Endnotes1“The Greene Murder Case” (Scribners, 1928).↩︎2Mr. Joseph A. Margolies of Brentano’s told me that for a period of several weeks during the Bishop murder case more copies of “Mother Goose Melodies” were sold than of any current novel. And one of the smaller publishing houses reprinted and completely sold out an entire edition of those famous old nursery rhymes.↩︎3The book Vance referred to was that excellent and comprehensive treatise, “Archery,” by Robert P. Elmer, M.D.↩︎4“The Benson Murder Case” (Scribners, 1926).↩︎5“The ‘Canary’ Murder Case” (Scribners, 1927).↩︎6Though Laplace is best known for his “Méchanique Céleste,” Vance was here referring to his masterly work, “Théorie Analytique des Probabilités,” which Herschel called “the ne plus ultra of mathematical skill and power.”↩︎7Heath was referring to Doctor Emanuel Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner of New York.↩︎8The book referred to by Professor Dillard was the great work which appeared two years later, “The Atomic Structure of Radiant Energy,” a mathematical emendation of Planck’s quantum theory refuting the classical axiom of the continuity of all physical processes, as contained in Maximus Tyrius’ Οὐδὲ ἐνταῦθα ἡ φύσις μεταπηδᾷ ἀθρόως.↩︎9The American chess master—sometimes confused with Doctor Emanuel Lasker, the former world champion.↩︎10Mae Brenner will still be remembered by Continental music lovers. Her début was made at the unprecedented age of twenty-three asSulamithin “Die Königin von Saba” at the Imperial Opera House in Vienna; although her greatest success was perhaps herDesdemonain “Otello”—the last rôle she sang before her retirement.↩︎11The name was, of course, originally spelled Drucker. The change—possibly some vague attempt at Americanization—was made by Mrs. Drukker when she settled in this country.↩︎12He gave me very much the same impression as did General Homer Lee when I visited him at Santa Monica shortly before his death.↩︎13Saturday was a “half day” at the District Attorney’s office. Swacker was Markham’s secretary.↩︎14The old anonymous nursery rhyme, “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin,” is not, as is commonly supposed, one of the original “Mother Goose Melodies,” although it has often been included in modern editions of that famous work.↩︎15Inspector William M. Moran, who died two years ago, was, at the time of the Bishop case, the Commanding Officer of the Detective Bureau.↩︎16This expression was actually developed by Christoffel for a problem on the conductivity of heat, and published by him in 1869 in the “Crelle Journal für reine und angewandte Mathematik.”↩︎17A similar state of panic obtained in London in 1888 when Jack-the-Ripper was engaged in his grisly, abnormal debauch; and again in Hanover in 1923 when Haarmann, the werwolf, was busy with his anthropophagous slaughters. But I can recall no other modern parallel for the atmosphere of gruesome horror that settled over New York during the Bishop murders.↩︎18Chief Inspector O’Brien was then in command of the entire Police Department.↩︎19Captain Hagedorn was the fire-arms expert of the New York Police Department. It was he who, in the Benson murder case, gave Vance the data with which to establish the height of the murderer; and who made the examination of the three bullets fired from the old Smith & Wesson revolver in the Greene murder case.↩︎20Akiba Rubinstein was then, and is to-day, the chess champion of Poland and one of the great international masters of the game. He was born in Stavisk, near Lodz, in 1882, and made his début in international chess at the Ostend tournament in 1906. His recent visit to America resulted in a series of new triumphs.↩︎21Since this discussion took place Professor Pickering has posited from the perturbations of Uranus, two other outer planets beyond Neptune:PandS.↩︎22Colonel Benjamin Hanlon, commanding officer of the Detective Division attached to the District Attorney’s office.↩︎23“Louise” was Vance’s favorite modern opera, but he greatly preferred Mary Garden to Farrar in the title rôle.↩︎24It may be recalled that theWorld’saccounts of the Bishop case were the envy of the other metropolitan newspapers. Sergeant Heath, though impartial in his statements of facts to the press, nevertheless managed to save several picturesquebonnes-bouchesfor Quinan, and permitted himself certain speculations which, while having no news value, gave theWorld’sstories an added interest and color.↩︎25Guilfoyle, it may be remembered, was one of the detectives who shadowed Tony Skeel in the Canary murder case.