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 reposes1 a small green index-card on which is typed: “ODELL, MARGARET. 184 West 71st Street. Sept. 10. Murder: Strangled about 11 p. m. Apartment ransacked2. Jewelry3 stolen. Body found by Amy Gibson, maid.”
Here, in a few commonplace words, is the bleak4, unadorned statement of one of the most astonishing crimes in the police annals of this country—a crime so contradictory5, 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 investigation6 only tended to prove that Margaret Odell could not possibly have been murdered. And yet, huddled7 on the great silken davenport in her living-room lay the girl’s strangled body, giving the lie to so grotesque8 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 ramifications9, many dark recesses10 of man’s unexplored nature, and the uncanny subtlety11 of a human mind sharpened by desperate and tragic12 despair. And it also revealed a hidden page of passional melodrama13 which, in its essence and organisms, was no less romantic and fascinating than that vivid, theatrical14 section of the Comédie Humaine which deals with the fabulous15 love of Baron16 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 scintillant17 figure who seemed somehow to typify the gaudy18 and spurious romance of transient gaiety. For nearly two years before her death she had been the most conspicuous19 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 questionable20 designation, “the toast of the town”; but to-day there are too many aspirants21 for this classification, too many cliques22 and violent schisms23 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 legendary24 tales of her affairs with one or two obscure potentates25 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 cynically27 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 flamboyant28 way. I remember seeing her dancing one night at the Antlers Club—a famous rendezvous29 for post-midnight pleasure-seekers, run by the notorious Red Raegan.1 She impressed me then as a girl of uncommon30 loveliness, despite the calculating, predatory cast of her features. She was of medium height, slender, graceful31 in a leonine way, and, I thought, a trifle aloof32 and even haughty33 in manner—a result, perhaps, of her reputed association with European royalty34. 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, voluptuous35 and with a hint of mystery, which rules man’s emotions and, by subjugating36 his mind, drives him to desperate deeds.
Margaret Odell had received the sobriquet37 of Canary as a result of a part she had played in an elaborate ornithological38 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 complexion39, had distinguished40 her in the eyes of the spectators as a creature of outstanding charm. Before a fortnight had passed—so eulogistic41 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, brutally42 strangled, in her apartment, the crime immediately became known, and was always thereafter referred to, as the Canary murder.
My own participation43 in the investigation of the Canary murder case—or rather my rôle of Boswellian spectator—constituted one of the most memorable44 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 incumbency45 he distinguished himself by his almost uncanny success as a criminal investigator46. The praise which was constantly accorded him, however, was highly distasteful to him; for, being a man with a keen sense of honor, he instinctively47 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 aristocrat48, whom, for purposes of anonymity49, I have chosen to call Philo Vance.
Vance had many amazing gifts and capabilities50. He was an art collector in a small way, a fine amateur pianist, and a profound student of æsthetics and psychology51. Although an American, he had largely been educated in Europe, and still retained a slight English accent and intonation52. 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 dilettante53. His manner was cynical26 and aloof; and those who met him only casually54, set him down as a snob55. 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 aloofness56, far from being a pose, sprang instinctively from a nature which was at once sensitive and solitary57.
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, sardonic58 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 asceticism59, 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 mundane60 matters; and, in truth, he looked upon life like a dispassionate and impersonal61 spectator at a play, secretly amused and debonairly62 cynical at the meaningless futility63 of it all. Withal, he had a mind avid64 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 inquisitiveness65 that he became actively66, though unofficially, interested in Markham’s criminal investigations67.
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 stipulated68 only that I should not reveal his name; but otherwise no restrictions69 were placed upon me.
