the $10,000—how, I have no idea—and reclaimed her jewels. Their ownership, by the way, was not divulged at the trial, for which I was very glad.

  On the evening of the day the verdict was brought in against the Major, Vance and Markham and I were sitting in the Stuyvesant Club. We had dined together, but no word of the events of the past few weeks had passed between us. Presently, however, I saw an ironic smile creep slowly to Vance’s lips.

  “I say, Markham,” he drawled; “what a grotesque spectacle the trial was! The real evidence, y’know, wasn’t even introduced. Benson was convicted entirely on suppositions, presumptions, implications and inf’rences…. God help the innocent Daniel who inadvertently falls into a den of legal lions!”

  Markham, to my surprise, nodded gravely.

  “Yes,” he concurred; “but if Sullivan had tried to get a conviction on your so-called psychological theories, he’d have been adjudged insane.”

  “Doubtless,” sighed Vance. “You illuminati of the law would have little to do if you went about your business intelligently.”

  “Theoretically,” replied Markham at length, “your theories are clear enough; but I’m afraid I’ve dealt too long with material facts to forsake them for psychology and art…. However,” he added lightly, “if my legal evidence should fail me in the future, may I call on you for assistance?”

  “I’m always at your service, old chap, don’t y’know,” Vance rejoined. “I rather fancy, though, that it’s when your legal evidence is leading you irresistibly to your victim that you’ll need me most, what?”

  And the remark, though intended merely as a good natured sally, proved strangely prophetic.

  Footnotes

  1. Philo Vance at Home

  1 As a matter of fact, the same water-colours that Vance obtained for $250 and $300, were bringing three times as much four years later.

  2 I am thinking particularly of Bronzino’s portraits of Pietro de’ Medici and Cosimo de’ Medici, in the National Gallery, and of Vasari’s medallion portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici in the Vecchio Palazzo, Florence.

  3 Once when Vance was suffering from sinusitis, he had an X-ray photograph of his head made; and the accompanying chart described him as a “marked dolichocephalic” and a “disharmonious Nordic.” It also contained the following data:—cephalic index, 75; nose leptorhine with an index of 48; facial angle, 85°; vertical index, 72; upper facial index, 54; interpupilary width, 67; chin, masognathous, with an index of 103; sella turcica, abnormally large.

  4 “Culture,” Vance said to me shortly after I had met him, “is polyglot; and the knowledge of many tongues is essential to an understanding of the world’s intellectual and aesthetic achievements. Especially are the Greek and Latin classios vitiated by translation.” I quote the remark here because his omnivorous reading in languages other than English, coupled with his anazingly retentive memory, had a tendency to affect his own speech. And while it may appear to some that his speech was at times pedantic, I have tried, throughout these chronicles, to quote him literally, in the hope of presenting a portrait of the man as he was.

  2. At the Scene of the Crime

  1 The book was O. Henry’s “Strictly Business,” and the place at which it was being held open was, curiously enough, the story entitled “A Municipal Report.”

  2 Inspector Moran (as I learned later) had once been the President of a large up-State bank that had failed during the panic of 1907, and during the Gaynor Administration had been seriously co
nsidered for the post of Police Commissioner.

  3. A Lady’s Handbag

  1 Vance’s eyes were slightly bifocal. His right eye was 1·2 astigmatic, whereas his left eye was practically normal.

  5. Gathering Information

  1 Even the famous Elwell case, which came several years later and bore certain points of similarity to the Benson case, created no greater sensation, despite the fact that Elwell was more widely known than Benson, and the persons involved were more prominent socially. Indeed, the Benson case was referred to several times in descriptions of the Elwell case; and one anti-administration paper regretted editorially that John F.-X. Markham was no longer District Attorney of New York.

  2 Vance, who had lived many years in England, frequently said “ain’t”—a contraction which is regarded there more leniently than in this country. He also pronounced ate as if it were spelled et; and I cannot remember his ever using the word “stomach” or “bug,” both of which are under the social ban in England.

  8. Vance Accepts a Challenge

  1 The following conversation in which Vance explains his psychological methods of criminal analysis is, of course, set down from memory. However, a proof of this passage was sent to him with a request that he revise and alter it in whatever manner he chose; so that, as it now stands, it describes Vance’s theory in practically his own words.

  2 I don’t know what case Vance was referring to; but there are several instances of this device on record, and writers of detective fiction have often used it. The latest instance is to be found in G. K. Chesterton’s “The Innocence of Father Brown,” in the story entitled “The Wrong Shape.”

  3 It was Pearson and Goring who, about twenty years ago, made an extensive investigation and tabulation of professional criminals in England, the results of which showed (1) that criminal careers began mostly between the ages of 16 and 21; (2) that over ninety per cent, of criminals were mentally normal; (3) and that more criminals had criminal older brothers than criminal fathers.

  4 Sir Basil Thomson, K.C.B., former Assistant Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, London, writing in The Saturday Evening Post several years after this conversation, said: “Take, for example, the proverb that murder will out, which is employed whenever one out of many thousands of undiscovered murderers is caught through a chance coincidence that captures the popular imagination. It is because murder will not out that the pleasant shock of surprise when it does out, calls for a proverb to enshrine the phenomenon. The poisoner who is brought to justice has almost invariably proved to have killed other victims without exciting suspicion until he has grown careless.”

  5 In “Popular Fallacies About Crime” (Saturday Evening Post, April 21, 1923, p. 8) Sir Basil Thomson also upheld this point of view.

  6 For years the famous Concert Champýtre in the Louvre was officially attributed to Titian. Vance, however, took it upon himself to convince the Curator, M. Lepelletier, that it was a Giorgione, with the result that the painting is now credited to that artist.

  14. Links in the Chain

  1 Obviously a reference to Tetrazzini’s performance in La Boh&me at the Manhattan Opera House in 1908.

  19. Vance Cross-Examines

  1 This quotation from Ecclesiastes reminds me that Vance regularly read the Old Testament. “When I weary of the professional liter’ry man,” he once said, “I find stimulation in the majestic prose of the Bible. If the moderns feel that they simply must write, they should be made to spend at least two hours a day with the Biblical historians.”

  21. Sartorial Revelations

  1 The book—or a part of it—has, I believe, been recently translated into English.

  23. Checking an Alibi

  1 The boy was Jack Prisco, of 621 Kelly Street.

  2 Obviously Mrs. Platz.

  24. The Arrest

  1 A helixometer, I learned later, is an instrument that makes it possible to examine every portion of the inside of a gun’s barrel through a microscope.

  Note on the Author

  S.S Van Dine is the pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright, born in 1888, whose eminent career as a crime novelist opened with The Benson Murder Case in 1926. Before this he was well known as an art critic, journalist and socialite; he was Editor-in-Chief of The Smart Set Magazine, Editor of The International Studio, and author of several books, including a study of Nietzsche and works on modern painting. Forced through overwork to take a long rest, and forbidden by his doctors to do any ‘serious’ reading, Wright read over two thousand detective novels and books on criminology. Subsequently, as S.S. Van Dine, he wrote a series of best-selling crime novels. His detective Philo Vance – one of the most famous amateur sleuths of his time – was immortalised on screen by William Powell in The Canary Murder Case.

  The author died in 1939.

  Discover books by S.S. Van Dine published by Bloomsbury Reader at

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  The Benson Murder Case

  The Canary Murder Case

  The Kennel Murder Case

  This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader

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  Copyright © 1926 S.S. Van Dine

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  eISBN: 9781448213160

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