↩︎26Hennessey had kept watch with Doctor Drumm over the Greene mansion from the Narcoss Flats, in the Greene murder case. Snitkin also had taken part in the Greene investigation, and had played a minor rôle in both the Benson and the Canary case. The dapper Emery was the detective who had unearthed the cigarette stubs from beneath the fire-logs in Alvin Benson’s living-room.↩︎27An important step toward the solution of these complex problems was taken a few years later by the de Broglie-Schrödinger theory as laid down in de Broglie’s “Ondes et Mouvements” and Schrödinger’s “Abhandlungen zur Wellenmechanik.”↩︎28For the benefit of the expert chess-player who may be academically interested I append the exact position of the game when Pardee resigned:—WHITE: King at QKtsq; Rook at QB8; Pawns at QR2 and Q2. BLACK: King at Q5; Knight at QKt5; Bishop at QR6; Pawns at QKt7 and QB7.↩︎29The final five unplayed moves for Black to mate, as I later obtained them from Vance, were:—45.RxP; KtxR.46.KxKt; P—Kt8 (Queen).47.KxQ; K—Q6.48.K—Rsq; K—B7.49.P—Q3; B—Kt7 mate.↩︎30I am obviously unable to set down Vance’s exact words, despite the completeness of my notes; but I sent him a proof of the following passages with a request that he revise and edit them; so that, as they now stand, they represent an accurate paraphrase of his analysis of the psychological factors of the Bishop murders.↩︎31Vance was here using the English connotation of “trillion,” which is the third power of a million, as opposed to the American and French system of numeration which regards a trillion as a mere million millions.↩︎32Lumen was invented by the French astronomer to prove the possibility of the reversal of time. With a speed of 250,000 miles per second, he was conceived as soaring into space at the end of the battle of Waterloo, and catching up all the light-rays that had left the battlefield. He attained a gradually increasing lead, until at the end of two days he was witnessing, not the end, but the beginning of the battle; and in the meantime he had been viewing events in reverse order. He had seen projectiles leaving the objects they had penetrated and returning to the cannon; dead men coming to life and arranging themselves in battle formation. Another hypothetical adventure of Lumen was jumping to the moon, turning about instantaneously, and seeing himself leaping from the moon to the earth backwards.↩︎33Vance requested me to mention here A. d’Abro’s recent scholarly work, “The Evolution of Scientific Thought,” in which there is an excellent discussion of the paradoxes associated with space-time.↩︎34Vance’s M. A. thesis, I recall, dealt with Schopenhauer’s “Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde.”↩︎35I do not know whether Vance was here referring to “Mars and Its Canals” or “Mars as the Abode of Life.”↩︎36Pardee left in his will a large sum for the furtherance of chess; and in the autumn of that same year, it will be remembered, the Pardee Memorial Tournament was held at Cambridge Springs.↩︎37Of the Wagnerian operas this was Vance’s favorite. He always asserted that it was the only opera that had the structural form of a symphony; and more than once he expressed the regret that it had not been written as an orchestral piece instead of as a conveyance for an absurd drama.↩︎38Vance’s set was the William Archer copyright edition, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.↩︎39I admit that the name of Rhazis was unfamiliar to me; and when I looked it up later I found that the episode to which Vance referred does not appear in the Anglican Bible, but in the second book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha.↩︎40“One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. The death which takes place in the most contemptible circumstances, the death that is not free, the death which occurs at the wrong time, is the death of a coward. We have not the power to prevent ourselves from being born; but this error—for sometimes it is an error—can be rectified if we choose. The man who does away with himself, performs the most estimable of deeds; he almost deserves to live for having done so.”↩︎41It was discovered later that the large weighted gold handle, which was nearly eight inches long, was loose and could be easily removed from the stick. The handle weighed nearly two pounds and, as Vance had observed, constituted a highly efficient “black jack.” Whether or not it had been loosened for the purpose to which it was put, is of course wholly a matter of conjecture.↩︎