I have related elsewhere3 the peculiar70 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 predecessor71.4
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 offenders72 whom the police had turned over to him for prosecution73. As a result of prohibition74 a new and dangerous, and wholly undesirable75, 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 appalling76 number of serious crimes, both passional and monetary77, which, it was said, had had their inception78 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 decided79 to pigeonhole80 the other affairs of his office and take a hand personally in the intolerable criminal conditions that had arisen.5
点击收听单词发音
1 reposes | |
v.将(手臂等)靠在某人(某物)上( repose的第三人称单数 ) | |
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2 ransacked | |
v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 );抢劫,掠夺 | |
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3 jewelry | |
n.(jewllery)(总称)珠宝 | |
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4 bleak | |
adj.(天气)阴冷的;凄凉的;暗淡的 | |
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5 contradictory | |
adj.反驳的,反对的,抗辩的;n.正反对,矛盾对立 | |
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6 investigation | |
n.调查,调查研究 | |
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7 huddled | |
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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8 grotesque | |
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物) | |
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9 ramifications | |
n.结果,后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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10 recesses | |
n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 );(工作或业务活动的)中止或暂停期间;学校的课间休息;某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 );将(墙)做成凹形,在(墙)上做壁龛;休息,休会,休庭 | |
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11 subtlety | |
n.微妙,敏锐,精巧;微妙之处,细微的区别 | |
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12 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
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13 melodrama | |
n.音乐剧;情节剧 | |
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14 theatrical | |
adj.剧场的,演戏的;做戏似的,做作的 | |
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15 fabulous | |
adj.极好的;极为巨大的;寓言中的,传说中的 | |
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16 baron | |
n.男爵;(商业界等)巨头,大王 | |
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17 scintillant | |
adj.产生火花的,闪烁(耀)的 | |
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18 gaudy | |
adj.华而不实的;俗丽的 | |
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19 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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20 questionable | |
adj.可疑的,有问题的 | |
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21 aspirants | |
n.有志向或渴望获得…的人( aspirant的名词复数 )v.渴望的,有抱负的,追求名誉或地位的( aspirant的第三人称单数 );有志向或渴望获得…的人 | |
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22 cliques | |
n.小集团,小圈子,派系( clique的名词复数 ) | |
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23 schisms | |
n.教会分立,分裂( schism的名词复数 ) | |
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24 legendary | |
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学) | |
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25 potentates | |
n.君主,统治者( potentate的名词复数 );有权势的人 | |
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26 cynical | |
adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的,不信世道向善的 | |
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27 cynically | |
adv.爱嘲笑地,冷笑地 | |
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28 flamboyant | |
adj.火焰般的,华丽的,炫耀的 | |
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29 rendezvous | |
n.约会,约会地点,汇合点;vi.汇合,集合;vt.使汇合,使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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30 uncommon | |
adj.罕见的,非凡的,不平常的 | |
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31 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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32 aloof | |
adj.远离的;冷淡的,漠不关心的 | |
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33 haughty | |
adj.傲慢的,高傲的 | |
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34 royalty | |
n.皇家,皇族 | |
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35 voluptuous | |
adj.肉欲的,骄奢淫逸的 | |
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36 subjugating | |
v.征服,降伏( subjugate的现在分词 ) | |
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37 sobriquet | |
n.绰号 | |
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38 ornithological | |
adj.鸟类学的 | |
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39 complexion | |
n.肤色;情况,局面;气质,性格 | |
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40 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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41 eulogistic | |
adj.颂扬的,颂词的 | |
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42 brutally | |
adv.残忍地,野蛮地,冷酷无情地 | |
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43 participation | |
n.参与,参加,分享 | |
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44 memorable | |
adj.值得回忆的,难忘的,特别的,显著的 | |
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45 incumbency | |
n.职责,义务 | |
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46 investigator | |
n.研究者,调查者,审查者 | |
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47 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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48 aristocrat | |
n.贵族,有贵族气派的人,上层人物 | |
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49 anonymity | |
n.the condition of being anonymous | |
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50 capabilities | |
n.能力( capability的名词复数 );可能;容量;[复数]潜在能力 | |
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51 psychology | |
n.心理,心理学,心理状态 | |
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52 intonation | |
n.语调,声调;发声 | |
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53 dilettante | |
n.半瓶醋,业余爱好者 | |
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54 casually | |
adv.漠不关心地,无动于衷地,不负责任地 | |
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55 snob | |
n.势利小人,自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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56 aloofness | |
超然态度 | |
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57 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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58 sardonic | |
adj.嘲笑的,冷笑的,讥讽的 | |
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59 asceticism | |
n.禁欲主义 | |
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60 mundane | |
adj.平凡的;尘世的;宇宙的 | |
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61 impersonal | |
adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
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62 debonairly | |
adj.(通常指男人)愉快而自信的 | |
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63 futility | |
n.无用 | |
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64 avid | |
adj.热心的;贪婪的;渴望的;劲头十足的 | |
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65 inquisitiveness | |
好奇,求知欲 | |
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66 actively | |
adv.积极地,勤奋地 | |
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67 investigations | |
(正式的)调查( investigation的名词复数 ); 侦查; 科学研究; 学术研究 | |
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68 stipulated | |
vt.& vi.规定;约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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69 restrictions | |
约束( restriction的名词复数 ); 管制; 制约因素; 带限制性的条件(或规则) | |
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70 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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71 predecessor | |
n.前辈,前任 | |
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72 offenders | |
n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 );犯规者;罪犯;妨害…的人(或事物) | |
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73 prosecution | |
n.起诉,告发,检举,执行,经营 | |
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74 prohibition | |
n.禁止;禁令,禁律 | |
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75 undesirable | |
adj.不受欢迎的,不良的,不合意的,讨厌的;n.不受欢迎的人,不良分子 | |
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76 appalling | |
adj.骇人听闻的,令人震惊的,可怕的 | |
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77 monetary | |
adj.货币的,钱的;通货的;金融的;财政的 | |
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78 inception | |
n.开端,开始,取得学位 | |
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79 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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80 pigeonhole | |
n.鸽舍出入口;v.把...归类 | |
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