1“The Greene Murder Case” (Scribners, 1928).↩︎
2Mr. Joseph A. Margolies of Brentano’s told me that for a period of several weeks during the Bishop murder case more copies of “Mother Goose Melodies” were sold than of any current novel. And one of the smaller publishing houses reprinted and completely sold out an entire edition of those famous old nursery rhymes.↩︎
3The book Vance referred to was that excellent and comprehensive treatise, “Archery,” by Robert P. Elmer, M.D.↩︎
4“The Benson Murder Case” (Scribners, 1926).↩︎
5“The ‘Canary’ Murder Case” (Scribners, 1927).↩︎
6Though Laplace is best known for his “Méchanique Céleste,” Vance was here referring to his masterly work, “Théorie Analytique des Probabilités,” which Herschel called “the ne plus ultra of mathematical skill and power.”↩︎
7Heath was referring to Doctor Emanuel Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner of New York.↩︎
8The book referred to by Professor Dillard was the great work which appeared two years later, “The Atomic Structure of Radiant Energy,” a mathematical emendation of Planck’s quantum theory refuting the classical axiom of the continuity of all physical processes, as contained in Maximus Tyrius’ Οὐδὲ ἐνταῦθα ἡ φύσις μεταπηδᾷ ἀθρόως.↩︎
9The American chess master—sometimes confused with Doctor Emanuel Lasker, the former world champion.↩︎
10Mae Brenner will still be remembered by Continental music lovers. Her début was made at the unprecedented age of twenty-three asSulamithin “Die Königin von Saba” at the Imperial Opera House in Vienna; although her greatest success was perhaps herDesdemonain “Otello”—the last rôle she sang before her retirement.↩︎
11The name was, of course, originally spelled Drucker. The change—possibly some vague attempt at Americanization—was made by Mrs. Drukker when she settled in this country.↩︎
12He gave me very much the same impression as did General Homer Lee when I visited him at Santa Monica shortly before his death.↩︎
13Saturday was a “half day” at the District Attorney’s office. Swacker was Markham’s secretary.↩︎
14The old anonymous nursery rhyme, “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin,” is not, as is commonly supposed, one of the original “Mother Goose Melodies,” although it has often been included in modern editions of that famous work.↩︎
15Inspector William M. Moran, who died two years ago, was, at the time of the Bishop case, the Commanding Officer of the Detective Bureau.↩︎
16This expression was actually developed by Christoffel for a problem on the conductivity of heat, and published by him in 1869 in the “Crelle Journal für reine und angewandte Mathematik.”↩︎
17A similar state of panic obtained in London in 1888 when Jack-the-Ripper was engaged in his grisly, abnormal debauch; and again in Hanover in 1923 when Haarmann, the werwolf, was busy with his anthropophagous slaughters. But I can recall no other modern parallel for the atmosphere of gruesome horror that settled over New York during the Bishop murders.↩︎
18Chief Inspector O’Brien was then in command of the entire Police Department.↩︎
19Captain Hagedorn was the fire-arms expert of the New York Police Department. It was he who, in the Benson murder case, gave Vance the data with which to establish the height of the murderer; and who made the examination of the three bullets fired from the old Smith & Wesson revolver in the Greene murder case.↩︎
20Akiba Rubinstein was then, and is to-day, the chess champion of Poland and one of the great international masters of the game. He was born in Stavisk, near Lodz, in 1882, and made his début in international chess at the Ostend tournament in 1906. His recent visit to America resulted in a series of new triumphs.↩︎
21Since this discussion took place Professor Pickering has posited from the perturbations of Uranus, two other outer planets beyond Neptune:PandS.↩︎
22Colonel Benjamin Hanlon, commanding officer of the Detective Division attached to the District Attorney’s office.↩︎
23“Louise” was Vance’s favorite modern opera, but he greatly preferred Mary Garden to Farrar in the title rôle.↩︎
24It may be recalled that theWorld’saccounts of the Bishop case were the envy of the other metropolitan newspapers. Sergeant Heath, though impartial in his statements of facts to the press, nevertheless managed to save several picturesquebonnes-bouchesfor Quinan, and permitted himself certain speculations which, while having no news value, gave theWorld’sstories an added interest and color.↩︎
25Guilfoyle, it may be remembered, was one of the detectives who shadowed Tony Skeel in the Canary murder case.↩︎
26Hennessey had kept watch with Doctor Drumm over the Greene mansion from the Narcoss Flats, in the Greene murder case. Snitkin also had taken part in the Greene investigation, and had played a minor rôle in both the Benson and the Canary case. The dapper Emery was the detective who had unearthed the cigarette stubs from beneath the fire-logs in Alvin Benson’s living-room.↩︎
27An important step toward the solution of these complex problems was taken a few years later by the de Broglie-Schrödinger theory as laid down in de Broglie’s “Ondes et Mouvements” and Schrödinger’s “Abhandlungen zur Wellenmechanik.”↩︎
28For the benefit of the expert chess-player who may be academically interested I append the exact position of the game when Pardee resigned:—WHITE: King at QKtsq; Rook at QB8; Pawns at QR2 and Q2. BLACK: King at Q5; Knight at QKt5; Bishop at QR6; Pawns at QKt7 and QB7.↩︎
29The final five unplayed moves for Black to mate, as I later obtained them from Vance, were:—45.RxP; KtxR.46.KxKt; P—Kt8 (Queen).47.KxQ; K—Q6.48.K—Rsq; K—B7.49.P—Q3; B—Kt7 mate.↩︎
30I am obviously unable to set down Vance’s exact words, despite the completeness of my notes; but I sent him a proof of the following passages with a request that he revise and edit them; so that, as they now stand, they represent an accurate paraphrase of his analysis of the psychological factors of the Bishop murders.↩︎
31Vance was here using the English connotation of “trillion,” which is the third power of a million, as opposed to the American and French system of numeration which regards a trillion as a mere million millions.↩︎
32Lumen was invented by the French astronomer to prove the possibility of the reversal of time. With a speed of 250,000 miles per second, he was conceived as soaring into space at the end of the battle of Waterloo, and catching up all the light-rays that had left the battlefield. He attained a gradually increasing lead, until at the end of two days he was witnessing, not the end, but the beginning of the battle; and in the meantime he had been viewing events in reverse order. He had seen projectiles leaving the objects they had penetrated and returning to the cannon; dead men coming to life and arranging themselves in battle formation. Another hypothetical adventure of Lumen was jumping to the moon, turning about instantaneously, and seeing himself leaping from the moon to the earth backwards.↩︎
33Vance requested me to mention here A. d’Abro’s recent scholarly work, “The Evolution of Scientific Thought,” in which there is an excellent discussion of the paradoxes associated with space-time.↩︎
34Vance’s M. A. thesis, I recall, dealt with Schopenhauer’s “Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde.”↩︎
35I do not know whether Vance was here referring to “Mars and Its Canals” or “Mars as the Abode of Life.”↩︎
36Pardee left in his will a large sum for the furtherance of chess; and in the autumn of that same year, it will be remembered, the Pardee Memorial Tournament was held at Cambridge Springs.↩︎
37Of the Wagnerian operas this was Vance’s favorite. He always asserted that it was the only opera that had the structural form of a symphony; and more than once he expressed the regret that it had not been written as an orchestral piece instead of as a conveyance for an absurd drama.↩︎
38Vance’s set was the William Archer copyright edition, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.↩︎
39I admit that the name of Rhazis was unfamiliar to me; and when I looked it up later I found that the episode to which Vance referred does not appear in the Anglican Bible, but in the second book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha.↩︎
40“One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. The death which takes place in the most contemptible circumstances, the death that is not free, the death which occurs at the wrong time, is the death of a coward. We have not the power to prevent ourselves from being born; but this error—for sometimes it is an error—can be rectified if we choose. The man who does away with himself, performs the most estimable of deeds; he almost deserves to live for having done so.”↩︎
41It was discovered later that the large weighted gold handle, which was nearly eight inches long, was loose and could be easily removed from the stick. The handle weighed nearly two pounds and, as Vance had observed, constituted a highly efficient “black jack.” Whether or not it had been loosened for the purpose to which it was put, is of course wholly a matter of conjecture.↩︎